ITV Tonight: Emmerdale and Coronation Street stars reveal the shocking ways fans are being conned out of thousands through deceptive scams
Emmerdale star Lisa Riley has exclusively told ITV’s Tonight that scammers using her image online has become a daily battle that’s only getting worse. Fraudsters are using pictures of Lisa to sell fake diet pills across the web, Lisa said: “They say you will lose 15 kg in 3 weeks, and the amount of people that have bought slimming aids with my face linked to it is off the scale.”
It’s not just fake pills that are being sold to unsuspecting fans, scammers are going after their money too, in some cases hundreds of thousands of pounds being lost leaving lives shattered. Coronation Street’s Dan Brocklebank said “It’s happened so many times, people set up what they call my personal account or my official account and start to message people, and they’re being conned out of thousands of pounds”.
People are being conned out of money using increasingly sophisticated AI technology, and it’s becoming harder to spot by the day. It’s estimated that eight million scam videos will be shared this year online but only 1 in 10 adults in Britain feel confident they’d be able to tell the difference between a fake and the real thing. In this episode of the Tonight programme – Celebrity Scams: Are You At Risk? ITV’s Alex Beresford sets out to investigate the rise of celebrity scams with some shocking findings.
Fake celebrity accounts are being used to lure unsuspecting fans into parting with their cash, and they have a particular target in their sights. Lisa Riley added “They start talking under a fake account commenting on the storyline telling someone you’re beautiful, you’re gorgeous. And I’ll step in and say he’s not real! And this is happening more and more, they’re hunting vulnerable women”
We met the daughter of one of these victims, we’re calling Kirsty, who wanted to remain anonymous because of how traumatic this has been for her family. Kirsty’s mum fell victim to two separate sophisticated romance scams impersonating Emmerdale actors.
In 2023 Kirsty’s mum was contacted by someone she thought was the Emmerdale actor Tony Audenshaw. After noticing a change in her mum Kirsty said “I drove round to her house and there were some suitcases in the hallway, she told me that she’d fallen in love with somebody, he’s on Emmerdale. I immediately got suspicious, she said he’s my soul mate, I know him really well.”
The scammer not only preyed upon her mum’s emotions, but her finances too, resulting in almost £20,000 in gift cards being drained from her mum’s savings. “It was 100 to 200 pounds at a time. By December, it was 300 pounds a day. I asked ‘how much have you sent?’ She said ‘I think about 15,000 pounds’. I just gave her a big hug and said ‘it’s not true, you’ve been scammed’.”
Fortunately Kirsty was able to get some of the money back her mum had lost to this cruel scammer, but less than a year later, sadly history repeated itself: “I noticed that she’d spent about 2000 pounds in a three day period. I phoned her and the first thing she said was: ‘it’s not a scam, he sent me videos of himself this time’.” This time, the scammer was posing as another Emmerdale actor, Jeff Hordley. The fraudsters had manipulated a video of Jeff using AI technology, tailoring his words towards Kirsty’s mum.
Kirsty said “Mum felt really humiliated, she’s grieving really, it’s the loss of not just money, it’s, it’s the loss of what she thought was a relationship as well.” Tonight looked into fake profiles online and on Facebook found 7 fake Tony Audenshaw accounts and shockingly more than 90 fake Jeff Hordley profiles.
Martin Lewis
Recent research revealed the celebrities most commonly used by fraudsters – topping the list is one of television’s most trusted faces, money saving expert Martin Lewis. It’s estimated that a staggering £20 million has been lost to scams that have exploited fake images and videos of Martin. Tonight met Martin to discuss the personal and professional impact this has had on him. He said: “My whole work and mission and everything that I try and do is to help consumers to improve their finances, and prevent financial injustice. To have that perverted and used by criminals to take advantage of my reputation is horrendous.”
AI Alex Beresford
Alex is no stranger to the subject of celebrity scams himself; he’s had his own identity stolen by scammers impersonating him on social media and dating apps, only finding out when he was contacted by those they were trying to con. To show just how easy it is to create a believable AI video, Tonight enlisted the help of cybersecurity expert Jake Moore. Using less than 30 seconds of footage, Jake was able to generate a totally fake version of Alex Beresford and manipulate him to say anything. To find out just how convincing this deep fake Alex was, Tonight tested it on those who know him best, his family. After generating a voice note and a video message, Alex sent the fakes to his family and worryingly many of them believed it was really him, even his Dad. Alex said of the clips: “It’s scary and makes me feel really uneasy.”
