Posted on 03/09/2024 9:31:27 PM PST by nickcarraway
As technology gets more sophisticated, so do scammers. As bad actors adapt to the times, cryptocurrency scams are becoming a bigger problem, duping Americans out of huge sums, the Better Business Bureau said.
In its annual Scam Tracker report, the BBB said investment and cryptocurrency scams were the “riskiest” type of scam in 2023. Scammers are using people’s general lack of understanding about cryptocurrency to their advantage, the Bureau said, promising huge returns on investment for purchasing Bitcoin.
One victim, who shared her story, said she came upon a cryptocurrency scam while watching a YouTube video about Bitcoin investments. People in the comments said they made money using a trading service, so she reached out to the investment firm.
Red flags when dating someone online
“Shanell was told to buy Bitcoin through Cash App and send $1,500. Though it stretched her financially, she sent the money. After 10 days, she received a screenshot that showed her account increased to $7,345.56,” the BBB said.
The problems came when she tried to withdraw her earnings. She was told to pay a $700 commission plus an $800 broker’s fee. The broker still wouldn’t give her the so-called earning, demanding another $1,200 in fees. That’s when she realized it was a scam.
The median loss reported for investment and cryptocurrency scams was $3,800
Another scam growing more prevalent since the pandemic are employment schemes. You may think you’re accepting a job offer, but you’re actually being recruited to help with fraud. That happened to one St. Louis woman whose new “employer” deposited $2,400 into her bank account, then asked her to go purchase $2,400 in gift cards and send them the numbers on the back. Her bank later told her the $2,400 check was fraudulent, and she never heard from her “employer” again.
‘Layers of deception’: Federal agencies warn about AI scams Employment scams were more likely to target people under 45, while investment and cryptocurrency scams targeted older people, the BBB said. Romance scams were also a growing problem, especially for those over 65.
The 10 riskiest consumer scams in 2023, according to the BBB, were:
Investment/cryptocurrency
Employment
Online purchase
Home improvement
Romance
Advance fee loan
Phishing/social engineering
Credit repair/debt relif
Tech support
Travel/vacation/timeshare
To determine how “risky” each type of scam was, the BBB looked at a few metrics: how prevalent the scam was last year, how much money victims lost, and how likely victims are to lose money once targeted.
But money isn’t the only thing victims lose to scammers. They also reported losing time, compromising their personal information and risking their credit scores.
To avoid falling victim to scams, the BBB advises people:
Trust your gut if the offer sounds too good to be true
Rule 1: If the person has an Indian accent its a scam
My boss ever texted me that I’d reply with GFY... and he’d of expected that.
“Trust your gut if the offer sounds too good to be true”
My instincts tell me that it’s not so much the “Nigerian prince” anymore as much as it is today’s college university crowd, grads and undergrads, and even tech savvy younger Americans who are behind some of these sophisticated scam operations. Young and daring, they’ll take to paths of least resistance as shortcuts to “success” because they can, and off the beaten path they go. It’s likely that the majority of scammers like these have political agendas as well- Woke-ist, LGBTQ+, foreign nationals, communist, progressive, By Any Means Necessary anti-American subversives, etc. Plus, we have these migrant criminals who, whether they belong to or owe something to drug cartels or not, may be looking to set up shop where they can go about their “business”. They are more convincing when they make themselves appear to be naive and benign but don’t let the smooth taste fool you. Someday it could really be your own grandkid in AI form trying to bilk you out of a small fortune because they can’t wait for their inheritance or to have it go to somebody else first.
Every politician. Every diplomat. Every Bureaucract, advisor, NGO president in washington DC.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3731774/posts
Scambaiting is a way to fight back against these pukes, who prey on the elderly and trusting souls.
The idea is that every min of their time that you waste is a minute where they can’t take Grandma’s retirement money.
If I am having a slow day, and I get an email announcing a $399 credit card charge for tech support, I’ll call that 844 number for tech support after blocking my number. I tell them that my name is Nigel Tufnell (or sometimes Graham Chapman), and my address is 1060 West Addison in Chicago.
I let the charade run as long as I’m entertained. Sometimes they get a lecture at the end of my call.
Some guys are so good at Scambaiting that they make a living out of it, and stream their calls on Twitch. They can hack into the scammer’s PCs and delete files and steal back gift cards while they get cursed out in a foreign language. It’s hilarious. https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4087042/posts
That sounds like a fun pastime.
the difficulty with krapcoins is that it’s nearly impossible to tell the difference between the fraudulent krapcoin scams and the “legitimate” drapcoin scams ...
I sort out emails that I expect to get. Everything else is suspect. Anything that comes in at random, I do a who.is domain search on the Return Path address and the unsubscribe URL found in the email source code. I usually find that the domain is listed as being form a foreign country and is less that 24 hours old at the time the email was sent. Sometimes I will run the email header through an online analysis tool to find other questionable things like the SPF Authentication or the DMARC Record status. I get sometimes about a dozen a day. Those emails are usually about giving me something free or heavily discounted, a package tracking or something of that nature.
For scam emails that are spoofing an actual company, I take the time to report them to the abuse email at the real company.
I usually let call roll into voice mail but if I have time, I answer unknown numbers in Chinese. If I have a lot of time and I am in the mood, I answer and talk them in circles for as long as possible. Usually they will get to a point and hang up. However, a few times I got them to scream swear words at me as they hang up. When that happens, I know I have done my part.
A Nigerian Princess just sent me an email wanting to marry me and offer me a job as CEO of IBM, but first i had to buy one bazillion NigerianKoins, blacktop my driveway, wire her a hundred thousand dollars in earnest money, give her access to my computer to fix it because she knows it’s eaten up by a gaggle of viruses, and sell me ten brand new luxurious timeshare condos in Haiti ...
Could anyone here tell me if this a scam?
On Tuesday, I was the GOP Primary Precinct Election Judge. Late in the day one of the voters that I knew by sight, but not name, asked me: Are foreigner’s voting in this election?
I answered No. That you had to be a citizen of the USA to vote. Asked him why he asked, he said his wife was not a citizen. And asked him how long they had been married. And what country she was from.
He answered that they had been married 7 years (seems like she had been with him 10 years) and that she was Russian. I told him that having live here with him that long it should be easy to gain citizenship.
I did not tell him, that if she got here citizenship, she might leave him. /sarcasm. I have never met her.
It’s amazing how dumb people can be sometimes. I had a secretary one time give the “Alabama State Troopers’ Association” her checking account number over the phone for a fundraiser. Fortunately for her they only got her for $100 or so instead of the $20 she thought she was giving them.
I’ve watched ScammerPayback and love it.
Thanks for helping hold down the fort like that. I don’t have the savvy to do that to people.
One time I got a call and answered it on y cell phone, not landline, and they started with *your computer has a problem* and I just laughed at the guy. I said that this was a cell phone and he had NO idea what computer was tied to this number. And then hung up.
I suppose that all it did was show him that there are people out there wise to them.
We've done that, too. Some companies are very grateful and thank us and follow up with us. Others don't seem much to care.
I get the same response from companies. I still try to do may part of stopping these criminals. All of these scammers should be rounded up and dealt with appropriately.
“My baseline assumption anymore is that everything is a scam.
Every phone call
Every text message
Every email
Every advertisement
Everything”
Exactly. Just had someone send me a “PayPal” message thanking me for contributing “x” amount of bitcoin. If I did not do that, please call this number for a refund. One problem…I don’t have an active PayPal account. I also checked my bank accounts and it showed no activity. Trust NOTHING you receive online unless you initiated the contact, and then be wary of that.
These scams will always be a way of life. Like herpes, taxes and the rest. The majority of population is devoid of even a shred of critical thinking. On any subject….
Yesterday, I read a local story where a Wal-mart clerk prevented an elderly man from being scammed out of $5,000 via a call stating a warrant was out for his arrest for missing jury duty. Luckily she questioned him and recognized the scam.
I just searched and found the story has now gone national.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/10662001/walmart-worker-stops-gift-card-scam/
It’s good to be cynical about most things these days.
One I encountered recently was on Facebook marketplace. I listed an item for sale, quickly got a response from someone wanting to buy it. He said he would send the cash, I just had to text him a code. Believe it or not, “another person” (probably him under another name) tried the same stunt the next day.
Timeshares crack me up the most. 99% of ads you see on TV deal with GETTING RID of timeshares...in fact, I’ve never seen an ad on TV touting a timeshare (just post cards that are mass-mailed).
It’s kind of like watching a football game and the only car commercials you see are from companies will to rid you of your car.
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