In an angry video posted on YouTube, Lewis called the fraudster liars and slammed the “scam firms, misleading firms or name-alike firms” that used his image or implied recommendation to sell and scam.
A journalist by training, Lewis is founder and chair of MoneySavingExpert.com, the UK’s biggest consumer website that focuses on “finding deals, saving cash and campaigning for financial justice”.
“I never do Facebook adverts. If you see them, they are not true. If I ever did allow my name to be given to something it would usually be a charity and I would always insist that there was a link back to an article on MoneySavingExpert.com that explained it.
“If you don’t see that, don’t trust it, it isn’t true,” he said.
Binary trading
Lewis provided examples of recent scams, one involving a cloud trading scheme pretending that he had invested £0.5m ($0.66m, €0.55m) into it.
“It is a con, it is a scam. It is about binary trading, it is a brilliant way to lose money, do not touch it, do not sniff it, do not smell it, do not go near it. It has nothing to do with me,” Lewis warned.
He added that other sites are using his picture but don’t mention his name to imply his approval or recommendation.
“Anyone who knocks on your door saying they represent me or this site is a liar, anyone who calls you up trying to sell you something saying they represent me or this site is a liar. Any adverts on Facebook with my picture on saying that I recommend it, is almost certainly, a liar,” he said.
Fraud warnings on the rise
Lewis’s video follows a warning from The Pensions Regulator (TPR) that rogue pension websites are carrying anti-scam messages to try to trick UK consumers into believing they are legitimate businesses.
The UK Government revived and extended plans for a ban on cold calling in August when it announced a raft of measures to tackle pension scams.
Cold calling is the most common method of initiating pension fraud, with 97% of cases brought to Citizens Advice in 2013 stemming from cold calls.
