The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says scammers have become so enthralled with the results of using cryptocurrency as a way to get people’s money that it now accounts for one in every four dollars lost. The agency recently found that the median amount that someone’s been tricked out of using Bitcoin, Tether, and Ether is $2,600.
For many, the world of cryptocurrency is probably an enigma. The reason many scammers are drawn to it is that there is no bank or centralized authority to flag a suspicious transaction and stop it from being completed. Unlike a credit card charge, cryptocurrency transfers can not be reversed.
Many scammers are doubling down by piggybacking their ruse on social media. The FTC says nearly 50% of people who lost cryptocurrency to a scammer since 2021 were tricked by a simple post, ad, or message on a social media platform
Most of the losses that people reported from social media were investment scams. The agency said $575 million of cryptocurrency scam losses were about bogus investment opportunities since 2021. That’s far more than any other fraud type.
“The stories people share about these scams describe a perfect storm: false promises of easy money paired with people’s limited crypto understanding and experience. Investment scammers claim they can quickly and easily get huge returns for investors. But those crypto ‘investments’ go straight to a scammer’s wallet,” the agency wrote in its…
