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Beware of beautiful persons offering investment advice

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Grumpy:
 The most widely used technique among these operations is known as pig butchering, an allusion to the practice of fattening up a hog before slaughtering it. The approach combines some time-tested elements of fraud — such as gaining trust, in the manner of a Ponzi scheme, by making it easy for marks to extract cash at first — with elements unique to the internet era. It relies on the effectiveness of relationships nurtured on social media and the ease with which currencies can be moved electronically.

Typically, fraudsters ingratiate themselves into online friendships or romantic relationships and then manipulate their targets into depositing larger and larger sums in investment platforms that are controlled by the fraudsters. Once the targets can’t or won’t deposit more, they lose access to their original funds. They’re then informed that the only way to retrieve their cash is by depositing even more money or paying a hefty fee. Needless to say, any additional funds disappear in similar fashion.

http://www.propublica.org/article/human-traffickers-force-victims-into-cyberscamming

Trenchcoat:
There was a crypto scam that went around and probably still is. Articles would appear online stating the vast easy sums that could be made in crypto currency often using purportedly respected prominent people back it - in reality they didn't. Anyhow the article would direct the reader to a crypto trading website. The person would be asked to deposit a £200 - 300 ish to get going. Once staked on the trading platform the person's money would go up in value. This was then the motivation for them to 'inves' more money when asked if they wished to by the sites investment advisors. The investment advisors suggested that they invest a lot more which would likely reap big money for them. So often the person would be hoodwinked into investing thousands of £'s, $'s, etc. Then of course once the money was invested they would miraculously suffer a change in fortune with their investment going down and possibly massive fees added, etc. Long and short their money was swindled. The graphs/figures for the crypto being shown on screen were all fake, they were figures made up by the trading site and manipulated by them. They stated well known crypto, Bitcoin, etc but it was all bs figures. Some were swindled out of tens even hundreds of £,$, etc. Don't know if they ever got their money back. Apparently once the initial money was traded in the platform there was some clause where they couldn't take out the money etc where it went up before they got asked to invest much larger sums.

Obviously those buggered out of many thousands were distraught as they were refusing to give much needed money back that were life savings or saved for retirement, mortgage, etc this that and the other. Kind of a pretty nasty thing to do to people I thought when I heard about it. So e of the comments I read by those conned out of a lot of money you could tell were really distressed so must have been an awful situation for them to have to suffer. How do e people can put others through that and sleep at night I don't know.

Grumpy:
 ‘Romance scam’ woman who stole $2.8m from Holocaust survivor jailed

Peaches Stergo, 36, handed four-year prison term after pleading guilty to charges she swindled 88-year-old man in New York
Ramon Antonio Vargas
Fri 28 Jul 2023 10.38 EDT

A Florida woman who stole nearly $3m from a Holocaust survivor through what authorities described as a romance scam must serve more than four years in prison, a federal judge ruled.

Peaches Stergo, 36, received her sentence on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, after pleading guilty to wire fraud in April. She was arrested in January on charges that she stole $2.8m from an 88-year-old man who, investigators said, fell for a prolonged ruse which ended in 2021.

That year, the victim was among about 24,000 people who collectively lost more than $1bn to so-called romance scammers, often operating under false online personas and gaining the trust of lonely people seeking companionship on dating websites.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/28/florida-woman-romance-scam-jailed

Chelseaboy:
Your definition of beautiful is rather different than mine  ;D

Grumpy:
 One of the benefits of old age is failing vision. 8)

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