Martin Lewis issues severe warning after almost falling for 'obvious' scam that could happen to 'anyone'

Even Martin Lewis, the Money Saving Expert himself, isn't immune to the tactics scammers deploy in an attempt to hoodwink people and spin them a yarn.

He's the UK's most trusted voice on money matters, but he recently revealed on social media that he'd almost been caught out by one while his mind was elsewhere on a busy day.

Lewis explained he was in the studio in the time between two podcast recordings when he got a WhatsApp call from 'Amazon' and was asked if he'd ordered a new iPhone as they were concerned about fraud.

With his 'brain elsewhere', Lewis started talking to the man to say he hadn't, and was told he'd need to reply to a six digit code to cancel the order.

The Money Saving Expert said he felt 'rushed and pressured', almost falling for the ruse, before the alarm bells started ringing and he wondered why Amazon would risk sending such an expensive item 'if the customer says it wasn't ordered'.

Even Martin Lewis can get drawn in by scammers, as he said he almost got caught by one (Jeff Spicer/BAFTA/Getty Images for BAFTA)

It's at this point the bloke on the other end of the phone got a lot less friendly, and Lewis searched the number that was calling him with the results confirming his suspicions that he'd been contacted by a scammer.

"Clearly, had I replied with the code he'd sent he would have then asked for further details and that would've started the data mine," Lewis said as he shared the story on social media.

"Of course, by answering (not something I normally do to unknown numbers, but did by reflex) I did inadvertently confirm that my number is a real one, so I'll have to cope with that.

"The real lesson here is how sophisticated and plausible it was.

"And even though I'm obviously hyper-alert to scams as my face is in half of them, catch someone at the wrong time, when they're not paying attention, and anyone can be caught out!"

He said he almost fell for it as the scammers contacted him in a moment his mind was elsewhere, and it can happen to you too (David M. Benett/Alan Chapman/Dave Benett/Getty Images)

What Martin Lewis described there is some of the classic hallmarks of scammers when they're after your money and information.

Scammers can catch anyone out in a busy moment where the mind is elsewhere and there's little time to stop and think about why someone has got in touch out of the blue with such an urgent situation.

Some of the main tactics employed by scammers involve stoking your fear that something bad is going to happen, and then springing upon you a sense of urgency that you need to act right now or the situation will get worse.

It's an approach designed to get you to act before you stop and think what you're doing, meant to put pressure on you to do something without taking a moment to consider whether it's real.

Fortunately for Lewis he did what you should do in the same situation, which is take steps to verify whether who you're talking to is legit or if there's something fishy about all of this.