Elon Musk impersonators have made over $2 million in cryptocurrency scams in recent years, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The FTC announced the news Monday via a report as it shared that people have lost over $80 million total in such investment scams since October of last year, receiving 7,000 complaints since October with the median loss being at $1,900 per person.
“Cryptocurrency enthusiasts congregate online to chat about their shared passion. And with bitcoin’s value soaring in recent months, new investors may be eager to get in on the action,” a report, which was initially reported by The Daily Dot, read. “All of this plays right into the hands of scammers. They blend into the scene with claims that can seem plausible because cryptocurrency is unknown territory for many people.”
The FTC said that consumers are getting scammed in a “variety of forms,” with the Musk frauds becoming more common than ever before.
“There are ‘giveaway scams,’ supposedly sponsored by celebrities or other known figures in the cryptocurrency space, that promise to immediately multiply the cryptocurrency you send,” the report read. “But, people report that they discovered later that they’d simply sent their crypto directly to a scammer’s wallet.”
But this doesn’t come as a major surprise after the Twitter hack and Bitcoin scam last year that temporarily took over the accounts of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Musk himself. A 17-year-old was eventually arrested for the crime.
