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so focused on illegals they are prime for these scams.
I didnt include all the stories but paying 25K for security clearance to get to your funds is just…
wouldnt be surprised if Trump is in on the crypto scams.
https://gizmodo.com/truth-social-users-are-losing-ridiculous-sums-of-money-to-scams-2000506604
Donald Trump launched Truth Social in 2022 as a social media platform where the MAGA faithful could hang out without any liberals to spoil the fun. The biggest selling point? It was the only place where Trump was personally posting his unhinged screeds after getting banned from Twitter over that whole coup attempt. But new documents obtained by Gizmodo reveal the site has also been flooded with scammers who are swindling users out of enormous sums of money. We’re talking about people who’ve lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in a relatively short period of time.
Gizmodo submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FTC for consumer complaints about Truth Social filed in the past two years. The complaints to the federal agency include some stories from people who’ve been banned from the site (unjustly, they claim) and others who say they got signed up for mailing lists they never wanted to be on in the first place. But the complaints about scams are the most shocking, if only because there are such large sums of money involved. And we’re publishing a sample of the full, unedited complaints below.
One person who says they lost $170,000 explained they were initially scammed on a different site but met someone on Truth Social who claimed they could help get their money back. That turned out to be a scam as well. But more often, the victims are first contacted on Truth Social before being told to take the conversation somewhere else, like WhatsApp. Truth Social seems to be a target-rich environment for people who are easy to con.
Another thing that sticks out about the complaints filed with the FTC is that they seem to involve plenty of elderly fans of Donald Trump. One 72-year-old man who reported chatting with a “beautiful” woman on the site was scammed out of $21,000. His complaint ends with, “I haven’t told my wife about this blunder. She still doesn’t know about it.” Another person in their 60s said they lost $500,000 to scammers on Truth Social and seemed to think there might be a way they could get their money back, telling the FTC, “After I pay this they promise there will be no more fees and I will receive my assets.”
Many of the people don’t seem to understand that any amount they might see on their end that’s supposedly sitting in an account is completely fictitious. The scammers will often give the victim access to a website that shows a certain dollar amount in “their” account but the money is long gone. It’s not sitting there for them to withdraw. It’s simply a ruse for the victim to see their imaginary money grow, luring them into “investing” even more. There are many different kinds of scams on social media sites. We recently explored the dating app sextortion scams on Ashley Madison and sextortion that’s happening on Grindr with FOIA requests to the FTC. But the scams happening on Truth Social appear to be most commonly pig butchering, a method of gaining someone’s trust while getting them to give you increasingly large amounts of money, all while making it seem like the victim is making wise investments. Truth Social, with its older user base of Boomers who have access to a lifetime of savings and retirement accounts, appears to be an attractive target for scammers running pig butchering operations.
The complaints below were redacted by the FTC before being released to Gizmodo, making it impossible for us to verify each individual claim. But we believe the patterns that emerge give some degree of confidence that these are real scams. And publishing these stories has the potential to help other people, identify when to be skeptical after they’ve met someone online, no matter the social media platform. To be clear, this doesn’t just happen on Truth Social. Pig butchering is a scam that’s happening across the internet, from Facebook to Instagram, and it’s possible for even intelligent people to get swindled. But if you were a scammer, who would you think might be the easiest marks on the planet, ready to believe anything a conman might say? If you said Trump supporters, you’re clearly not alone.
Gizmodo tried to contact representatives from Truth Social on Thursday, but after sending an email to the address listed for media organizations on the social media platform’s website, it bounced back as undeliverable. After finally getting a hold of someone at something called the MZ Group, which works for Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of Truth Social, the representative said they have “a robust team that actively searches for scams and bots on the platform and bans them as soon as they’re found.” Follow-up questions did not receive a response.
1) “I paid a fee to get past this security risk.”
Minnesota Total reported loss: $500,000 Age: 60-64 April 2024 Met on truth social. She said she was in the business of trading cryptocurrency. Got me to trade with a company called coincorner based in england. Money was sent via bank transfer to a crypto wallet then to coincorner. When i tried to withdraw money, i had to pay taxes up front. then site said i had one too many numbers in my bank account number and now a security risk. I paid a fee to get past this security risk. Then i was told i could not transfer my money by wire and i would be issued a check instead. Then they had a minimum amount they would write a check for and needed to fund up my account to reach the minimum. After this, i filed a report with the sheriffs office in Hibbing mn. Case. Later i filed an online report with the FBI. On march 30 an ph contacted me. Says she is an accountant with coincorner and trying to get my funds returned to me. She tells me she is in oregon, but works for coincorner. My assets are now in a bank called Top City choice Bank. I need to pay a withdrawal charge of $10,000 wire transfer to . Rte acct . Wells fargo. new orleans la 70128. I made this payment. Then a COT cost of transfer fee $15,000. Same wire destination after that a bank account activation fee $25,000. Same wire address. Now they want $70,000 for an authentication transfer pin. After i pay this they promise there will be no more fees and i will receive my assets. This is unpaid. I have also texted with a guy that claims to be one of the 4 founders of coincorner, Phil Collins ph. . This is where i am at today. . Ph
**************** TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*
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