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Lisa Wilkinson reveals legal battle she's been involved in for years

Lisa Wilkinson revealed she's been in a legal battle for decades as she's trying to take down online scammers.

She discussed it during Monday night's episode of The Project, with online scams doubling in 2020.

One scam uses fake celebrity endorsements on Google and Facebook that was "fleecing people out of huge sums of money", according to host Waleed Aly.

The global scam involving cryptocurrency uses the faces of Aussie celebrities including Chris Hemsworth, Dick Smith and even Waleed Aly and Lisa Wilkinson.

“At the moment we get one call an hour from people who have fallen for investment frauds that involve celebrity endorsements. They’re increasingly popular because there’s the power of being attracted to people seen as trustful and successful,” said Professor David Lacey.

“When a user clicks on a scam ad, they’re taken to a fake news story about an earning big money with a link to “bit coin evolution”, “orbit coin revolution” or “trader”.

Waleed revealed he gets emails from people asking whether or not he's involved in a scam.

Co-host Steve Price asked him if he takes being involved in the scam personally.

“Yes. Because I’m now connected to this awful situation for these people irrevocably. It’s got nothing to do with me but it feels like it’s got everything to do with me,” Waleed said.

It was here Lisa revealed her efforts to tackle the scams.

“Instagram and Facebook are the worst offenders,” she began. “I’ve had lawyers on this for more than a decade, begging them to take it down, knowing the effect it was having on people.

“If you ever see an ad that’s got my face attached to it and usually it’s some sort of moisturiser and they ask for your credit card, all they’re doing is they just want that number and [they] take a small amount and then they’ll be regularly taking amounts.

“Please don’t do it. If you know anybody who thinks they’re getting a moisturiser that’s got my name attached to it, you don’t. It’s awful.”

Tags:
lisa wilkinson, the project, waleed aly, scammers