Robocalls are the worst, but an even sketchier call is back with a vengeance, scamming people out hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The FBI calls it the Chinese Embassy Scam, and it comes in as a call in Chinese claiming to be from the Chinese consul…
Category: Scam
‘The Boy Band Con’ struggles to hide the hatred it has for its subject
The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story isn’t so much a Ponzi scheme documentary as it is a bitter obituary for a now-deceased conman, written by the people who hated him most.
Viewers unfamiliar with the criminal enterprises of fraudster Lou Pearlm…
Guy scams his way into a free Outback steak by pretending his Valentine stood him up
A lonely guy pretended to get stood up on a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner at Outback, wasted hours of a well-meaning but clueless server’s night, and went home with a free meal. Outback even offered him another free meal — provided he bring a real date.
27-year-old Stephen Bosner spent Feb. 14 on a mission: To bring home a free steak. He made a reservation for two at America’s favorite Australian-ish fast casual steakhouse, donned a suit jacket, and packed some tissue paper into plastic bag as a makeshift “gift.” He walked in, dateless, and told the host that the 10-minute wait was fine because
“she said she was running a bit late anyway.” Read more…
More about Twitter, Valentine S Day, Scam, Culture, and Web Culture
View More Guy scams his way into a free Outback steak by pretending his Valentine stood him upAn elaborate Instagram hoax is scamming influencers after luring them to Indonesia
A scam is making the rounds in the Instagram influencer and photography community, and it’s so elaborate that you can understand why people fell for it.
Someone purporting to be Wendi Deng Murdoch, the former wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, is fl…
Netflix users, don’t fall for this phishing scam
Received a strange email, Netflix subscribers? Don’t fall for it, it’s likely a scam.
Following similar scams in September and October 2017, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a warning for a reported email phishing scam targeted at N…
Fyre Festival founder sentenced to 6 years in prison
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Remember the disaster that was the Fyre Festival? Well, its founder, 26-year-old Billy McFarland, was sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to pay $26,182,386 on Thursday.
McFarland was found guilty of multiple counts of fraud that included the Fyre Festival debacle in which he scammed his investors out of $26 million, according to a Vice News report.
SEE ALSO: The best scammers of 2018, ranked
Hundreds of millennials traveled to the Bahamas in April of 2017 to attend the Fyre Festival. Once there, it was clear they had been duped out of the experience promised by McFarland and his numerous celebrity endorsers—Ja Rule, Bella Hadid, Kylie Jenner—as a part of his elaborate ticket scam. Tickets to the festival were sold for $450 to over $12,000. Read more…
More about Scam, Fyre Festival, Culture, and Web Culture
22-year-old man loses $24 million worth of bitcoins in apparent scam
Bitcoin is a risky investment, but for one young crypto millionaire, traditional forms of investing into assets such a casino and company stock turned out to be even riskier.
According to Bangkok Post, a 22-year-old Finnish man called Aarni Ota…
Twitter will lock your account if you pretend to be Elon Musk
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If there’s another Elon Musk out there, it just became a little bit harder for them to join Twitter.
Thanks to cryptocurrency scams, Twitter is now automatically locking any account set up on the website that makes its display name “Elon Musk.” Users who change their display name to Musk’s will be greeted by a Twitter locked account page requiring the user to solve a Google reCAPTCHA as well as verify their phone number.
Twitter is taking this step after a barrage of cryptocurrency “giveaway” scams have inundated its platform. Read more…
More about Twitter, Elon Musk, Social Media, Scam, and Cryptocurrency
View More Twitter will lock your account if you pretend to be Elon MuskSomeone is using a cancelled TV show’s verified Twitter account to promote a cryptocurrency scam
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An apparent hacker has been using a discontinued TV show’s verified Twitter account to promote a cryptocurrency scam.
A nefarious Twitter user appears to have gained access to the official @AlmostHumanFOX account, and has been tweeting from the account since the beginning of the month.
During this time, the account, which is followed by almost 19,000 Twitter users, has been promoting cryptocurrency “giveaways” and impersonating Justin Sun, the influential founder and CEO of Chinese blockchain company TRON.
As TheNextWeb points out, cryptocurrency “giveaway” scams have plagued Twitter in recent months. Even Elon Musk has complained about it. Basically, a scammer attempts to convince Twitter users through faked accounts to send them a small amount of cryptocurrency and in turn, the scammer promises to send them back crypto in tenfold. The scammer then takes the original crypto deposit and runs, never returning any of the currency. Read more…
More about Twitter, Hacking, Fox, Scam, and Cryptocurrency
A UK journalist is suing Facebook for defamation over fake ads
A high-profile British journalist and entrepreneur has announced he plans to sue Facebook for defamation over fake adverts published on the site.
SEE ALSO: It’s Not Just Facebook: They’re All Watching You
Martin Lewis, founder of consumer help …
Even Steve Wozniak said he fell victim to a bitcoin scam
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Like a growing number of people, Steve Wozniak has been stung by a cryptocurrency scam.
The Apple co-founder told the Economic Times of India that he had seven bitcoins stolen from him via fraud.
While there’s been plenty of attention on pesky fake Elon Musk cryptocurrency scams, the Woz was swindled by an arguably antiquated tactic: A stolen credit card.
“The blockchain identifies who has bitcoins… that doesn’t mean there can’t be fraud though,” he told the newspaper.
“I had seven bitcoins stolen from me through fraud. Somebody bought them from me online through a credit card and they cancelled the credit card payment. It was that easy! And it was from a stolen credit card number so you can never get it back.” Read more…
More about Tech, Bitcoin, Steve Wozniak, Scam, and Cryptocurrency
View More Even Steve Wozniak said he fell victim to a bitcoin scamTether and Bitfinex subpoenaed by the CFTC as Bitcoin drops below $10K
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The price of Bitcoin plummeted below $10,000 Tuesday morning as news broke that The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission had subpoenaed Tether and Bitfinex, a so-called stablecoin cryptocurrency and one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, respectively.
First reported by Bloomberg, news of last week’s subpoenas follows allegations from critics of Tether that the digital currency may not in fact be backed on a one-to-one basis with U.S. dollars as its founders claim.
“We routinely receive legal process from law enforcement agents and regulators conducting investigations,” Bitfinex and Tether said in a statement published by Bloomberg. “It is our policy not to comment on any such requests.” Read more…
More about Bitcoin, Scam, Bitfinex, Cryptocurrencies, and Tether
View More Tether and Bitfinex subpoenaed by the CFTC as Bitcoin drops below $10K