Paddy McGuinness is scammed out of £600 by someone posing as Derek Griffiths on Twitter

The Take Me Out host had excitedly tweeted about winning an auction on eBay for a dinner with the children's TV and Coronation Street legend, whose Twitter account @derekgriffiths was verified with a blue tick.

https://twitter.com/PaddyMcGuinness/status/912739438312280065

But all was not as it seemed and it turned out that no-one was a winner at all – least of all Paddy, who realised that he had actually been scammed, and that the £600 he believed he was donating to an autism charity had just been stolen from him.

"Not a good start to 2018," wrote Paddy on Twitter. I paid over £600 to a supposed Autism charity for the below [tickets]. Turns out this sack of s**t... has been scamming money off people under the guise of charity for a long time. Next stop for me is @gmpolice to report this scum bag."

The BBC contacted representatives for Derek Griffiths who confirmed that he has never used Twitter and that the account was a fake.

Other people also came forward to say that they had been asked for money by someone posing as Griffiths, including Hollyoaks actress Annie Wallace.

https://twitter.com/anniewallace/status/947509707022983170

The Derek Griffiths Twitter account has been suspended and the charity listings removed from eBay. Maybe Paddy should now advertise Action Fraud instead of online bingo?