1
OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – Cryptocurrency has become a hot investment but here’s a warning about giving your money to the wrong people.
Con artists are hacking social media accounts and pitch a good deal as your friend then they use unsuspecting investors to lure in others who lose money.
An Instagram message from a friend convinced Ariana Castanon to invest $500 in Bitcoins.
“Oh, such a hot craze I want to make fast money. I’m a broke student right now going to nursing school so I’m like ok maybe this will help me out.”
But the message came from scammers pretending to be a trusted person. A Metro Community College cyber security expert suspects how the Instagram account got hacked.
“You need to log in to verify your user name and password otherwise your account will be shut off. If they see anything like that then they need to verify if it’s legitimate or not,” said Gary Sparks, MCC cyber security.
Not only fooled by scammers into paying for Bitcoins by Cash App but Ariana is victimized again.
They even had you record a testimonial before you got the money.
“Yeah, I’m like this is totally wrong. Just invested $500 from my tax refund and got about close to 10K,” said Castanon.
She deleted her post but still gets testimonials from others.
“I invested in Bitcoin money and earn a huge profit,” said the investor.
So be leery of those testimonials.
”Oh yeah, please do.”
But it’s not just words scammers send numbers and graphs to convince victims their investment of $500 is growing so send more money.
”I’m like I can’t do it just give me my money back. And they’re like no we can’t,” said Castanon.
Phony Bitcoin investments are moving to the top of the Better Business Bureau scam chart.
“Already we’ve seen an uptick in the number of reports and number of dollars lost. So as this industry is more and more prevalent, people talk about it more and more, more and more victims are going to be impacted,” said Josh Planos, Better Business Bureau.
A return 20 times more than Ariana’s cash investment in Bitcoins has materialized and her money disappeared. But what came back to her is a motherly warning.
“Fast money is dangerous money,” said Castanon.
A bit of sound advice.
Here are some tips from the Better Business Bureau about Bitcoin investment scams.
Copyright 2022 WOWT. All rights reserved.
