Recently, thousands of people have been scammed by Elon Musk impersonators who decided to capitalize on the recent cryptocurrency mania. Now, the deceived are begging the Federal Trade Commission for help getting their money back.
Overall, criminals have stolen at least $2 million from investors in cryptocurrency scams. According to the FTC, such ruses have already been going on for years. This year, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, became an avid supporter of crypto assets. It is no surprise that scammers used his name to dupe people.
At first glance, the scheme looks quite absurd but it works flawlessly. A potential victim receives a message from Elon Musk on Twitter. Some may wonder how people could actually believe in it. They might be surprised but dozens of people did. In the message, on the behalf of Elon Musk, criminals offer gullible citizens to transfer tokens as a gift and promise a large reward. To do so, they asked for credit card or crypto wallet requisites. Starstruck and amazed, people really thought that Elon Musk contacted them. The victims of the fraud shared this sensitive data with the scammers and shortly after their accounts and wallets were emptied. In total, since October last year, about 7,000 people have lost more than $80 million due to the actions of various crypto scams.
