In this regard, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warns that many of these scams took advantage of the lack of knowledge and the prospects of rapid enrichment present among the victims, which affected at least 46,000 people who made the corresponding complaint to the agency.
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- La FTC reveals that USD $1 billion was lost in crypto scams.
- The losses occurred between January 2021 and March 2022.
- It is estimated that each person lost at least $1,000.
- The most common scam a scheme that is designed to dupe people out of cash or crypto. was the promotion of misleading investment offers.
La U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), one of the nation’s top trade regulators, recently revealed that more than $1 billion has been lost in cryptocurrency-related fraud from January 2021 through March of this year.
This was announced by the FTC in a recently published report, alleging that cryptocurrencies have become an increasingly common method employed by fraudsters to lure victims interested in generating dividends from digital digital technologies are these electronic tools that have the ability to generate, store or even process data. currency currency is a medium of exchange that defines value. investments.
The figures reported by the FTC
Reviewing the data in detail, the FTC reports that there were an average of 46,000 complaints filed with the agency during the period, so each person affected is estimated to have lost at least $1,000, although the median loss is about $2,600 per individual.
With respect to the cryptocurrencies captured, the FTC revealed that 70% of the complaints were for the theft of Bitcoin the biggest and most popular cryptocurrency in the world. It is a decentralized digital currency that enables users to make trustless peer-to-peer transactions. (BTC), 10% with the stablecoin a cryptocurrency with extremely low volatility, sometimes used as a means of portfolio diversification. Examples include gold-backed cryptocurrency or fiat-pegged cryptocurrency.Tether (USDT), 9% with Ethereum a decentralized open-source blockchain with smart contracts functionality. (ETH) and the remainder with other assets.
Another interesting aspect is that most of the scam offers that people often fall for come to victims through social media, so scammers often run very lucrative campaigns on platforms such as Facebook e Instagram to reach a wider audience.
On the modus operandi, the FTC indicates:
“Of the reported cryptofraud losses that started on social media, the majority are investment scams. In fact, since 2021, $575 million of all cryptocurrency cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that use cryptographic technologies to secure their operation. fraud losses reported to the FTC were due to fake investment opportunities, far more than any other type of fraud. The stories people share about these scams describe a perfect storm: false promises of easy money coupled with people’s limited crypto understanding and experience.”
Y agrega:
“Investment scammers claim they can quickly and easily make big profits for investors. But those crypto ‘investments’ go straight into a scammer’s wallet. People report that investment websites and apps allow them to visualize their profit growth, but it’s all fake. Some people report making a small ‘test’ withdrawal, just enough to convince them that it’s safe to go all in. When they try to withdraw all the money, they are told to send more cryptocurrencies for (fake) fees to allow them to withdraw the capital, and they don’t… in the end they don’t even get a part of the money back.”
The agency also warns of scams “romantic”, where a person with whom some kind of affective affinity is achieved happens to promote investment strategies that are apparently successful, but when the capital capital is most commonly defined as the large sum of money you would use to invest. is given to them to manage, they disappear and leave the victim without their funds.
And finally there are those phishing when a scammer pretends to be a trusted institution or person to trick people into revealing sensitive information such as Social Security numbers, passwords, banking details, etc., often through a malware link disguised as legitimate. scams, where they create clone sites to other official ones to steal the victims’ data and steal the cryptocurrencies on the original portals.
Another interesting fact has to do with the age range of the victims. Here the FTC indicates that victims are mainly between the ages of 20 and 49, being more than three times more likely to be affected by the aforementioned cases. They also indicate that there are scammed people of older ages, but it is not common to find people in this range who own cryptocurrencies.
Avoid being the victim
The data reported by the FTC are simply a reflection of how American society is affected by people who seek to defraud with cryptocurrencies, being unfortunately more victims in other latitudes where there is less legal and / or regulatory clarity to operate with these assets.
As mentioned in other posts associated with scams, again, we stress the importance of being properly informed about the functioning of these technologies and their associated markets. . The lack of knowledge on the subject, the volatility a statistical measure of dispersion of returns, measured by using the standard deviation or variance between returns from that same security or market index. of prices and the technological properties of cryptocurrencies open space for organizations to take advantage and end up deceiving people interested in negotiating with these assets.
Therefore, the invitation is to be very careful and take the time to learn more about these issues. This will ensure that users have the tools to identify misleading offers and bad actors, so they can distance themselves and keep their capital safe.
- UK police warn: Criminals steal mobile phones to get their hands on victims’ cryptocurrencies
- Venezuelan authorities warn of phishing scams via Whatsapp to steal cryptocurrencies
- Uruguayan government joins campaign against crypto and fakecoins scams
Source: CoinDesk , FTC (1) (2)
Version by Angel Di Matteo / DiarioBitcoin
Imagen de Unsplash
