If you get a message from "Elon Musk" asking you for money in exchange for cryptocurrency, delete it.
What you need to know
- People have reportedly lost more than $80 million through cryptocurrency scams.
- $2 million is said to have been lost to people impersonating Elon Musk.
- People between the ages of 20 and 49 appear to be the most likely to fall for these types of scams.
Internet scams are as old as the web itself, and they often evolve based on current trends and headlines. According to a report by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), people have lost over $80 million to cryptocurrency scams since October 2020.
People between the ages of 20 and 49 appear to be the most likely to fall for these types of scams. People in their 20s and 30s are said to have lost more than $17.5 million in investment scams involving cryptocurrency. The total investment scam losses for that age group total $35 million.
These scams come in many forms, but one popular version involves people pretending to be celebrities. The FTC report states that Elon Musk impersonators scammed people out of more than $2 million since last October.
"Scammers also use online dating sites to sweet-talk people into bogus crypto investments in the name of love," reads the report. Sadly, these scams are just another set of lies that people sometimes send through dating apps.
Another way these scams appear is in the form of fake investment opportunities. Scammers reach out asking for people to invest money in exchange for promised large returns. These returns, of course, never arrive. In many instances, there isn't a way to get your money back if you fall for these scams, so it's important to be vigilant.
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