While trying to double his fortune, he lost TL 4,200,000 to Bitcoin scammers overnight. Here's the mind-blowing story of '#Sebastian.
🔽🔽🔽🔽
Cryptocurrencies, especially #Bitcoin The astronomical rise of the city has caused many dreams of making quick money this way. As a matter of fact, many people have become quite wealthy people today thanks to the Bitcoins they bought for very small prices. On the other side of the coin, there are those who are scammed when they say that I will be rich in Bitcoin.
Speaking to BBC reporter Joe Tidy, the person named "Sebastian" is one of them. Sebastian, telling what happened to him on the condition that his real name is not disclosed, lost about 4.200.000 Turkish lira at today's exchange rate to the "Elon Musk distributes Bitcoin" counter. What he tells is an example for everyone who reads it. Here are the remarkable headlines from the news ...
It was a very ordinary evening for Sebastian. After watching TV together, his wife went to sleep. He was browsing the internet with his phone, too.
Meanwhile, a notification came from Twitter. The tweet shared from Elon Musk's account was called "Dojo 4 Doge".
Sebastian wondered what this strange text meant. When he went down a little bit, he saw another tweet: "There was a link to the page of a new event in the tweet. I clicked and I saw that Musk was distributing Bitcoins."
The site looked very professional, giving the impression that Bitcoin distribution has been going on for a while. There was a countdown timer, and the site offered attendees to double their money.
It seems that the competition was brought to life by Elon Musk's Tesla team. It was stated that they could send people between 0.1 and 20 Bitcoins (approximately 41,000 to 8,400,000 Turkish liras), and they would receive twice as much money in return.
#Crypto plays like a toy What does Musk want to do
He plays with cryptocurrencies like a toy! What does Musk want to do?
🧐VAPORATED WITHIN 10 BITCOIN MINUTES🧐
Sebastian turned to Twitter again, double-checking the blue tick next to Elon Musk's name. When he was convinced that the account was real, he began to wonder whether I should send 5 Bitcoins or 10:
"I said this is absolutely true and I thought I should play at the most. So I sent 10 Bitcoins."
Meanwhile the stopwatch continued to count down. 20 minutes passed. Sebastian expects the amount in his Bitcoin wallet to increase, refreshing a page every 30 seconds at his home in Cologne, Germany.
He saw that Musk had sent another encrypted message and was relieved that the work he had entered was reliable. But as the stopwatch counted down, Sebastian realized the truth:
"It was a huge trick. I was hitting my head on the cushions of the sofa and my heart was in my mouth. I thought I was throwing away the money that would change my life for my family, my early retirement savings, and all the holidays we will have with our children in the future."
"I went upstairs, sat on the edge of the bed and woke my wife. I told her I really made a very, very big mistake."
Sebastian didn't sleep that night. Until the morning, the fraudulent sent emails to the site and tried to get at least some of his money back by posting tweets on the fake Elon Musk account. On the other hand, however, he began to realize that the money was gone forever.
✴️FRAUD REACHED THE RECORD LEVEL IN 2021✴️
At that time, experts at #Whale #Alert, who was in Amsterdam, 214 kilometers from Sebastian, were also watching in horror as 10 Bitcoins were converted into cash anonymously a few days after they were transferred from account to account.
Whale Alert is a #blockchain analytics company. Company analysts say that although they have warned officials against such scams for a long time, nothing has been done.
Analysts record the entire movement of cryptocurrencies in real time, accessible to everyone. Thus, they can follow trends in cryptocurrencies and track them.
Identifying the Bitcoin addresses and wallets that manage the stalls as Sebastian fell, the analysts also managed to trace the money accumulated there. Sebastian's 10 Bitcoins went down in history as the largest amount lost in such a move.
The researchers said the total amounts defrauded reached record levels in 2021.
The gangs, which defrauded a total of 16 million in 2020, have already made more than $ 18 million in the first three months of 2021.
The number of victims is also growing rapidly. While 10,500 people were victims of such scams in 2020, in 2021 this number reached 5,600.
🚨WHY ARE THEY SO SUCCESSFUL?🚨
Founder of Whale Alert Franc It is difficult to say why such machines are still relevant, as well as why their success has increased, van Weert said.
Because the fraudsters' techniques have not changed since 2018. They create fake Twitter accounts similar to those of people like Elon Musk or billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya. They post a link to the scam site by waiting for real accounts to tweet and pasting a response underneath. Thanks to this tweet linked to the original tweet, it seems like Musk supported the distribution of Bitcoin. Although not as popular as Twitter, similar fraud attempts are on the agenda on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
Van Weert said, "We do not have data to explain, but this may be related to the general state of the Bitcoin market. When the Bitcoin price rises, people go crazy. Most of them do not know the market and want to make money easily," he said, adding that it is quite reasonable for a big cryptocurrency supporter like Musk to distribute Bitcoin. .
"It's not uneducated people who fell into this trap. We've received lots of emails from people who lost Bitcoin, and they were all deceptive people," said Van Weert, who also said that some major cryptocurrency sites distributing Bitcoin for advertising purposes may have confused people.
↪️"PLAYING BITCOIN IS MORE EASY"
Turning to Sebastian, three weeks have passed since the incident, but his embarrassment did not decrease. "I am not normally the biggest idiot in the world," Sebastian said in an e-mail to the BBC.
"I am an educated person, I have a good job in marketing in the IT industry. I live with my wife and two children. We have a beautiful house with a garden. That evening my greed got hold of me and it blinded me."
40,000 for the first time in Bitcoin in 2017 dollarStating that he made a deposit, Sebastian, who is 42 years old, received a reward for his investment in a short time. Then, over the years, 10 Bitcoins to almost 500,000euro He watched it reach its value with excitement.
Today, he wants international officials to take action against fraudsters and the owners of Bitcoin markets to play an active role in support:
"It is extremely easy to steal bitcoin. All platforms should know their customers and know if a wallet address is used by thieves."
The biggest fraud ever took place in July 2020. The thieves who hacked the Twitter accounts of Bill Gates, Kim Kardashian-West and Elon Musk stole $ 118,000 worth of Bitcoin. 3 people were arrested in connection with the incident.