Fake Facebook Bitcoin Ads Making People Suicidal

Published 5 years ago on October 04, 2018

Fake Facebook Bitcoin Ads Making People Suicidal

The fake Facebook Bitcoin ads have scammed people out of thousands and have been destroying lives. The English millionaire - who made his money off consumer advice - Martin Lewis has begun to sue Facebook over these ads trading off his trusted reputation. He said he has been told stories of peopleâ€™s savings being completely wiped from their lives and leaving some feeling suicidal. Lewis wants Facebook to improve its process for dealing with ads which are scams and put things right for who have lost money from them as well as apologising to the victims. In April this year, Lewis started the lawsuit against Facebook claiming that the scammers have been using his trusted reputation in order to hook people into their scams. The Money Saving Expert is currently in talks with executives over at Facebook as they are discussing an out of court settlement. However, if it does end up going to court and Lewis wins the lawsuit he will be donating all the profits to charity. The fake ads that have come up on the social network have been preying on the gullible and have been wrecking people's lives and finances. Lewis had this to say on the matter:

"The impact on peoples mental health of losing their retirement funds, or losing their children's, children's money that they thought they were investing is catastrophic and life-destructive."

People have contacted Lewis saying that they have been feeling suicidal over the what has happened. Lewis continued to say:

"People who say, 'I've lost all my retirement funds, I don't know how to live, I don't know how to go on.' People crying their eyes out. From my perspective, these people say, 'I only did this because I trusted Martin Lewis.' You can see how I feel about it."

Lewis is worth over $160 million and is trying to get several things out of Facebook before he is prepared to settle including an apology and a â€˜manifest substantial changeâ€™ in the way the social network deals with fake adverts - especially those which use public figures such as Lewis to their advantage. Lewis has suggested Facebook hires a team to check all the ads that run on the platform in a similar way that the company has an obsessive eye for content moderation. "No ones says that a technology company can only have technological solutions. If you can't do it with technology, you know what you have to do, is you have to cut your profits and do it manually." What are your thoughts on this? Let us know what you think down in the comments below! References: Business Insider

Adrian Barkley

Adrian is an avid reader who first stumbled across Crypto after reading 'The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains' by Antony Lewis in 2018. Since then, Adrian has immersed himself within the industry, and has a real interest in Enterprise Blockchain solutions.