Truth Social Users Are Losing Ridiculous Sums of Money to Scams

some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org to News@lemmy.world – 859 points –
Truth Social Users Are Losing Ridiculous Sums of Money to Scams
gizmodo.com

Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch. I’ll pour one out for these poor souls. Ha!

135

I am absolutely sickened by the ghouls in this thread, laughing at the victims of scams. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.

To the victims of Truth Social, my heart hurts for you, and I'm here to help:

Send me the financial transaction details of the scam, including your bank account number, your social insurance number, date of birth, your mother's maiden name, and other documentation as needed, and I will take care of things.

God Bless!!!!!!!

Hallelujah! And buy the Trump bible in 10 copies, because it will get you a place in Trump heaven!

social insurance number

Limey detected!

OK Truthers, this is why you need my protection. DON'T FALL VICTIM to these FOREIGNERS! If contacted, immediately notify me with any information they requested and I'll VERIFY THE SECURITY of your private details.

No no, that mistake is deliberate to automatically filter out the smart people.

We're all making jokes while Chupa's out there doing the Lord's work.

It’s like an all you scam buffet

The type of people who would be on the site or follow that man...is anyone surprised they are an extremely gullable crowd? It's almost sad.

Truth Social seems to be a target-rich environment for people who are easy to con.

Ya don't say.

I mean if you're looking for people to con, then of course a huge group of people being actively conned so ridiculously easily is going to be a great hunting ground for them.

They vote for a guy whose nickname has been "Don the Con" for decades.

Another thing that sticks out about the complaints filed with the FTC is that they seem to involve plenty of elderly fans of Donald Trump. One 72-year-old man who reported chatting with a “beautiful” woman on the site was scammed out of $21,000. His complaint ends with, “I haven’t told my wife about this blunder. She still doesn’t know about it.” Another person in their 60s said they lost $500,000 to scammers on Truth Social and seemed to think there might be a way they could get their money back, telling the FTC, “After I pay this they promise there will be no more fees and I will receive my assets.”

what is even happening here. this reads like something from an onion article.

Nice to see them use their mental gymnastics skills for something other than Qanon lol

Truth Social has more than one user?

I’m just as surprised as you are.

estimated 607,000 monthly users (as of July 2023)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_Social

But how many of those are bots?

So ... It's a little bit smaller than Lemmy?

🤣 a bunch of communists built a more successful platform for free than a billionaire with unlimited free press exposure.

"Communists"

They mean the people who originally coded Lemmy, who are Marxist-Leninist communists. (Hence why they chose .ml for lemmy.ml.)

Subtract the number of scammed people from that total and you'll have your answer 👍

And of the ones that aren't bots, how many are scammers and their sockpuppets?

I guess its not actually all bots if there is money being sold after all

Guys...I've thought of a way to help fund Harris' campaign.

Fucking genocide supporter

You know, you are right.

I should instead support the guy who is going to nuke Palestine. Right? Completely eradicate them?

Who has sworn to put America first no matter the cost? Even if it means a nuclear winter? The guy who wants to suck Putin's cock so bad that he sent him one of those kits so that he could get a mold made so that he can practice?

Says the guy who uses an ISP! Shame! How could you support those animals!

Trump supports the genocide in Gaza and wants to start two more genocides- of Latino and queer people- in the U.S.

On top of that, he just suggested bombing Iran's nuclear facilities, which could end up in an escalation causing far more senseless deaths than there have been in Gaza. Exponentially more.

But I guess those things don't matter because "Holocaust Harris" or whatever.

Fucking genocide with extra steps supporter

That’s great. I’d rather have them getting scammed than them donating that money to their Nazi party

That's IMPOSSIBLE! Those people Do Their OWN Research!

Half the users are Trump supporters, the other half are scammers. It's a match made In heaven brought to you by Orange Jesus.

The Venn Diagram of MAGA, morons and grifters, and right in the middle sits Trump.

I see a lot of handwringing in society over kids not being able to handle themselves online.

I'd be more worried about senior citizens.

Truth Social seems to be a target-rich environment for people who are easy to con.

Thank you, Capital Obvious.

My favourite quote from the article

Truth Social seems to be a target-rich environment for people who are easy to con.

It's almost like it was designed specifically for that.

grifters know their marks

"With truth social, you don't have to know your marks."
-Truth Social marketing materials.

maybe but that site is a perfect breeding ground for them

Fish in a barrel.

Exactly what I came to say, truth social is what is called a "target rich environment"

Well yeah, it's entirely dumbfucks and old people.

Odds are it's the exact same family members as would send you Bill Gates chain email scams about 20 years ago, and who you inevitably had to remove a virus from their PC at some point, before you convinced them to get a tablet so they'd leave you alone.

Oh and they definitely DO NOT give Facebook permission to do whatever with their posts and photos, but also click "I agree" on every single popup.

before you convinced them to get a tablet

Their tablets are full of junk notifications though.

Yeah, but their notifications don't bother me.

Unlike them when they get some shitty ransomware demanding iTunes vouchers be sent to the FBI.

like donating money to Trump, one of the richest guys on the planet?

Richest, "allegedly."

"Debatable" also works.

possibly?

"doubtful"

most likely in the top 500 (give or take two units in log2 scale if you are really worried about undeclared billionaires) in a world of population 8000000000 which puts him in top ~ %0.00001.

Unlikely. Billionaires don't drive businesses down the drain MULTIPLE times. Fake lied about how much assets he has and inflated the value of everything he "owns".

Dudes tax returns were leaked and um.... He's broke.

So Forbe estimates 3.5 billions.and value is tied to real estate which he has been found guilty of inflating.

Nobody truly knows how much he has. But one thing is for certain. No billionaire I know is grifting like this.

Every billionaire is grifting like this. That's how they become billionaires. Most just hide it better.

He is broke since a long time.

To be fair, you are also one of the richest people on the planet.

Nah. If you try to say that i am extremely rich compared to a an african or pakistani, then yes, but if in your own country you cannot afford a decent life, then you are poor

Way to completely miss the joke.

Every person on the planet is one of the richest people on the planet, they just might not be very high on the list and the list might be very long.

I have found nothing is easier than separating a boomer and their money...well other than your mother.

can you separate a boomer and my mother? her new husband is clearly abusive but adult protective services won't do anything about it

I can’t wait to see how the republicans will blame this on the democrats

Truth Social Users Are Losing Ridiculous Sums of Money to Scams

ftfy Gizmodo

Truth Social Users Are Losing Ridiculous Sums of Money to Scams

In an episode of the show bullshit (I think, I'm not 100% sure because I watch a lot of scam/anti-scam programming) there was an expert in MLMs saying that when you lose money in the MLM that isn't a negative outcome for a MLM company.

He said something like, "you are supposed to lose money, that's the business" and I can't help but think the exact same quote applies to this.

That's absolutely correct. MLMs make you buy their shitty products at steep prices and leave it to you to sell the rest at even more outragous prices. Once you bought their product, in bulk, at markup, they made a profit.

They dont give a fuck if you can sell it or not. You bought it, now you're stuck with this useless shit.

Trump and company are doing something similar with ideas. Believe these words, no matter how horrible and bad they are, even if you're loved ones vehemetly disagree with you, even if it will destroy democracy and hurt several vulnerable populations of people.... believe us no matter what. Get invested beyond reason and stay angry even if it ruins your life.

They're basically sucking the happiness out of people and then blaming x, y, and z groups for it.

It's genuinely disturbing.

It's true; they're like a MLM company whose products are grievances and resentment.

On the one hand, I feel like anyone promoting a scam artist for the White House deserves what's coming to them.

On the other hand, I consider scammers to be the lowest of the low.

This is one tricky moral limbo contest to judge.

Think of it this way: the scammers could be targeting a less shitty group of people instead.

Actually, that helps.

Also, the scammers, despite who they are scamming, are still probably ideologically aligned with Trump. They just know they can cheat the ones they understand most easily.

More likely they're aligned with the same ideology that Trump is: self enrichment at the expense of everyone else.

They probably only see Trump as a useful concentration point for easy targets.

It reminds me of that online cheating website that turned out to just be men getting scammed by fake accounts. They have it coming.

I wish I knew how to grift. Honestly if these people want to give away their money, I'd take it. I wish I could come up with a way to scam these fucks

Start selling some dumb shit, like trump diapers, a trump doll that says "grab em by the pussy" or some other dumb ass shit his base likes. They'd snatch that shit up in a heartbeat. Take some of the proceeds for yourself, set up an account to put some into to donate to blue causes and candidates, and rinse/repeat. I guarantee that's what many of them are doing now. (Aside from the donate to blue part of course)

I mean, trump sneakers, trump bibles, trump watches, trump coins, trump assassination sneakers, you can't make this shit up.

I think the way with less overhead is to invent Trump crypto and other financial schemes. People are always looking to make money quick.

Is anyone selling bullets with Trump's name engraved on them?

I'm trying to decide if the MAGAts would be throwing money at that idea, or if they would freak out.

It would be fine to engrave the cases, but not the bullets. It would change the balance and aerodynamics, making them highly inaccurate, and that is dangerous and highly unethical.

Now if you wanted to make them underpowered or duds, I suppose there's an argument for that. You'd have to reload them yourself though, and it's possible you could be held liable.

I know the secret to scamming these idiots. You could make $10,000 per month easily. I'll let you in on the scam, you just need to send me $100.

I've only got $50, can someone loan me the other half, and I'll pay you back when I've got that $10,000

Truth is, it's all a scam to begin with. So sounds like they're nailing it.

scammers scamming scammees

(who seemingly love it)

imagine my surprise...

When their world revolves around feels, emotion, “common sense*”, and education is portrayed as bad, they are far easier marks than someone who views un-vetted and too-good-to-be-true opportunities with a logical eye.

*common sense is just another substitute for rejecting actual education and knowledge. “This is the right thing to do because common sense feels right” rather than investigating and making sure of what is right.

I have also texted with a guy that claims to be one of the 4 founders of coincorner, Phil Collins

I can feel it conning in the air tonight... Oh Lord

It's interesting to me that the generation of get rich quick schemes is having this problem. It's a dilemma for sure. I remember some of these same types always impressing on me the importance of hard work and saving. The grasshopper and the ant parable and not jumping off bridges just because your friends are doing it.

Just amazes me because liberals that taught me about caring and mindfulness are the ones who are resistant to the scammers in their old age. And the ones who claimed to be conservative and financially responsible are the ones with mortgages and complaints about how they are going to have hardships with retirement.

Learning from their failures is all we can do. Try to prepare the next generation for dealing with this new reality.

How could anyone ever scam anyone with a Truth Social post? The posts are called "truths" that means they must be true!

Now that you've pointed this out, I realize the whole scam article must be a lie. Cheers!

Can’t spell “conservative” without “con”.

Because they share an etymology. Con+serve, from Latin for together+oversee, and con+fide, together+trust.

I feel bad for all the normal family members who's lives are significantly impacted by their trump cult family members