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Crazy pieces of financial advice on TikTok and social media more widely

ended 30. April 2026

What's the craziest piece of financial advice you've even seen on social media, very possibly doled out by some hare-brained influencer with zero qualifications and the intellectual gravitas of a cheese and pickle sandwich? For a feature running on a national newspaper website on the weekend.

7 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Ross Lacey
Director & Independent Financial Adviser at Fairview Financial Management
Financial influencers, or "Finfluencers" aren't necessarily always wrong in what they say. It's just that it often misses all the nuance and detail.

This can make a broad concept that sounds sensible on the face of it end up being the worst mistake you could possibly make in your particular situation and circumstances.
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Editor
Tony Redondo
Founder at Cosmos Currency Exchange
Some influencers claim that because you never "signed a contract" with your local council, Council Tax is optional, often citing "Common Law" or Magna Carta as a legal loophole. In reality, Council Tax is a statutory obligation in the UK and refusing to pay leads straight to a liability order and bailiffs at your door. When spotting dodgy financial influencers, two red flags stand out. First, the Lambo Rule. If the advice is delivered while leaning on a supercar, the only person getting rich is the influencer, usually through "Masterclass" fees. Second, the Copy My Trade rule. Regulated financial advice in the UK requires an FCA Firm Reference Number (FRN). No FRN means no expertise, just liability. A 15-second video is not a substitute for a qualified Financial Planner. The stakes are real. TSB research found that 55% of people who acted on social media financial advice lost money. Viral confidence is not the same as competence.
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Martin Rayner
Financial Adviser at Compton Financial Services
“‘If your money is not making 10%+, it is basically losing value.’
‘You only need one big win — go all in.’
‘Pensions lock your money away — invest it yourself and retire earlier.’
‘The biggest risk is not taking enough risk.’
‘Timing the market is easy if you follow the right signals.’
They sound convincing, but they ignore what can go wrong. Chasing high returns often means bigger ups and downs, and that is where people get caught out.
There is nothing wrong with having a small amount of ‘play money’ you are comfortable losing. But for most people, the focus should be steady, long-term growth with a level of risk that fits their life — not something driven by social media.”
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Antonia Medlicott
Founder & MD at Investing Insiders
The worst piece of advice I have seen comes from a well-known property influencer with a significant following, who constantly tells their followers not to pay into a workplace or private pension scheme. They refer to the downsides of not seeing that money for decades but are misleading thousands of people, which could leave them in a difficult financial situation come retirement. They aren’t the only one that do this either, I’ve seen many clips where influencers tell their followers that paying into a pension is a scam or that it isn’t worth it.

I use social media heavily to provide videos that help people make informed decisions themselves, so it’s sad to see. These videos should be more regulated, but it’s important that influencers use compliant language, don’t make promises on returns that they can’t be sure of, and provide enough risk warnings so that their audience realise what a huge impact decisions such as not having a pension could have.
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Gemma Harvey
Director at Box Socials & FS Digital Marketing
The Financial Conduct Authority reports that over 9 in 10 young investors now trust social media for financial information. Around a third of UK adults are turning to social platforms for guidance, rising to over 50% of first-time buyers aged 18–34. I have seen so much bad advice on social media, I’ve actually started the Box Socials Movement. The idea is to drown out the unqualified unregulated Fin-Influencers with educational and most importantly, correct content by advisers.
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Colette Mason
AI Ethics Consultant at Clever Clogs AI
TikTok’s "cash stuffing" trend is essentially financial planning for people who wish their home accounting was a scrapbooking project. It features the meticulousl filing of lots of banknotes into "aesthetic" pastel binders with labels like "Rent" or "Coconut Milk Lattes." It helps to make money "real".

The intellectual weight here is about as thin as the paper sleeves themselves. While a bank account is a digital fortress, a binder is just a glorified pencil case. If you misplace it while pedalling to the travel agent on your electric hire bike, your "holiday fund" goes on an adventure but not you. Plus, in an era of digital direct debits, trying to pay a landlord with physical stack of £20 notes from a crisp ivory envelope feels less like a "life hack" and more like a "historical reenactment".

The verdict: It’s the fiscal equivalent of keeping your pocket money in a hollowed-out book. It looks "kitsch" on camera but ignores the reality of fire, theft, and basic macroeconomics.
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Rohit Parmar-Mistry
Founder at Pattrn Data
One of the worst patterns on social media is the advice that debt is harmless if the asset ‘always goes up’, whether that is crypto, property or a fashionable US stock. It sounds clever because it borrows the language of use and passive income, but in practice it encourages people to confuse rising markets with personal financial resilience. That is how small mistakes become life changing ones.

The real danger is not just one bad tip. It is the performance of certainty. A confident voice, a rented lifestyle and a few viral clips can make reckless advice look like expertise, especially when the hard parts like tax, risk, liquidity and downside are edited out.

Good financial advice is usually a bit boring because reality is. If someone is promising easy wealth, zero risk or a shortcut that makes caution look stupid, that is usually the point where people should log off rather than lean in.