When actor Bill Nighy joined director Richard Curtis to launch a campaign for a 'Robin Hood tax' on banks, they were confident it would easily gain public support.
After all, the banks' behaviour had been blamed for bringing the economy to its knees - and this was a chance to raise money for worthy causes such as tackling poverty and climate change.
So when an online vote asking if people supported the idea suddenly began receiving 'No' votes at a rate of six per second, foul play was suspected.
Even more so when many of the votes were traced to banking giant Goldman Sachs.
The Robin Hood tax campaign was launched with a three-minute advert directed by Vicar of Dibley writer Curtis and starring Nighy - whose films include Love, Actually and the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels.
The online vote was then set up to ask the public if they supported the tax, which would impose a small levy on all bank-to-bank transactions.
In the first few hours of the poll on Wednesday, organisers watched as votes flooded in for the 'Yes' camp.
But then an astonishing flurry of votes saw the 'No' tally rocket from 1,500 to 6,000 in just a few minutes. A quick analysis traced the votes to two internet protocol-addresses - one private and yet to be identified and the other registered to investment bank Goldman Sachs, which last night launched an investigation.
Curtis said: 'I think it's quite funny. I'm glad they are watching the film and hope they change their vote from No to Yes soon.'
Goldman Sachs (London office pictured) launched an investigation into the campaign last night
A source at the campaign said: 'Within four hours of the vote beginning we had 6,000 Yes votes and 1,000 No votes.
'But from 3.41pm on we noticed that six No votes were coming through per second.
'At 3.57 we re-tightened security, reset the count to remove fake votes, reassured our users and then began to analyse the data to see where the votes were coming from.'
The Robin Hood tax has already received support from 50 organisations including Oxfam, the TUC, Barnardo's, ActionAid and the Salvation Army.
Campaign: Actor Bill Nighy admits in the Robin Hood Tax video that taxing the banks would help the poor across the world
It would apply only to trading between financial institutions, such as for shares and derivatives.
While different rates of tax would apply to different types of transaction, the campaign says they could start at 5p for every £1,000 traded.
UK campaigners are working with an international movement which hopes the measure could raise up to £250billion a year to fight global poverty and tackle climate change.
A slick advertising campaign features slogans such as, 'Small change for the banks, huge changes for the world'.
Grilled: Bill Nighy admits that banks would lose only 0.05% of each deal but raise about £2bn for good causes
Launching the idea, Curtis said: 'I understand it is complicated and contentious and there are other ideas on the table, but what we are trying to create is an instinctive link between fixing banks and the huge challenges facing people on this planet.
'Do we drop promises on child poverty or do we tax the British public? Or do we work with banks to find a solution?'
Gordon Brown, German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy have all spoken in recent months to support a form of transaction tax.
Last night, Goldman Sachs said of the voting claim: 'We have just received this information and we are investigating fully.'
View the Robin Hood Tax Campaign video here...
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