Phony Billionaires on Facebook Are Scamming Americans Out of Their Life Savings | Hacker News Reader

Phony Billionaires on Facebook Are Scamming Americans Out of Their Life Savings

wsj.com

14 pointserehweb8 comments

At some point though we do need to get people to stop just doing shit because a post on Facebook tells them to. Sure impersonating someone to defraud people should be a crime, but also the fact that people think "random page on Facebook[or whatever]" is sound financial advice is just a common sense issue. If someone approaches you on the street and tells you "give me money and I'll invest it to make you lots more" they'll ignore them, if some random on the street says "you should buy X because you'll get rich" they'll ignore them.

Falling for these scams is a common sense issue.

>One ad promised annual returns of 125%, another a 25% return in a week

I have as much sympathy for people who fall for this as I do for people who believe the pills sold in sketchy gas station that also sell ninja throwing stars will "make them a tiger in bed".

I don't even know if better education will work because "anyone promising returns in any amount is a lying scammer" is pretty common and doesn't seem to work.

This is a problem with no solution in sight. I wonder how common scams were in the past, with no internet. Were people more jaded and less trusting back in the day?

I've seen first-hand a senior citizen getting scammed through a fake investment platform. It was crypto related, but had non-crypto "investments" as well. When I told him in no uncertain terms that it was a scam, his response was "well maybe you're right, but if you don't take risks, you'll never earn anything". Last I heard from him was that some russians had convinced him to install AnyDesk and drained his bank account (repeatedly, for several months in a row). What's even funnier is that in order to finance his "investments" he took a loan from a "bank" which asked him to send a smaller sum as confirmation before receiving the loan, and of course the "bank" was never heard from again. I guess in a way he actually saved money by not getting a real loan and having to repay later.

It's absolutely hopeless, and as much as I dislike the scammers, at some point it becomes hard to not blame the victim.

I'm sorry, but no, these aren't sophisticated, at all. Those quotes are from embarrassed victims who failed to see countless red flags.

Like, if you're don't hear LOUD ALARM BELLS especially at that Cathie Wood one, I I don't know what to tell you, other than you're not as smart as you think you are. It's so transparently scummy/scammy/catering to the reader's sense of smugness. I'm sorry, but you're not smart if you (1) don't realize the bait (2) fall for an otherwise obvious scam anyway.

I can't. There's basic thinking issues at play, multiple of them. At different times. Compounding. So stupid!

also, LOL at them using Cathie Wood, it's absolutely like scam emails, they're auto-filtering out the people with basic common sense or taste in financial advice, ha.