Money expert Martin Lewis has announced he is taking a break from work and social media this week and has issued an urgent plea before stepping away.

The host of The Martin Lewis Money Show Live on ITV1 and the founder of Money Saving Expert often takes a step back during half term weeks or school holidays to spend time with his wife, BBC presenter Lara Lewington and their daughter Sapphire.

But as he penned his parting message, Martin also included an urgent plea to his followers.

He explained that scams using his name or image are ‘rife’ at the moment, and called on his army of more than one million followers to report anything suspicious. As Martin has previously stressed, he doesn’t do ads.

Martin tweeted: “Ta ta for now. I’m taking a work and social media break for the rest of the week. Back next week for the Energy Price Cap announcement — and my shows return too.

“A small favour while I’m offline: please keep an eye out for scams using my name or image. “They’re rife at the moment and often ramp up when I’m not online. If you spot one, please report it to the platform.

It means that the episode of The Martin Lewis Money Show Live on ITV1 that would have been on tonight, Tuesday February 17, will not be broadcast and instead viewers will need to wait until next Tuesday, February 24, for their next fix of financial advice.

Back in 2024, Martin told his followers how the top 20 most popular celebrities for scam ads include singers like Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran as well as popular presenter Jeremy Clarkson and Hollywood stars like Johnny Depp or Keanu Reeves.

Talking on his The Martin Lewis Podcast at the time, Martin said: “Many people think of scams as a light term but we should think about it like organised crime. It’s organised crime to try and steal money off people using suspicious devious psychologically adept forms of marketing to try and grab people’s money.

“So don’t assume that these criminal scammers are just randomly pumping out ads. In fact it’s almost certain that they have their own in-house dark web digital marketing teams who research which celebrities and advert types get the best click-through rates and then hone in again once they’ve got that data on which of them are most likely to attract people who will then be vulnerable enough to give them money and will make the mistake of giving them money.”