'What idiots we are': Truth Social users lose hundreds of thousands of dollars to scammers

05 Oct 2024, 16:14 by https://www.facebook.com/17108852506 · AlterNet

Donald Trump supporters in Washington, D.C. on November 14, 2020, Wikimedia Commons
Carl Gibson
October 05, 2024Push Notification

A new report has published detailed complaints from users of former President Donald Trump's Truth Social app describing how they were fleeced by the site's hordes of scammers — including some who lost six-figure sums.

According to Gizmodo' tech reporter Matt Novak — who filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) seeking complaints about scams on Truth Social — many of the app's users fell victim to a scam known as "pig butchering." That type of scam involves a grifter winning the trust of a mark, persuading them to invest in a questionable money-making scheme and cajoling them into making even larger investments by tricking them into thinking they're making money.

Novak wrote that Truth Social in particular is seen as a honeypot for scammers conducting pig butchering schemes, given its base of largely older Americans who are retired and have a significantly larger life savings than younger social media users. He noted that many scam victims "don’t seem to understand that any amount they might see on their end that’s supposedly sitting in an account is completely fictitious."

"The scammers will often give the victim access to a website that shows a certain dollar amount in 'their' account but the money is long gone," Novak explained. "It’s not sitting there for them to withdraw. It’s simply a ruse for the victim to see their imaginary money grow, luring them into 'investing' even more."

Gizmodo published several of the complaints in full. One Truth Social user in Minnesota aged 60 to 64 wrote that they had been fleeced out of $500,000. The user said they were lured into investing in cryptocurrency, but that the scammer kept leading them on about having to pay various fees to allow for their investment to be transferred to their bank account.

"Now they want $70,000 for an authentication transfer pin," the user wrote in their FTC complaint. "After i pay this they promise there will be no more fees and i will receive my assets. This is unpaid."

Scammers have also enticed Truth Social users into giving them money through romance scams. One septuagenarian user who lost $21,000 told the FTC that a scammer played on their feelings before convincing them to invest in cryptocurrency, and admitted they were too "gullible and lonely" to know better.

"I haven’t told my wife about this blunder. She still doesn’t know about it," the user wrote.

Often, the scammers will engage with potential marks on Truth Social, before inviting them to continue their conversation on a different platform like WhatsApp. At that point, the marks are then encouraged to invest in schemes mostly involving cryptocurrency, stocks and gold.

In February of this year, one Oregon-based user between the ages of 70 and 74 wrote that they were tricked into helping the supposed heir of a gold and diamonds trader sell off their late father's assets. The user said they "ended up paying for all the supposed customs fees, attorney fees etc." and that they were ultimately swindled out of roughly $120,000.

"I know what idiots we are. What can we do to investigate this? Every certificate and website she has given us turns out to be fake. We don’t know where to go from here," the user wrote. "The more I write the dumber I feel that I would even fall for something like this."

Click here to read Novak's full report in Gizmodo.