An Emmerdale fan has opened up about how her mum fell victim to a devastating scam.
In 2023, Kirsty’s mum was contacted by someone she thought was Tony Audenshaw, who plays Bob Hope in the ITV soap. Initially, Kirsty realised her mum’s behaviour was changing and didn’t quite know why, but she then paid her a visit and discovered the extent of the con.
She arrived at her mum’s house and found suitcases in the hallway. In that moment, the lady explained that she had ‘fallen in love with somebody’, who was ‘on Emmerdale’.
Kirsty was suspicious. It later transpired that the fraudster had tricked her mother into buying almost £20,000 worth of gift cards.
Speaking on ITV’s Tonight programme, Kirsty explained: ‘It was 100 to 200 pounds at the time. By December, it was 300 pounds a day. I asked, “how much have you sent?”. She said, “I think about 15,000 pounds. I just gave her a big hug and said, “it’s not true, you’ve been scammed“.’
Kirsty was able to get some of her mum’s cash back but less than a year on, the same situation happened only this time, it involved Jeff Hordley.
She said: ‘I noticed that she’d spent about 2000 pounds in a three day period. I phoned her and the first thing she said was: “it’s not a scam, he sent me videos of himself this time”.’
That sadly wasn’t the case. The scammer had used AI to manipulate videos of Jeff, tricking Kirsty into thinking the media was real.
ITV’s Tonight looked into the profiles and on Facebook, 7 fake Tony Audenshaw accounts were discovered, and over 90 were found pretending to be Jeff.
Also in the episode, Emmerdale’s Lisa Riley opened up about the regular problem her fans face when it comes to falling victim to scammers.
The star, who plays Mandy Dingle in the show, confirmed that her image is regularly used for cons, but the problem is only getting worse.
Fraudsters often share an image of Lisa to sell fake diet pills online. It leaves fans believing she’s somehow affiliated with the brand, but it’s all a lie.
The star said: ‘They say you will lose 15 kg in 3 weeks, and the amount of people that have bought slimming aids with my face linked to it is off the scale.’
