Scammers Score $2 Million from the WallStreetBets Crowd With Fictional Crypto Launch

[techietraveller84]

People still not following mother's advice: "if it's too good to be true..."

Quote

 

A cryptocurrency scam recently pilfered at least $2 million from WallStreetBets enthusiasts, convincing them that they were buying into a new crypto coin connected to the popular memestock, according to a report from Bloomberg News.

For weeks, moderators of the notorious Reddit forum have warned users to avoid fraudulent scams based around the good WSB name. A post, tethered to the top of the group’s page, asks community members to be wary of offers related to WSB products.

Apparently, a lot of people missed this memo, because a bunch of WSB fans reportedly fell for a scam of exactly this ilk. Indeed, an offer recently began circulating on chat app Telegram, peddled by an account called “WallStreetBets - Crypto Pumps.” This “Crypto Pumps” said it was offering a chance for bets enthusiasts to cash in on a new WSB crypto-token, dubbed “WSB Finance,” before it officially launched. In the crypto world, an arrangement like this is called a “premine sale”—an opportunity for early investors to buy up a token before it hits the crypto exchanges and gets a more widespread, public release.

Interested parties were instructed to send Binance Coin or Ether to a crypto wallet, then get in touch with the page’s “token bot,” which would send the user WSB Finance tokens. What a good deal! It wasn’t long before the ETH and BNB were pouring in, swelling Crypto Pump’s wallet.

However, buyers ran into a little snag. Not long after the coinage was pocketed, “Pumps” told them that there had been a problem with the bot—it was malfunctioning. As a result, users should send more crypto payments, or they would “lose their initial investment,” Bloomberg reports.

 

https://gizmodo.com/scammers-score-2-million-from-the-wallstreetbets-crowd-1846829132?&web_view=true

[nausea]

No need to use a fake coin; the usual scam, as I understand it, is to promote a real coin, with a disclosed pump and dump scheme, so guys think they're getting inside info.; then dump on the insiders. Like, it all happens in minutes. If some guy has been buying up this stuff, the price rockets, he dumps it. There are guys holding, and guys trying to buy and sell; who wins?