Something I want to talk about today has to do with crypto scams. Now I recently posted an article about the different types of crypto scams that are out there and you can read more about that by clicking here. I’m going to talk about the victims of crypto scams.
I want to take a look at recent news articles of people who were victims of crypto scams, and one that is increasing very rapidly is what is called pig butchering. I talked about what pig butchering is in my previous article of crypto scams, but this one really breaks my heart because the victims of it tend to be older or lonely people looking for companionship and these scammers take so much advantage of that.
The first thing I want to do though is take a look at the number/statics of people affected by crypto scams especially in the US. The numbers are shocking, but show the impact scammers are having on people in America. Let’s take a closer look.
The Devastating Impact on Americans: A Look at the Numbers
The sad reality is that today, so many people in the US have fallen victim to crypto scams and continue to fall victim to cryptocurrency scams at an alarming rate. Americans have lost billions of dollars to crypto scams and it shows no signs of slowing down.
According to the FBI statistics, in 2023, Americans have lost a combined $5.6 billion dollars! Think about that for a moment! That’s life savings, retirement accounts, money borrowed from others, etc. Also according to FBI statistics, it says that the majority of the type of crypto scams that people in the US fall for tend to be investment faud which overwhelming comes from what is called pig butchering which I’ll talk more about that shortly. The total amount alone from investment fraud is $3.96 billion according to those same statistics.
The FBI has said as well that people sent in over 70,000 complaints of crypto scams in 2023 alone. Other scams that involved cryptocurrency according to these statistics, are call center fraud, tech support scams, government impersonation scams, and even car scams. A lot of those other scams are wanting victims to send them cryptocurrency since it’s nearly impossible to get back and harder to trace, versus gift cards (though a lot of scammers still ask to receive them).
What I’m going to do now is talk about some of the latest victims of the pig butchering scams and some of them are just utterly heartbreaking especially since one of the victims ended up taking his own life once he realized what has happened. I want to show people that these scams are real and the victims are regular people like you and me, husbands, widowers, grandparents, etc.
Victims of Pig Butchering
It’s hard to imagine an older man, someone who was always generally known as happy and positive, had a family, watched his kids grow up, and more, would ever run into trouble so overwhelming, that he would eventually would take his own life.
That’s exactly what happened to a man named Dennis Jones when he took his life at the age of 82. The reason for this suicide? He lost all his money to a pig butchering scam that are ran out of Southeast Asia. According to CNN, a majority of the pig butchering scams that are out there in the world come from that region.
Now you might be asking yourself how did Dennis become a victim of this nasty crypto scam? Well Dennis had been divorced for sometime, but when you’re divorced or widowed, you tend to get lonely and you naturally want to look for some kind of companionship. This is unfortunately where people get the most vulnerable.
People tend to look for companionship on social media and sometimes a random person might friend request you or send you a message wanting to get to know you more. This is where they try to make a connection with you to get to know you and you “supposedly” get to know them. The thing is though, they will say whatever they can to get your trust and when they feel they have it, they’ll present you a “nice” opportunity to make some good money. This is how they were able to scam Dennis.
A woman by the name of Jessie was able to convince Dennis to do a lot of investments into cryptocurrency. Once the scammer felt that Dennis had invested a good amount of money, Jessie disappeared along with all of his money and Dennis was not able to withdraw anything from this investment opportunity that he thought was valid. It so overwhelmed him that he lost all that money that he sadly ended up taking his own life. You can read more about this entire story by clicking here at CNN.
A woman, living in the suburbs of Chicago, was taken advantage of by a pig butchering scammer. She lost over $1 million in her life savings, but she said that the scammer was so convincing. She would send the scammer tens of thousands of dollars to the scammer for a period of weeks.
The sad thing is, is that the scammer said she would double her money from investments that typically are cryptocurrency. In this scam, the victim ended up losing so much money that she now owes the bank money as well as money for taxes. You can read more by going to the original story at ABC 7 Chicago.
If someone online, whom you’ve never met in person wants to get to know you and then says they’ve got a great opportunity where you can make lots of money, run for the hills because it will be a scam. They’ll say it is a cryptocurrency investment opportunity where you can double your money each week. Do your own research and NEVER click on a link that they provide you. It will more than likely take you to a site made to mimick a legitmate cryto exchange site, except this one will be fraudulant and designed to look like you’re making lots of money each week. Stay away because you’ll never be able to withdraw that money. Now it’s time to take a look at another scam that I myself have been a victim of.
Sim Swapping Victims
As I mentioned earlier, I have been the victim of a SIM swap scam and of the few crypto scams that I’ve been a victim of, this one by far is the worst one. I won’t go into too much detail about sim swapping as you can read about it from a previous article of mine or click the following link from Norton that explains what SIM swapping is as well as ways to protect yourself.
It seems that a majority of SIM swapping victims have had their bank accounts drained, but in my case, I lost cryptocurrency and my bank was initially affected, but I caught it in time and got money back from that. My account on a crypto exchange was able to be accessed by the scammer who did this and was able to take away all the crypto I had at the time which was worth around $1,000. They also tried to purchase more via my bank account that was connected to the the crypto exchange.
Because the attempted charges were pending from my bank account, I was able to contact the bank when they opened and stop those charges from going through as well as prevent any other charges from that exchange. Now my loss of cryptocurrency pales in comparison to what is quite possibly the largest theft in history of crytocurrency from a sim-swapping attack.
There was a cryptocurrency exchange by the name of FTX that ended up collapsing back towards the end of 2022. The exchange lost nearly half a billion dollars in cryptocurrency and there were a lot of questions of how such a thing could’ve ended up happening. After some investigation it was determined that one of the executives of FTX had become a victim of sim-swapping which allowed a group of scammers or criminals from Russia to steal so much crypto. Read more about this by clicking here.
The best way to protect yourself from sim-swapping is to ask your phone provider how to protect you against unauthorized attempts of porting out your number without your authorization. I know mine is now password protected as well as a few other security measures so that I don’t have to go through that again. Also set up your online banking and crypto exchange accounts to where you don’t have two-factor authentication either sent to your email also or use an authentication app that requires you to input a code via an app specifically on your phone so that way the scammer won’t have access to that if they port out your number. Let’s take a look at more victims of another type of crypto scam called fake Pre-Sales.
The Illusion of Opportunity: Fake Pre-Sale Crypto Scams
You might be wondering what are pre-sales in the cryptocurrency world? Pre-sales are new cryptocurrencies that are launching or getting off the ground so to speak and so the company or people behind it will launch a pre-sale of its new cryptocurrency before it is launched on some of the many crypto exchanges.
A lot of these are new and exciting projects, but unforunately, there are some that are nothing but scams with the hope of the scammers that many people will fall for this, send them money to get the cryptocurrency (which they never will) and suddenly vanish. Many people, including myself, have fallen victim to these types of scams. That’s why it is essential to do as much research as you possibly can before you jump in to try to be among the first to own a new cryptocurrency.
About a year ago, I fell victim to one of these fake pre-sale scams and didn’t realize it at the time until I noticed some things not happening on the timetable that they promised and before I knew it, the entire website of this crypto scam was gone. The name of the crypto was called VC Spectra and it was touted as a cryptocurrency project for investors. There were supposed news articles talking about this new project and how it was going to be ground breaking and to get in on it early and sadly I fell for the hype.
The good news in this regard is that I didn’t lose a lot of money from this scam, especially when compared to what I lost from sim-swapping. I would say I lost about $60 to what I thought was over 2,000 coins of vc spectra. Of course no one received any of those tokens, because one of the big red flags is that the pre-sale kept missing the targets of when it would end and when everyone was supposed to be receiving their tokens. One day, the entire site disappeared and that was the end of the vc spectra scam. The scammers got their money and everyone else was left with nothing.
The thing that is scary is that on places such as Facebook (Meta), you see all kinds of ads talking about new crypto pre-sales that you should take advantage of before it takes off. After what I went through, I’m a bit leery in taking place in anymore pre-sales of crypto because I’m worried that it’s not going to be legitimate and that stinks because there are legitimate ones that are new and are trying to change things. This is why research is always important and don’t let the feeling of making quick money cloud your judgement especially if they promise that you might do so.
Now that you’ve read about some victims (including myself) of a few different crypto scams out there, please make sure you don’t become a victim yourself. I’m not in any way saying you shouldn’t get involved with cryptocurrency, but it is essential to always do research and be leery of anyone promising you quick riches if you get involved with a new cryptocurrency or other types of crypto.