Martin Henderson has shared a Herald article about a romance scam with his 1.2 million followers on Instagram. Photo / Matt Klitscher. NZ Herald montage, Paul Slater
Martin Henderson has shared a Herald article about a romance scam with his 1.2 million followers on Instagram. Photo / Matt Klitscher. NZ Herald montage, Paul Slater
Kiwi actor Martin Henderson has warned fans he only has one social media account.
Romance scammers have set up dozens of profiles to fleece Henderson’s fans of hundreds of thousands of dollars in multiple scams.
Imposters pretending to be Henderson say they need money for flights, hospital treatments and legal fees.
Kiwi actor Martin Henderson has sent another heartfelt plea to his 1.2 million followers on Instagram, urging them to ignore anyone claiming to be him on other accounts.
Henderson’s post linked to a recent Heraldarticle about “Lea”, a woman who was scammed out of $375,000in a romance scam with someone pretending to be the Virgin River star.
In the post, Henderson stressed to fans he was physically well and not in any financial need.
“There are a lot of people out there pretending to be me and trying to get people to believe I am in need, that I need financial help or medical help, and that they’re essentially fleecing people out of a lot of money,” he said.
“I am linking an article here from the NZ Herald about something that has been going on for the last couple of years.”
Henderson said “a whole bunch of other victims have since come forward who have fallen prey to similar scams”.
“I can’t tell people enough. I do not communicate with my followers, this is my only account. I promise you I do not have another account.”
“Lea”, an American, moved to New Zealand in December, believing she was going to marry and start a family with Henderson.
When she arrived in New Zealand, she was sent a Herald article about Henderson’s attendance at a cycling rally in Matakana.
“I thought ‘what is Martin doing in New Zealand in Matakana on a bike rally when he told me he was lying in a hospital bed in Johannesburg after a mild heart attack’,” she said.
Since then, six other victims have contacted the Herald, saying they too thought they were in a relationship with Henderson and had lost thousands of dollars.
The women said the scammers are relentless.
Even when the romance scam was foiled, the scammers persevered with other scams and contacted the women saying they were private investigators keen to help recover money lost.
Henderson told the Herald he had done everything he could to shut down fake profiles and warn people never to engage with anyone claiming to be him on social media.
Examples of messages sent to one woman who lost $160,000 in a romance scam using Martin Henderson's name.
“Apart from my one official Instagram page, I do not go on social media, I do not have a Telegram account and I don’t message people who follow me,” he said.
“For a while there it was like a fulltime job trying to reply to people telling them it was a scam.”
A quick search of social media shows dozens of fake Martin Henderson profiles. Fan page chat rooms show similar results with “Martin Henderson” telling fans he loves them and would like to chat privately.
The former Shortland Street star said he felt he had a responsibility to inform people the lengths scammers would go to.
“I have spent hours going through messages with people who say they have been scammed or wondering if something was true,” he said.
Martin Henderson (right) was in New Zealand recently filming the next season of My Life is Murder, which he stars in with Lucy Lawless.
And Henderson is not alone.
A recent Brad Pitt romance scam saw a French woman lose $1.5 million believing she was in a relationship with the Hollywood actor.
There are reported scams including Johnny Depp and George Clooney and closer to home, there have been fake celebrity endorsements and cryptocurrency scams using deepfakes.
Henderson wanted to fans to protect themselves against further scams which he believed would get more sophisticated with improvements to AI (artificial intelligence) and deepfakes.
“I’m worried there will be deepfakes of me sending personal messages with my voice,” he said.
“They just take a snippet from TV with my voice and throw it into a software programme and create whatever narrative they want.”
“It’s not a nice feeling to know someone has used your face and image and goodwill with fans and manipulated that relationship for something so sinister.”
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