Finance expert sues Facebook over fake ads using his name to sell scams
A LEADING consumer campaigner is suing Facebook for publishing adverts using his image to promote scams.
Martin Lewis accused the social network giant of allowing his name be used to ‘rip off vulnerable people’.
The founder of advice website MoneySavingExpert, said: ‘I feel sick each time I hear of another victim being conned because of trust they wrongly thought they were placing in me.’ He said Facebook’s failure highlights its ‘unending greed’.
It comes after Facebook was grilled by politicians for sharing personal details of almost 90million people with data firm Cambridge Analytica. Mr Lewis, 45, said: ‘They have known about these scam adverts for years, and they are still happy to roll around in their dirty money.’
Facebook is accused of publishing more than 50 fake Martin Lewis adverts in the past year.
The majority promoted schemes trading in virtual currency Bitcoin. But Mr Lewis said these were ‘fronts’ for binary trading firms based outside the EU. Binary trading is a highly risky form of gambling on stock market movement that sees most investors lose money.
Mr Lewis said he has repeatedly asked Facebook to remove the adverts but they are often left up for days or weeks.
When they are taken down, he said a ‘nearly identical’ advert appears shortly afterwards.
A Facebook spokesman said: ‘We do not allow adverts which are misleading or false on Facebook and have explained to Martin Lewis he should report any adverts that infringe his rights and they will be removed.’
The spokesman said the firm was promptly investigating Mr Lewis’s requests ‘and only last week confirmed several adverts and accounts that violated our advertising policies had been taken down’.
Last month, Dragons’ Den businessman Gavin Duffy told of his shock at his name and face being used in a fake advert that turned out to be an internet scam to get users to ‘invest’ in Bitcoin.
The ad didn’t appear on Facebook but was run on UK sites such as the BBC and the Guardian. It also featured the faces and identities of Duffy’s fellow Dragons Eleanor McEvoy and Eamonn Quinn.
‘Highlights its unending greed’