Fact CheckedLast Updated on February 6, 2023 by Stephan Lindburg
Scammers are using the name and reputation of Holly Willoughby to promote get-rich-quick schemes. Bitcoin has created huge fortunes for early adopters and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. Now, every time the cryptocurrency has crashed, analysts believed that it would be for good, but it’s always bounced back to achieve record highs. We’re currently in the area of one of these record highs, and everyone is talking about Bitcoin. This includes online scammers, who ride on the coattails of the crypto asset’s popularity to defraud their victims.
Many different parts make up a Bitcoin scam, but one of the most important is the point of the first contact with the victim. Many victims find scams through ads on social media, search engines, or spam email. These ads sometimes feature fake celebrity endorsements, claiming that the celebrities in question have made millions trading Bitcoin through a scam CFD broker. Recently, these fake ads have taken the form of phony articles detailing fake interviews with Holly Willoughby of ITV’s This Morning.
Holly Willoughby Bitcoin: Cryptocurrency Con Artists Take Advantage of British Television Program’s Popularity
This Morning is a popular British program that airs on ITV. There are a variety of segments on beauty, home, and health. It’s been running since 1988 and today features Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield as the main hosts. The show averages about one million viewers each day, with special events peaking viewership up to 2.7 million. This massive audience is why scammers have used Holly Willoughby’s name and the name of the show to advertise their scams. When people see the fake article, supposedly from This Morning, they assume it’s something they can trust.
One fake news article on the UK Mirror features images from a real interview on This Morning. The two snapshots are of Willoughby and her interviewee, Akshay Ruparelia. The actual interview discussed his status as the UK’s youngest millionaire and how he got there with his online real estate agency. The fake article says that during the interview Willoughby and Ruparelia talked about his huge monthly earnings from trading Bitcoin on auto-pilot. The liars claim that the UK’s youngest millionaire makes 23 thousand pounds every month thanks to a certain system’s ability to trade cryptocurrency based on advanced algorithms.
Of course, the article featured in the fake advertisements is entirely fictional. The advertiser chose to refer to this specific celebrity for some reason, possibly to hinder any attempts to verify the story. Many people who don’t actually watch This Morning hear about their stories through online articles and wouldn’t think twice about the article’s authenticity. The scammers are fraudulently using Willoughby and ITV’s reputations to reach as many victims as possible. It’s also interesting to point out that similar formats are also used to promote supplements and weight loss pills. This type of misleading advertisement is not just restricted to cryptocurrencies!
There are some very active fake news campaigns that are being constantly promoted by scammers. We try to expose as many of them as possible, but due to the sheer volume of schemes that are being launched on a daily basis, in some cases we are simply not able to.
Online Scammers Try to Pass Off Derivative Assets as Cryptocurrencies
The affiliate networks behind fraudulent these types of advertisements obviously are not honest. Users that follow the fake ads end up at a broker’s website and are led to believe they have been offered a genuine opportunity to buy Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies. This isn’t actually what happens.
The brokers are selling CFD’s (contracts for difference). A derivative asset linked to the price of the cryptocurrencies. They are similar to futures trading on the stock market. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies use blockchain technology. They are decentralized, and every transaction is verified by thousands of nodes in the blockchain network. Bitcoin is a digital asset, but somebody who buys a Bitcoin actually owns it and can do with it as they please. The CFDs offered by the scam brokers aren’t a tangible asset, just an agreement held with a party that you can’t really trust.
Holly Willoughby Bitcoin Scam: Automated Trading Is Effective Bait For Unwitting Opportunity-Seekers
The promoters who are peddling these schemes don’t just say that the celebrities from their fake endorsements made money from Bitcoin. They specifically claim that they made money using their automated trading systems. The idea behind automated trading is simple. Computers do math a lot faster than people, and math can analyze and predict markets. With the right algorithm, a computer could make much better traders than a person. In the sales pitch, one can read that an algorithm promising massive compounding earnings and near-perfect trade decisions can be put to use. But these are all lies designed to attract uneducated investors.
Important facts are missing! There are no practical trading algorithms which compound your winnings, and there is no secret wealth loophole. Competent financial analysts would be able to quickly and easily verify the effectiveness of an algorithm like this. If they found one that could deliver the promised results, they would put all of their money into it.
A company that developed an algorithm like that would not need to take hundreds or thousands from people browsing social media using fake celebrity endorsements. These affiliate networks and rogue brokers are trying to take your money. Don’t let them do it and do not invest in Bitcoin derivative assets based on fake celebrity endorsements you see online. If you would like additional information in regards to celebrity-endorsed bitcoin scams, please reach out and message us through our contact page or social media.
