As crypto con artists have scammed Americans out of $1 billion since last year, here are five listens to remember from a victim’s experience.
It started a cryptocurrency investing opportunity that slid into George Kissi’s direct messages in late April.
Perhaps the most salient lesson in light of the current crypto crash: Losing a large chunk of your investments can be a stressful and emotionally taxing experience. As such, the promise of a big payday in such a volatile market can prove too tempting to resist. “‘It’s difficult to predict exactly how the current bear market will impact illicit activity vulnerabilities across crypto investments.’”
“Some people may invest in many investment opportunities with the expectation that most of them will fail, but a few might pay off. However, scammers also often target the most vulnerable, including the elderly,” he said. Other scams began with technical glitches Kissi encountered with some of his coins around a year ago. Kissi asked for help in a chat room and someone claiming to be of assistance got access to Kissi’s digital wallet and “just completely wiped me out.” In late April, Kissi received a direct message to his Telegram account from a person he didn’t know.
Even more so, Kissi emphasized he parted with crypto holdings he could afford to see vanish. “Always invest what you can afford to lose,” he said. Why? Even Kissi’s friends told him not to do it, he recalled. “There was still a little part of me that said, ‘Maybe,’” Kissi said. Also, a scam might still at least pay out to one victim as it tried to operate by pulling in another, he said.
Of course, the key difference is 401 losses are paper losses, and history has shown — as it did in 2020 — that those losses are recoverable given time. Crypto, as a relatively new phenomenon, is more unpredictable. And losses to scam artists and rogue sites are, more often than not, gone forever. “Unlike with traditional forms of payment, such as credit or debit cards, cryptocurrency payments don’t typically come with any protections that can help consumers in the event of fraud,” she said. “We will continue to use our authority to warn consumers about cryptocurrency scams before they happen and to stop cryptocurrency fraud when it occurs.”
Malekan thinks good things will come for crypto in the future, but people could stand to lose a lot of money while the young asset matures. “Where the industry should be more thoughtful is communicating the risk and the volatility,” he said.
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