All it takes is a picture of Bitcoin and Elon Musk with the backdrop of a wonderful quote to lure readers to invest their hard earned money by placing the image on a make-to-believe fake website that looks exactly like BBC News and a fake article which says 'Buy Now' to double your investment and gullible people fall for it.
A school teacher named Julie Bushnell from Brighton, UK, revealed that she lost her home deposit, a sum of around $13,000 to a fake Elon Musk Bitcoin scam which convinced her to invest. She later realized that she was scammed off her money and the website was fake.
The website used Tesla CEO Elon Musk's picture along with a quote and a story on a fake BBC website suggesting she can double her investment in a free 'giveaway offer' of the cryptocurrency. The headline of the article, which is similar to BBC News read, 'Tesla buys $1.5 billion in bitcoin, plans to giveaway $750 million of it'.
Bushnell, who fell for the scam, invested the amount she saved for several years for her home deposit of $13,000 hoping it would double. After completing the payment she received no confirmation via email and text message and that is when it dawned on her that she had been cheated.
"Think about it every minute of every day,'' she told BBC and continued, ''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.''
The same day, Bushnell reported the financial fraud to the Sussex Police and authorities are now investigating the incident. However, the fake website is surprisingly still available online and is running the same 'giveaway' offer luring other gullible investors.
Bushnell stated that she's not in a good state of mind since the incident and prays she gets her amount back soon. ''They have robbed me of my dignity, self-respect, self-worth and strength. They have sucked all the goodness of life out of me,'' she said.
She also revealed that she would raise awareness about the scams happening in the name of cryptocurrencies so other people don't lose their life savings. ''I want to raise awareness of this scam so it doesn't happen to other vulnerable people,'' she sumemd it up.
Several people around the world have been scammed from fake websites promising impressive returns to their investment on cryptocurrencies but sadly most of them have not received the amount they have invested.
