Crypto is very confusing to a lot of people according to Bryan Oglesby, a spokesperson for the Better Business Bureau (BBB). This is exactly why crypto has become such a powerful tool in ongoing fraud attempts and scams that regularly permeate the financial space.
Bryan Oglesby On Crypto: It’s Rather Confusing
In a recent statement, Oglesby claimed:
Cryptocurrency is very confusing to a lot of consumers. Because there is all this confusion, scammers take this as an opportunity to take advantage of consumers.
Not long ago, the BBB issued a report claiming that crypto scams have become extremely dangerous and are now the second most common in the world. In addition, they tend to steal more money from individuals. While the traditional scam usually leads to losses of a few hundred dollars, people who fall victim to crypto scams usually wind up losing at least $1,000 on average.
Oglesby also says many scammers and fraudsters are utilizing platforms like Facebook Messenger and Instagram to steal digital funds from their targets. They will often pose as family members or known friends and then send requests to get acquainted and connect online. After a while, the person tells the victim to invest in a phony crypto product. This is usually one that the scammer controls.
Once a person invests their money, they are privy to gains in their portfolios, but it’s not uncommon that once they seek to make a withdrawal, they receive a notice claiming they need to pay large fees. This is the biggest tactic many of these scammers are using, and it happened not too long ago to a woman named Natasha Reyna.
She was approached by someone on social media posing as a good friend of hers. From there, they began pumping up a new crypto product that Reyna eventually felt compelled to invest in. She put $200 into the project and slowly started to see her investment gaining traction. She got excited and sought to make a withdrawal one day… only to discover that she had to pay more to do so.
Another situation like this popped up in the 34217-zip code, which is Manatee County in Florida. A person reported losing more than $500 to a similar scam. That’s more than twice what Reyna lost. The victim ultimately reported the incident to the BBB on April 4 of this year, something that anyone who feels they were the victim of such fraud is advised to do.
Transactions Are Usually Irreversible
Oglesby commented that one of the big problems with crypto fraud is that it is usually irreversible. He comments:
Transactions are not reversible with bitcoin. It’s hard to trace the money. When it’s a scam, the scammer is usually overseas and it’s hard to track them down.
