Lorraine Kelly discusses increase in scams with Martin Lewis
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Money Saving Expert founder Martin Lewis has taken to social media to warn people that anyone can be the victim of fraudsters. The 49-year-old TV star was himself a target this week, fuming “don’t they know who I am,” in an online rant to raise awareness.
The financial journalist received a text message from scammers pretending to be from HSBC bank.
It urged the recipient to follow a link after warning that a new payee had been set up on their account.
Martin shared a screenshot of the scam on Twitter, in view of his 1.1 million followers.
“How dare they. Trying to #SCAM me! ME!” he fumed online.
“I don’t have an HSBC account and that’s not a link to HSBC anyway.
“DON’T THEY KNOW WHO I AM! (clearly not),” his tweet continued.
Many took to the comments section of the post to share their thoughts on the matter.
“Haven’t you always made the point that anyone can be a victim of these scams, regardless of their intelligence, yet you’re saying ‘not me’,” one follower wrote.
Returning to the microblogging site, Martin replied “I have & do. Scams are sophisticated.
“While the vulnerable & stressed are more at risk, anyone can be hit.”
He went on to point out that his message was written in jest and to raise awareness of the fact that anyone can be targeted.
“I’m sure people realise, after campaigning on this for yrs, my tweet was a bit of fun, to subtly raise awareness (its had far more response than my straight warnings),”(sic) he added.
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In the comments section, some of Martin’s followers warned of other scams that had been circulated.
“My sister had a phone call off HMRC saying there was a warrant for her arrest for writing fraudulent checks last week,”(sic) one social media user said.
“My Mum is inundated with scam BT calls to her landline, I have advised her. But worry she will cave in …..,” another worried person added.
“A third chipped in: “Well I’ve had Royal Mail, Hermes, NatWest the list goes on! I’m also having crime detection numbers phone me up. It’s repetitive now!
“These texts even calls are clearly making money for the scam artists.”(sic)
The founder of Money Saving Expert is always doing his bit to warn the general public of the latest scams that are circulating.
Last week he offered advice to ITV viewers after Lorraine Kelly revealed on her programme that she had received a scam text during the pandemic.
“I got a text pretending to be Royal Mail saying that I owed money on a letter,” she said.
He advised people to find the number yourself and call it from another phone after an hour or two, to check if it was a legitimate call.
Martin also said that Citizens Advice Scam Action was on hand to help people who think they may have been scammed.
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