I remember scratching my head when I saw how many viewers ‘fast food reviews’ on YouTube were pulling back in the day. Maybe they are still going strong? I wouldn’t spend my time on that kind of research, but still – fidget spinner reviews, unboxing of cat toys, Reddit comments narrated by a free text-to-voice AI.
There’s a lot of bizarre content out there on YouTube… This proves one thing to me. There is an audience for basically everything under the sun. But you know what never fails to attract the attention of the masses?
Drama.
There’s even this saying – ‘it’s like watching a train wreck. You don’t want to stare but you can’t look away’. People can’t suppress their morbid curiosity when something awful happens, preferably to someone else. They are transfixed, hypnotized.
Given that, I think it is only fitting that today I will review one of the nastiest types of ‘crypto’ scams I have read about recently.
I’ll Call It A ‘Triple Whammy SCAMburger’
Because every detective case needs a catchy name!
So let’s set up a scene. This is not entirely a work of fiction though, the story I’m about to lay on thee is based on real-life events. And we’re reviewing it to educate the readers of Blockleaders, so they would be able to keep their pockets safe and their hearts intact.
Yes, their hearts. Because this is the hybrid type of scam! Light, camera, action.
Act number one…
Cryptography stories often have two main characters called Bob and Alice. Let’s flip the letters and genders for this tale and get Alan and Barbara involved instead.
So here’s Alan, sitting in his room, browsing Facebook like the sad little dude that he is. Suddenly, he gets a friend request from Barbara, a good-looking woman with a nice career in finance. She’s perfect – she has a lust for life, she’s always down for a laugh and she even has a cute golden retriever.
‘Perhaps she’s the one’ thinks Alan, after exchanging messages with a total stranger for a few days.
Act number two…
Barbara is totally into Alan, unlike the girls in this sigh-inducing simulation you call ‘real life’.
And she wants our hero to get into crypto trading so he could become one loaded mofo. What’s her motivation? Clearly, so they could make out like bandits and make love on six out of seven continents when the weather gets better.
This doesn’t sound fishy at all – she’s been a trader for 10 years and worked for some of the biggest financial companies in the world, like Morgan Stanley, uh… Goldman Sachs… *checks notes* Credit Suisse?
She tells Alan that if he follows her advice on when to buy and sell, he can make thousands every week!
Act number three…
To taste this elusive ‘financial independence’ our hero just needs to make an account on a trading platform called metapro-fx[.]com.
Everyone knows that you have to spend some money to make some money, so it makes sense for Alan to invest 3K at first, just as a warm-up. Dabble a bit, and see how the water is there. And would you believe it, Barbara knows her shit, and Alan makes 20K within the first two or three days.
Life is good… But it can get even better!!
Chuck in 12K then. Why only 12? Because Alan is a sensible man, and he only uses the money he made on his first investment, having a healthy 8K sitting on the sidelines.
BAM. 100K profit within a week, easy as. Now we’re cooking! And that sounds like enough money to rent a resort in Cancun with the woman of his dreams. Logically, Alan wants to withdraw his cheese from the platform, and load up his bank account. Al is a made man now!
Here Comes The Kick In The Nads
Alan is on top of the world, but the theater play he has been watching from the first row is starting to rear its ugly head. The makeup on Barbara is wearing thin, her Canadian accent is waning slightly. She’s still pretty in her profile picture, and that will always stay that way.
When Alan presses the buttons to withdraw the 100K of USDT, he needs to pay a 5% fee upfront before he can withdraw such a hefty sum of money. Doesn’t sound right, but he has enough money, so there’s no sense in getting greedy. Spread the wealth!
But wait, all his money is there, lying in the ‘investment account’. He converted all of his dirty fiat already, so it looks like our hero will need to get a little hustle going, or at least ask his friends for a little assistance.
Alan calls his best friend. Let’s call him Barry.
Alan: Barry, I don’t have much time to explain, but I’ve met this amazing woman, Barbara, who got a quick buck on crypto and I’m currently planning this amazing trip to Cancun. All I need is a measly 5K to get the money out of the exchange, and I’ll return you double that!
Barry: Al, you sound deranged. Have you been drinking again? This all sounds very sketchy.
Alan: No Barry, you asshole, this is totally legit. Baraba is great, she lives in Canada, she loves me, and you’re just jealous that I pulled the bag of my life!!
Barry: Bro, you’re not thinking. This is too good to be true, come on now!
Alan: REEEEEE, EF U!!1 HATER!
Alan throws the phone out of the window and kicks a chair across the room. In moments like these, you find out if you really have friends. Clearly, Alan has a good one, because Barry can see right through the BS.
‘Detective Dénouement’ Mode Activated
You don’t have to be Hercule Poirot to untangle this mystery, but just in case, let’s review it from the beginning.
- An unknown woman messages you out of the blue on the interwebz. Huge red flag! All seasoned investigators know that there’re no girls on the Internet. The men are boys, the women are men, and the children are FBI agents.
- Ok, there are a few women on the internet. Here’s a pro tip though – if they’re real, they will probably have more than one picture of them. Especially in the crypto space, where ‘supermodels’ are sliding into your DMs every five seconds, but still have the time to make a mad bank. A bit of common sense, anyone? You’re most likely talking to some guy in a call center somewhere in the world who literally just typed ‘hey bb u wanna crypto together? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)’ to get you hooked.
- If you want to try investing signals, sure, have at it, and burn some money. But before you plunge into the ocean head first, make sure it’s not a little lake. Size up the ‘investing platform’ you are going to try and think twice if what you’re seeing is an actual website used by people with brains. In this case, the site was fake. Barbara gave Alan signals that work only on their own website and trading program.
- Why would anyone ever need to pay a withdrawal fee that can’t be deducted from the total withdrawal? If you ever encounter something similar, chances are you’re getting fed fake profits and all that money is dust.
- If the person smartens up to the scheme, they will likely try to get their money back. Now driven by anger, the victim would be very susceptible to a ‘recovery scam’, a widespread practice where someone offers to get money back for a small upfront payment. Needless to say, those aren’t real.
Most of the readers would probably roll their eyes and whisper that they would never be this gullible, and that they can’t be fooled that easily, but that
’s only clear when you’re looking at this scenario as a spectator.
There are three undeniable truths in life that scammers know very well:
- People are greedy
- People are stupid
- Men are horny
You put these three things together, and yeah, you get a ‘Triple Whammy SCAMburger’.
Of course, not everyone will be fit to consume this tasty burger, as scammers only exploit overly-trusting and dull-minded patients. That’s why phishing emails arrive with so many mistakes – to filter out only the best candidates.
And you know, this scam has a code name too. ‘Pig Butchering’. I hope you understand why I didn’t include it in the title of the blog post, it’s just not ‘family friendly’ for my taste. Plus, Samuel L. Jackson, the guy from the hero image, doesn’t eat pork (cause a pig is a filthy animal), but he does like a tasty burger.
You can read more about this scam online, it’s a truly fascinating topic to research. Spread the awareness to your friends if you think they are in the ‘risk zone’. Better to be safe than sorry!