The dark side of blockchain and cryptocurrencies are the many scams and fraudulent crypto-investment schemes. Actually, cryptocurrencies made it much easier for bad actors to cheat people and run away anonymously with investors’ money. The UK consumer protection organization Citizens Advice said that the number of Britons falling victim to investment scams doubled because of the ‘crypto-craze’, binary options investments and holiday timeshares scams, new figures show.
Charity Citizens Advice said it had to deal with 235 cases involving investment fraud in the 2017-18 financial year, which is double the number seen in the previous twelve months. “Fraudsters are using new technology to peddle old tricks,” says Gillian Guy, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice.
Finance expert Martin LEWIS, who is currently suing Facebook to stop scam ads, blames social media for promoting scams: “Scam ads have exploded across social media platforms over the last year,” he says. “They look extremely professional, and often use well-known faces to try and add legitimacy – the scum behind these ads are happy to target the vulnerable, unsuspecting, or trusting. But they are sophisticated, anyone can be caught out. Click through the ad, and the fakery doesn’t end there. You will often land on a page that looks like a newspaper article, or BBC report.”
This rise of crypto-scams actually is the raison d’être of our Financial Telegram project.
