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.
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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.
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’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.
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SKISSUE says chat lol
I want a water bear as a pet so bad but the fact that they’re microscopic might be an issue
the fact that they’re microscopic might be an issue
Why? All that means is you may already have one without knowing it.
YOU’RE SO RIGHT OH MY GOD
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.
He’s doing the best he can, show a little respect.
Tech bros are tech broing?!
Schadenfreude popcorn 🍿 time.
A lot of the people falling for these scams are straight up mentally ill or disabled.
It’s funny to think of some blowhard yacht guy getting fleeced. Less funny to see an adult with Down’s Syndrome or Schizophrenia or Dementia or a child who got hold of a parent’s credit card and sucked in by some Mr. Beast tier grift get played.
Don’t have empathy. It’s not allow
Citation?
The article said nothing about intellectual disability, but it did suggest some older people contextually from their complaints. Here’s an actual citation from one of the complaints that I think sums it up perfectly:
Now, i’m an intelligent [person], at least I consider myself that to be. I am a huge fan of elon musk and tesla. I only bit into this because it did sound too good to be true.
It’s just how basic demographics analysis works. There’s a lot more people who are struggling with mental health problems/mental disabilities that make them more prone to believing scams. And so many games and storefronts use dark patters to make it extremely easy to make undesired purchases or have no safeguards to prevent children from using their parents credit card for purchases.
All these kinds of people vastly outnumber dumb finance bros on their yachts making stupid money decisions.
I feel like they don’t even need to be crypto schemes affiliated with Musk for that Venn diagram to work
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
- 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.
Like their master
If only they had a safe place to put their money that was protected by law and insured against losses.
First world comment.
The only people buying into crypto scams are westerners anyway because no one else has the money
Do you think the people who fell for these scams aren’t?
Protected‽ Then their exes can get it for child support!
Here is the secret all crypto is a scam. People just have not figured it out yet.
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But they weren’t talking with Musk, of course.
😆😆😆😆😆
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.
If it’s p2p, then there are no insiders.
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.
Don’t it just break your heart?
