People in our state are losing millions of dollars to cryptocurrency scams. I've warned you about this before, but the FBI tells me they're seeing this scam on the rise recently.
โMostly, scammers will contact potential victims through social media, direct text messages, social media platforms, like Facebook, or any of those types. Any way they can get contact information, they're going to use it,โ said Supervisory Special Agent Brian Blauser of the FBI's Denver office.
Many of the scammers use two different cons to trick people: they will say they are an investment manager and ask you to invest, or they will try to build a loving relationship.
"With dating websites, people are obviously looking for a love interest, right, that's the hook of that one," Blauser said. "The investment ones come from direct contact from other media platforms, where they're trying to develop that relationship and say, 'Hey look at me. I've made a lot of money with cryptocurrency. Would you like to invest? It's a hot thing right now and I have the mechanism for you to do it.โ So they try to build that relationship and then obviously get the victim to invest.
"One of the things that scammers use in the scam is that they will allow you to withdraw funds from their wallet that you have accumulated, with all the profits that they have made, and they will give you the false feeling that it is something legitimate because you are allowed to withdraw funds," he added. "But they do it to lure you into a sense of comfort. Typically, the end result is that you, as the victim, will invest even more funds. The scammers can then get away with even more of your life savings or whatever".
The FBI recently shared some examples of the losses of cryptocurrency investment fraud victims in Colorado. A 52-year-old Aurora man lost about $600,000. The FBI said a 61-year-old Denver woman lost about $1.3 million. A Parker couple in their late 40s lost about $1.2 million in a fraud scheme, according to the FBI.
"The red flags are going to be, if you meet someone on an online dating website or other social media platform, and you've never met them in person, then why are you looking to send them money or even your entire savings? life?โ Blauser said.
โObviously, we strongly caution people that if they're on one of those websites to really question the legitimacy of the person on the other end of their computer, or whatever, and why they're asking you to send money. Have you ever met that person in real life, in person, for real, and you question that aspect?
"If the opportunity to invest presents itself to you, by all means do some independent research as to what platform they are trying to steer you to," he added. "Usually you would be able to search and find out that they have, in fact, scammed other people with those websites, so you would get search results that the web platform is, in fact, a scam."
You can report scams or fraud to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at ic3.gov.
