Zoe Ball issues plea to fans after son Woody makes surprising discovery

BBC Radio 2 presenter Zoe Ball has warned her followers not to be duped by a scam she's been linked to. Discussing the evolving world of artificial intelligence (AI), Zoe and Jo Whiley expressed shock over how clever scammers had become with creating fraudulent audio, videos, and images.

Having fallen victim to a scam phone call herself, Jo confessed she felt "really betrayed" by someone attempting to "rip her off" and steal her cash. "It's getting more harder and devious with AI coming along," she revealed.

Zoe went on to say her son Woody had come across a scam advert that was using her face without permission. Speaking on their Dig It podcast, she revealed: "I had this thing where they were using my face on some weird advert and it looked like a headline, like 'Zoe Ball has shocked and appalled herself', you know, 'Shocking behaviour'... again.

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"I think one of them was quite funny because I remember Woody sending it to me and it looked like I was attacking someone, and they'd stuck my face on someone else's body.

"And he was like, 'Mum what have you done now?!' But anyway, you'd click on the story and it was me saying, 'I'd change my life by investing in some scam'. And it was encouraging people to invest."

The mother-of-two said after numerous others discovered the scam, they contacted her on social media to ask if it was genuine.

She continued: "I was like please... and I'll say this now, I will never ever do adverts asking people to invest any money in anything, so please if you ever see anything with my face on it, it's a scam and don't fall for it."

Zoe proceeded to emphasise that she wasn't the only celebrity to have her image exploited in a fraudulent advert, adding: "It's really scary."

Stars including Ruth Langsford, Holly Willoughby and Martin Lewis are also among the many well-known personalities whose faces have been used without consent.

Back in 2019, a scam falsely claimed Ruth had abandoned her television career to flog diet pills.

The con became a subject of debate on Loose Women after Coleen Nolan's sister was duped, splashing out more than £100 on tablets that never turned up.

Clarifying matters on her official X account, Ruth declared: "I would like to make it clear that if you see my name associated with any kind of diet pill, it is without my permission.

"I've been made aware a company is using my name to sell diet pills, it's a scam. I'm not giving up my TV career to concentrate on selling diet pills."

Money expert Martin has also repeatedly warned his followers about fake adverts using his image, urging them not to click on the scams.