Elon Musk Fans Are Losing So Much Money to Crypto Scams

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 724 points – Elon Musk Fans Are Losing So Much Money to Crypto Scams
gizmodo.com

Gizmodo filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FTC to get complaints sent to the federal agency about crypto scams that pretend to be affiliated with Musk. We obtained 247 complaints, all filed between Feb. and Oct. of this year, and they’re filled with stories of people who believed they were watching ads for authentic crypto investments sanctioned by Musk on social media.

The ads sometimes featured the names of Musk’s various companies, like SpaceX, Tesla, and X, while other times they utilized Musk’s association with neo-fascist presidential candidate Donald Trump.

...

Some people in the complaints believed they were talking directly with Musk, a sadly common story that has popped up in news reports before. But they weren’t talking with Musk, of course. They were communicating with scammers engaging in what’s called pig butchering—the name for a type of fraud popularized in the mid-2010s where scammers extract as much money as possible through flattery and promises of tremendous profits if the victim just “invests” where they’re told.

82

Who taught this Tardigrade to play the Cello? Its all wrong. He's not going to get any notes out of it playing it under the bridge.

I want a water bear as a pet so bad but the fact that they're microscopic might be an issue

There's a simple explanation for this. Elon Musk fans are fucking idiots.

They might also just be the target demographic for pig butchering.

  • Middle Class
  • Over 40
  • Conservative Male (lonely)
  • Greedy / Self-serving

But yeah there is definitely correlation with low cognitive ability.

You also have to be the sort of person that genuinely believes you can get something for nothing. You have to have a relatively low IQ for that to be the case.

You also have to have a relatively low IQ to continue to listen to anything Musk says, so the group are Self-Selecting.

You need to believe that you can get ahead in society by being smarter than the competition, instead of just being luckier.

They are naive if anything.

Not really. You have to be the sort of person who understands that investment works and not how it works or why it works and most importantly why you aren’t going to hit the jackpot on it even though some people do. They’re the standard marks for an investment con. So yeah they’re stupid and self selected, but the mechanism of action is important because it shows us how to help people avoid falling for it not just letting us feel superior to those who do.

I feel like everyone understands the basic concept behind investment. But I also feel like pretty much everyone knows that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Whenever you invest in something it's pretty obvious what the other party's motivations are. If you cannot see how the other party could possibly benefit, then it's probably because it's a scam.

while other times they utilized Musk’s association with neo-fascist presidential candidate Donald Trump.

I love that they called him what he is. I wish more in media would.

I mean it makes sense to target these people. If you're stupid enough to believe the shit Musk or Trump spout, you're also stupid enough to not see these very obvious scams.

there was a story here recently about a lot of scamming happening on truth social. so yeah.

If only they had a safe place to put their money that was protected by law and insured against losses.

This is pretty sad.

I have a number of elderly relatives. The one thing I keep telling them is if they ever get approached, to contact their kids, or check with another family member before responding. So far, there haven't been any problems.

But I heard an in-law's parents in a different state lost a big chunk of money to one of these scams and may now lose their home.

My elderly dad called me a few years ago to let me know that we'd have to change up all the security stuff for our family phone plan because he gotten scammed. He said he got a call from someone claiming to be a representative of the phone company who said they'd like to lower our monthly bill. I stopped him and said "well, that should have been your first clue... when in the last decade of us using them has that ever happened? When was the last time our bill went down instead of up?"

I saw one of these and it took me a second to realize it was a scam. I'm a spaceflight geek and as much as a tool as Musk is, there's heavy overlap in spaceflight and SpaceX.

On Youtube there was a purported "live launch update" livestream. I was confused because I knew there were no launches scheduled that day of any kind much less SpaceX. What I saw was Musk on a stage outdoors apparently talking about a new SpaceX crypto product and the voice, which sounded exactly like Musk's talked about giving away free crypto the only thing you had to do was buy it, then share you wallet info and Musk would double it.

Besides this smelling very suspect, I realized that there were never close shots when musk was talking, so you couldn't see the lips match the words being said audibly and I knew it was a scam.

I can absolutely see how the greedy would get scammed by this.

I can absolutely see how the greedy would get scammed by this.

Really? The only way that could sound more like a scam is if there were a chyron at the bottom spelling out THIS IS A SCAM.

It sounds like a scam because I'm distilling all the things that told me it was a scam. I'm glad you can take what I'm tell you is a scam and say "yes thats a scam". Congrats?

Musk also does stupid stuff that loses money. He's (likely illegally) giving away money to buy votes in some states. Musk is also a known cryptobro. The idea that Musk would be giving away crypto to try to build influence or attention isn't far fetched.

I mean, "give access" and "double your bitcoin" are somewhat textbook phrases for scams...

Although, I def. see how one can miss it at first. I remember one bank scam call where the thing that ultimately clued me in was a rather unprofessional response along the lines of "don't call crying back to us" when I've said I'm a bit busy to go check the card or whatever they've asked to, while what should've done this in the 1st place was another textbooky "have u transfered any funds to Joe Shmoe". Looking back, would've been funy AF to pull the Karen on them 🥲

I mean, “give access” and “double your bitcoin” are somewhat textbook phrases for scams…

You're underscoring my point. I don't think either of those two exact phrases were use in the scam video. In my post I was communicating the paraphrased things they were saying. Its like you're finding the words in the word search because I circled them, then handed it to you, and you're saying "there's the word, its in the circle!".

I didn't commit to memory the exact language used because as soon as I figured out it was a scam I had no reason to remember their exact words. If you go looking you might find an example of the video. Its beyond my interest though.

I saw one of these too on YouTube – it easily popped up early on my home page.

I'd consider myself a tech savvy person and even then, this took a minute to spot the scam. I can totally see someone falling for it.

Can we take NASA contract away from SpaceX? Let's bring it back in house. Space should not be for profit .

Just want to share that NASA has one of the highest ROIs of any government agency.

I want to increase NASAs budget and go to space.

But then how will billionaires get to say they're literally thinking of the big picture because they got to go on a brief space joy ride?

Maybe a hot take, but those currently into crypto and Musk aren't that bright.

Speak for yourself. Personally I turned $12K into $36K when the US government allowed bitcoin to be traded on the stock market as an ETF. Yet everyone here keeps trying to tell me that it's a scam. Which is weird, because I bought a car, an OLED TV, and built a $4000 gaming machine with my "fake internet money", as everyone here likes to call it.

All this stuff I bought with my earnings seems real to me. But hey, keep downvoting and calling me an idiot, like you always do, when I bring up the point that not everyone is stupid enough to lose money with crypto.

Okay, hypothetically let's imagine someone who is a Bitcoin trading god. Every peak he's there unloading his bags, every dip and he's buying hundreds of Bitcoins. This guy turns thousands into millions and millions into billions. Huge success story right?

But here's the rub, where is all this money coming from? The money isn't coming out of thin air, it's not coming from the crypto exchanges, otherwise they'd go bankrupt, it's not coming from the value of any goods or services produced. The answer is that all that money is coming from other people. Someone has to be buying at the peak thinking it'll go "To the moon" and getting burned, or maybe the need to pay off some hackers cryptolocker. The same for the dip maybe someone needs real money right now and must sell despite the loss, or maybe someone is panic selling thinking the price will go lower. Our hypothetical trading god hasn't really created any money or anything of value at all, they've just moved money from the losers in the Bitcoin to his own wallet.

This makes you the equivalent to one of the spokespeople from near the top of a pyramid scheme taking about how this is one of the legit pyramid schemes, because you've earned so much money! Ignoring of course that all of their money means that someone somewhere needed to lose that money first.

However, I suppose at the end of the day, you did take twenty four thousand dollars from crypto morons, so I suppose that's kinda noble in a way.

Idiots who fall for Elon Musks genius persona and think they are smart also fall for crypto scams? Shocking I tell you, shocking

When these scams first started featuring Musk, it was clear that he was a common lead because of his wealth. Pretty much just "Get rich quick, and be rich like [insert rich guy here]". I've seen scams in the past with Buffet, Gates, or Bezos on it before, because the kind of people who fall for a get-rich-quick scam are the kinds of people who idolize wealth.

But now it seems that Musk fans are a uniquely exploitable group. They are easily fooled by wild claims, and quickly subscribe to magical thinking. At this point, they're just low-hanging fruit.

Sure, the scams like pig butchering look dumb from the outside, but never think shit like this can't happen to you. There's TONs of ways scammers can trick you, but usually they'll seek out vulnerable people. Sure the gullible are vulnerable, but just because you're not vulnerable right now, doesn't mean you won't be at some point in the future. Desperation can make scholars into fools.

Can agree. I used to think I was savvy enough to avoid getting scammed, until I followed a link that a person who was pretending to be a mechanic gave me to purchase parts for my car. I ended up spending $1300 on parts that didn't exist.

Long story short, I eventually got my money back after arguing with my bank's fraud department for several months. I wish I could afford a lawyer so I could sue this guy for pain and suffering + the thousands I spent in Uber/Lyft/Waymo getting to work while I didn't have a car.

1 more...

I'm so glad they're losing it to these scams instead of to leon.

The people that end up cashing in from those scams are the same people that end up supporting Trump & Musk.

I feel like they don’t even need to be crypto schemes affiliated with Musk for that Venn diagram to work

Ngl I always hated crypto but this is like best argument for crypto. Wtf I'm even doing at my job, I should be doing something actually important like scramming Elon Musk fans.

I like the idea of crypto, vut i hate crypto bros.

I don't really like idea, I can't see how it could be done in anyway that doesn't lead to already rich people insider trading it.

I like the basic fundamental idea, but the implementation is dreadful.

I'm all for coming up with some kind of method for validating decentralized information but the system that cryptocurrencies use is highly inefficient.

The validation is cheap, every node does that constantly. Do you mean proof-of-work mining?

Who would think that Musk fans are gullible people susceptible to scams?

This has been news in Canada for about a year, story after story about people getting sucked in and losing tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. When it's not Musk it's Justin Trudeau, same M.O.

You'd think if these people read the news outlets they share their stories with that they would have seen one of the articles already because they're so common. But then again people still take Sunwing package vacations then complain to the news when it's subpar so idk.

Edit to add I blame big tech more than the scam victims, they have no protections in place and are profiting off the scammers immorally as well. They should have to manually review these things or at least be responsive to user reports and they're doing neither. I actually know someone who got banned from Meta products for reporting too many scam ads.

You’d think if these people read the news outlets they share their stories with that they would have seen one of the articles already because they’re so common.

Crypto scams have overwhelmed the news feeds. I see scams showing up on the front page of my fucking retirement account. Dumb money retail investors chasing fictitious capital are setting off a feeding frenzy.

The registered republican voter records are available for purchase - that list is such a gold mine of warm, qualified leads of the dumbest people. Cross reference above a certain threshold for affluent zip codes and split by age and you're now holding the keys to hate-filled grandma's pension.

Some people in the complaints believed they were talking directly with Musk, a sadly common story that has popped up in news reports before.

I remember when I thought I was talking directly to a celebrity online… when I was 13. It didn’t take long to realize how stupid that idea was. To be a grown adult and still think there’s a chance a celebrity is sending messages to random people is mind-boggling.

I cringe at the memories now, but at least I can take comfort in having learned about catfishing long before I had money to lose from it.

There are a lot of scams out there pretending to be Musk. If you want to watch a SpaceX launch, there's probably at least 1 scam youtube stream out there that looks legit with thousands of viewers and then turns into a scam before the launch.

After all of the send me crypto and i'll send double back.... I find it hilarious that he's now telling people to do things and he'll pay them... and it'll be even funnier when they realize they don't get it and were scammed into giving him their info for no money.

If it's on YouTube then it's a scam, spaceX don't have a YouTube channel, I assume for some stupid petty musk reason.

There previously were scams that invoked Bill Gates’ name, but I guess crypto made it much easier, especially since anyone can watch Musk gush on about crypto on YouTube, thus validating the ideas for the gullible.

They didn't realize that his "joke" on SNL was actually him being honest.

I always thought people with crypto was at least a bit technical and security minded

They were at first, and if you find someone going on about Monero they still might be, but most of the crypto bubble was the dumber, less successful finance bros trying to go to the moon or whatever. They don't actually understand crypto, they just use buzzwords to try to sell it to people.