A woman who was caught up in the recent Dogecoin hype said that she lost more than $12,000 because of a social media scam.
What is the Dogecoin scam?
Some Dogecoin investors found themselves victims of a scam related to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live” earlier in May.
Per Business Insider, there was a report from TRM Labs that found scammers hosted YouTube livestreams of Musk’s appearance on “SNL.”
The scammers then included links to websites with advertisements that said people could double their investment of cryptocurrency, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
- “Elon Musk has devoted 500,000,000 DOGE to be distributed to all DOGE holders. Anybody can get some, just visit the website,” one of the livestreams messages read, according to Business Insider.
Basically, users were asked to send their dogecoins or cryptocurrencies to the website and double their money. This proved to be a scam. The leader of the scam stole 9.7 million dogecoins worth $5 million, Business Insider reports.
What happened to people who got scammed?
Julie Bushnell, a woman from the U.K., told BBC News that she lost £9,000 (or about $12,000) in the scam. She said she saw a story on a fake BBC News website that said she could double her money if she invested her cryptocurrency into that website.
She said she spotted a note on a website that said Musk would double her investment into Bitcoin. So she dropped £9,000 (or about $12,000) into the website because she thought it would happen.
- “They have robbed me of my dignity, self-respect, self-worth and strength. They have sucked all the goodness of life out of me.
- “I want to raise awareness of this scam so it doesn’t happen to other vulnerable people.”
- “It has affected me massively. I wish I could have that time back — go in a time machine and not make those couple of clicks.”