Emmerdale’s Lisa Riley has spoken out about a “devastating” scam with a succinct three-word warning. It’s recently come to light that fans of Emmerdale and Coronation Street are falling prey to scams involving counterfeit celebrity accounts. In an ITV Tonight special, Celebrity Scams: Are You At Risk?, Good Morning Britain’s Alex Beresford delves into how fraudsters are exploiting social media to trick unsuspecting soap fans. Lisa, who portrays Mandy Dingle in Emmerdale, disclosed that her image has been misused by scammers peddling bogus diet pills online, cautioning fans that “it’s not real.” She revealed, “They say you will lose 15kg in 3 weeks, and the amount of people that have bought slimming aids with my face linked to it is off the scale.” The actress further explained how these fraudsters operate, saying: “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.”, reports Leeds Live.
Lisa portrays Mandy Dingle in Emmerdale
(Image: ITV)
Coronation Street’s Dan Brocklebank, known for his role as Billy Mayhew, chimed in: “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.” Shockingly, it’s estimated that eight million scam videos are circulated annually, yet only 1 in 10 adults in Britain feel confident in distinguishing between genuine and fraudulent videos. An upcoming ITV Tonight episode, airing on Thursday (March 13) at 8.30pm, features a harrowing tale from a woman given the pseudonym Kirsty, whose mother was ensnared by a cunning romance scam.
Daniel Brocklebank plays Billy Mayhew in Coronation Street
(Image: IT)
In a tragic turn of events for 2023, Kirsty’s mum believed she was communicating with Tony Audenshaw, known to many as Bob Hope from Emmerdale. “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 soulmate, I know him really well’,” recounted Kirsty. Dismayingly, her mother was swindled out of almost £20,000 through gift cards, although, thanks to Kirsty’s intervention, they reclaimed a portion of it. However, the ordeal didn’t end there – another scam artist, this time impersonating Jeff Hordley aka Cain Dingle from Emmerdale, duped her mother using AI to forge a convincing video of Jeff speaking personalised messages. Kirsty’s disturbing experience prompted the ITV Tonight team to probe the extent of these fraudulent activities and their investigation unearthed an alarming number of sham profiles: seven masquerading as Tony Audenshaw and over ninety fakes claiming to be Jeff Hordley, festering across Facebook. Celebrity Scams: Are You At Risk? airs on ITV1 and ITVX at 8.30pm on Thursday, March 13
