'All our dreams are gone': Ottawa couple scammed out of $177k
'All our dreams are gone': Ottawa couple scammed out of $177k
An Ottawa couple is sharing their story of falling prey to fraudsters pushing phony investments to try and help others avoid the same fate.
It all started with an online video of what appeared to be Elon Musk promoting a new investment opportunity...
“I started telling my friends and they were all saying ‘oh, that’s a fraud. Don’t do that.’ But it was so real. I mean, you could see it all online and we checked them out through the better business bureau in England, and their website looked all so legitimate.”
Working with real geniuses here.
I have a friend that fell for a scam. They actually called me up to ask for money for "insurance" on a dog they had never seen and wanted to get. I told them it was a scam and that there was no way I was going to lend them the money. They said goodbye, called somebody else up for money, and got it. In the end they got scammed and didn't get a dog like I told them.
… video of what appeared to be Elon Musk promoting a new investment opportunity.
I mean, that right there should’ve been their first red flag that something was wrong.
Why would that be their red flag? Deep fakes fool a lot of people, especially older people who don't even know they exist.
Because he's the last person anyone should trust for investment advice.
If someone tells you that they are going to make you a millionaire, it's a scam. If Elon Musk tells you that HE is going to make you a millionaire, you're an idiot. Elon Musk is a billionaire, he doesn't need you to get a line of credit too small to buy him a car.
@veeesix What became of well-established adage that nobody is going to just offer you free money?
The format of the scam has changed a bit, but the fundamentals remain... electronic or old school paper, this should have been obvious as a scam.
Someone, 80 right now, was 50 when commercial internet became popular, & late-30's / early 40's when computers came to workplaces. This stuff is decades old, and everyone has had decades to learn.
I feel sorry for this victim, but it was preventable.
Totally preventable. Setting aside tech literacy for even a moment, they fully ignored the warnings their friends gave them and went along anyway.
It’s their own greed that got them in this situation. Fuck these scammers but if they weren’t so goddamn greedy they wouldn’t even be on the lookout for these schemes. Why even take so much risk when you are already retired? That dream home should stay a dream if you can’t afford it already after you retire.
I had likely this very video served to me on Monday by YouTube. It pretended to be and ABC News interview with Elon. It was clearly an AI generated video and matching audio. I reported it to YouTube for all the good that'll do. YouTube should be partially liable for running ads like this on their platform!
I always wonder if when I'm older I'll somehow just lose what seems like common sense to me today.
When life beats your ass time and time again, you don't think with logic, you think with hope.
“I started telling my friends and they were all saying ‘oh, that’s a fraud. Don’t do that.’ But it was so real. I mean, you could see it all online and we checked them out through the better business bureau in England, and their website looked all so legitimate.”
They gave someone they had only known for a few months remote access to their laptop and their bank accounts? Come on.
It's hard to feel sympathetic for people who should know the absolute basics of internet and bank account security. It's not 2005 anymore.
Even ignored their friends who told them it was a scam.
But I like Scotia bank saying no clear evidence of fraud, lol. Ok
I am very grateful that my 76 year old mother is savvy enough to ask me or my brother if something seems off. If she gets a suspicious email or link or pop up and she's no 100% sure it's fake she asks one of us and we'll check it out.
I'm so glad she's not an easily manipulated boomer like some of them. Not saying boomer bad, just that because a lot of them were already up there before the internet became a thing it's easy for them to take something they see at face value because they don't realize how easy it is to lie on the internet.
That’s a healthy amount of skepticism.
It’ll be a lot harder in the future when AI-generated voices really hit the mainstream and we can’t even tell if our family is actually calling on the other end!
That's where growing up in the 80s comes in handy. Thanks to stranger danger we were taught to use code words to prove if someone was telling the truth that our parents sent them to get us. Now it will be needing to use a code word to prove we're talking to who we think we are.
@veeesix "Invest" in cryptocurrency... always a scam, guaranteed.
No matter the investment, don’t invest more than you’re willing to lose.