Technology

59582 readers

4252 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

728

Elon Musk Fans Are Losing So Much Money to Crypto Scams (gizmodo.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

82 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 120 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 28 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

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.

[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 weeks ago

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.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 2 points 3 weeks ago

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.