Fraudsters 'using Sir Rod Stewart's face to advertise scam' conned former British Army soldier out of £200,000 in yet another celebrity hoax horror
A former British soldier who started investing while his wife was gravely ill with cancer was tricked out of almost £200,000 by scammers using Sir Rod Stewart's face to advertise their fraudulent investment schemes.
The fraudsters used fake promotional adverts for cryptocurrency Bitcoin featuring celebrities including rockstar Sir Rod to lure victims in, The Telegraph reported.
Wayne Westhead, 65, an ex-Major with a 30-year career in the British Army behind him, was one of the people targeted by the scammers.
After his wife fell ill with breast cancer, Mr Westhead decided to step down from the Armed Forces to look after her - and so began looking for ways to bolster his Army pension.
He spotted an advert on Facebook about Bitcoin, in which Maggie May singer Sir Rod Stewart's face appeared, promising high returns with little to no risk attached.
Mr Westhead tried to call and learn more about the investment scheme but the line was engaged - however the greedy scammers soon called him back.
To entice him in, they told him initially that he didn't need to immediately put in a large lump sum, but after being told he had a £600 return on the first month's investment, he invested an additional £500.
The scammers pushed Mr Westhead to invest more and more into the scheme, snowballing over time, until he had eventually given them £152,000 of his own money.
Wayne Westhead, 65, an ex-Major with a 30-year career in the British Army, was one of the people targeted by the scammers
Rockstar Sir Rod Stewart's face was used in a fake endorsement by the scammers to sell fraudulent investment schemes
Mr Westhead in a formal black coat wearing his Army medals on Remembrance Day in 2020
He said: 'Over a period of time, I started investing lots, more than £100,000. My wife was, to be honest, not getting any better.'
The scammer also introduced Mr Westhead to ever-more complex schemes and financial instruments - including 'hedge-funding' - on the promise of greater returns.
Reassured by the apparent gains he had made on past investments, Mr Westhead agreed despite admitting he failed to understand the intricacies of the proposed investments.
The scammer promised Mr Westhead he could have 50 Bitcoin - at the time worth around $400,000, but worth $4.35 million according to the cryprocurrency's present-day price.
Mr Westhead's wife tragically passed away in July 2019 - at which point he was diagnosed with two forms of cancer himself.
Seeing he was grieving and seriously ill, the scammers piled on the pressure, pushing him to invest even more. It was at this point that Mr Westhead made his final payment of £20,000.
The fraudsters told him that the money he had invested had been lost and that in order to recoup his investment and reclaim his Bitcoin, he'd need to invest another £150,000.
It was at this stage, after doing a deep dive into the company he was investing with, that Mr Westhead realized he had been the victim of scammers.
Sir Rod Stewart pictured on the pink carpet next to wife Penny Lancaster
Scammers are increasingly targeting elderly internet users who may be less familiar with how AI and cryptocurrency work
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that is exchanged over the 'blockchain' - its price hikes have seen frenzied consumer investment, but it is a risky asset with no recompense if your account is hacked or the money is stolen
He says he does not believe that any of the money he put into the scheme was spent on Bitcoin - but was simply pocketed by the scammers into a ghost account.
Mr Westhead said: 'I was so disappointed in myself, for what I'd done, to my kids and everything else. I still had a mortgage on my house, which I had to clear.
'This went on for about four years. They did not do this overnight, they took a lot of effort and time.'
The veteran still has an Army pension but was terrified he would have to return to the workplace despite his health battles.
Also as a lifelong Army man, he was seriously concerned that he would struggle to find employment outside the Armed Forces as a man of his age.
Incredibly Mr Westhead was able to get his money back after contracting a law firm on a no-win no-fee basis.
Lawyers at Wealth Recovery Solicitors successfully argued that Mr Westhead's building society, Nationwide, had taken insufficient steps to protest his financial interests.
New rules were introduced in October 2024 requiring banks and buildings societies to make customers whole if they fall victim to so-called Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud - in which the money is paid out by victims under pressure from scammers.
Mr Westhead was vulnerable to scammers since he was caring for his sick wife and found out that he himself had two types of cancer
While Mr Westhead had transferred his cash to scammers before the rules came into play, his lawyers focused on the negligence of Nationwide in not preventing the fraud, as well as the challenging life conditions that Mr Westhead was operating under when he fell prey to the scam.
In total he received his £152,000 investment back, plus £45,000 in interest that he would have received had he left the money in his savings account.
Mr Westhead said: 'I've learnt my lesson, and it will never happen to me again, that's for sure. I am a little bit embarrassed.'
But he added: 'I am more than happy for people to hear my story, and hopefully it will help them not to get involved.'
Sir Rod Stewart's representatives have been contacted for comment and the Mail Online wishes to stress that Sir Rod was completely unaware of his appearance in these fraudulent advertisements.
Such celebrity scams are booming in the UK as con artists posing as Tom Jones and Celine Dion duped pensioners in neighbouring villages last year into sending them thousands of pounds.
Elderly pensioners were targeted as part of the fake celebrity ruse, with one woman in her 90s from Milford on Sea handing over £13,000 to a conman pretending to be Welsh singer Tom Jones.
The fake singers duped residents in villages across Hampshire's New Forest after contacting them on Facebook, promising them a car or telling them they'd been robbed. In return, they were told to pay costs and taxes in the form of gift cards.
Elderly pensioners in Hampshire (pictured speaking to police) have been targeted as part of the fake celebrity ruse, with one woman in her 90s handing over £13,000 to a conman pretending to be Welsh singer Jones
One woman in her 90s from Milford on Sea handing over £13,000 to a conman pretending to be Welsh singer Tom Jones
A man in his 60s was told Celine Dion (pictured) had been robbed and persuaded him to pay £910 in money and gift cards
Meanwhile, a man in his 60s from nearby Lymington was tricked by a dummy Dion. He was told the Canadian singer had been robbed and persuaded him to pay £910 in money and gift cards.
In Colchester, Essex, a woman named Janet Smith was catfished by a man pretending to be Gary Barlow - who turned out to be a scammer attempting to take her money.
Janet genuinely believed she was talking to the Take That singer for about a week, after she added him as a friend on Facebook.
The fake Barlow bombarded her with compliments and messages and said he had 'split up' - which Janet took to mean from his wife.
When he started to ask for money after a few days, Janet, who works in a pizza restaurant, started to get suspicious and realised the man she was speaking to couldn't be the real Barlow.
He was eventually unmasked as a 24-year-old man from Nigeria. Janet said: 'It's so sad because he's been saying to me 'I love you'.
'I said "I am 62 - you're 24". I'm saddened because he is poor and he's got no money. For the last week, he's been constantly texting me, asking me where I am. He was texting me from 9am to 3am.'
More recently a woman, named only as Anne, was duped into handing over £700,000 to a scammer who used AI to pose as Brad Pitt.
One of the many badly generated images sent by the scammer to 'Anne' - apparently showing Brad Pitt in a hospital bed
The victim, who is known only as Anne, became the target of trolls after revealing she had been scammed by an AI version of Brad Pitt
The victim, who is known only as Anne, became the target of trolls after revealing she had been scammed by an AI version of Brad Pitt - and says she is now suffering 'severe depression ' and is homeless, penniless and living with a friend
The victim, who said she was going through a difficult period with her millionaire husband, told how she struck up an unlikely friendship with the account from February 2023, receiving poems and kind affirmations.
Soon the blossoming relationship took a turn as the fake Brad Pitt proposed to her and overwhelmed her with the promise of fancy gifts.
The only catch was that she would need to pay customs fees to receive them. This soon added up to 9,000 euros (£7,566).
With the victim already having shown willing to part her money, the scammer went on to make more and more absurd requests.
When the victim told her 'friend' she was expecting a hefty divorce settlement from her husband, the scammer upped the stakes and appealed for help in funding urgent kidney cancer treatment.
In total Anne parted with nearly one million euros over the course of the relationship until her suspicions were roused by seeing the actor with his new girlfriend, Ines de Ramon, in the press.
Anne now says she is suffering from 'severe depression', is homeless, penniless and living with a friend as she desperately tries to recover her money
Paris-based lawyer Laurène Hanna told how her client has been branded 'dumb', 'naïve' and 'stupid' – and been harassed so mercilessly online that she's deleted all her social media pages.
