A Man from Germany loses $500,000 in fake Elon Musk crypto scam.
A German man has fallen victim to a Bitcoin scam, losing over $500,000 to a fake Elon Musk giveaway.
Sebastian, not his real name, stated that Elon Musk tweeted, “Dojo 4 Doge” and was curious about what he meant that Musk often tweets about crypto. Seemingly, under the tweet, there was a link to an event that gives away Bitcoin, which he clicked on.
Apparently run by Musk’s Tesla team, the so-called giveaway enticed people to send anything from 0.1 Bitcoin ($5600) to 20 Bitcoin ($1.1 million) with a promise of sending back twice the amount. A common impersonation scam currently in action.
“It Was a Big Fake”
Believing that he was on to a good thing, Sebastian sent 10 Bitcoin, amounting to over $500,000. In the next 20 minutes, Sebastian waited for his Bitcoin wallet’s value to increase.
It was then after the countdown ended that Sebastian realized that he had been scammed. He stated:
“I realized then that it was a big fake. I threw my head onto the sofa cushions and my heart was beating so hard. I thought I’d just thrown away the gamechanger for my family, my early retirement fund, and all the upcoming holidays with my kids.”
Although he tried to get his money back, he then accepted that he was not going to see it ever again.
Crypto Scams Surge
In recent years, crypto scams have been rising and targeting innocent people with false promises that they can earn more if they give a little. Chainalysis showed that scams made up the majority of all crypto-related criminal activity at 54%, in 2020.
Fake crypto giveaways are also gaining traction and often target high-profile pages in the hopes that they will trick people into thinking that it is real. They either achieve this by disguising the account to appear like the real one or hacking into the account. Musk is a figure who has been used before.
But it was in 2020 when hackers stole $118,000 after a short-lived hack enabled them to tweet from celebrity accounts, including that of Bill Gates and Kim Kardashian.
Unfortunately, with interest in crypto continuing to rise during the increasing prices, crypto scams are going to remain. Speaking on this, Whale Alert founder Frank van Weert, said:
“When the Bitcoin price goes up, people also go crazy and a lot of them are new to the market and they want the idea of easy money”
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