I have to admit that what I read in this Gizmodo story wasn’t on my BINGO card for today. But here I am talking about it. Though perhaps I shouldn’t be shocked by this.
Gizmodo submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FTC for consumer complaints about Truth Social filed in the past two years. The complaints to the federal agency include some stories from people who’ve been banned from the site (unjustly, they claim) and others who say they got signed up for mailing lists they never wanted to be on in the first place. But the complaints about scams are the most shocking, if only because there are such large sums of money involved. And we’re publishing a sample of the full, unedited complaints below.
One person who says they lost $170,000 explained they were initially scammed on a different site but met someone on Truth Social who claimed they could help get their money back. That turned out to be a scam as well. But more often, the victims are first contacted on Truth Social before being told to take the conversation somewhere else, like WhatsApp. Truth Social seems to be a target-rich environment for people who are easy to con.
Another thing that sticks out about the complaints filed with the FTC is that they seem to involve plenty of elderly fans of Donald Trump. One 72-year-old man who reported chatting with a “beautiful” woman on the site was scammed out of $21,000. His complaint ends with, “I haven’t told my wife about this blunder. She still doesn’t know about it.” Another person in their 60s said they lost $500,000 to scammers on Truth Social and seemed to think there might be a way they could get their money back, telling the FTC, “After I pay this they promise there will be no more fees and I will receive my assets.”
I encourage you to read the scams that are listed in this article. Now some of this is the stuff that I see when I get called in to help with the aftermath of someone being scammed. But the dollar amounts that are being highlighted here are mind blowing. The most expensive scam that was successful that I’ve come across was about $4000 CDN. The biggest dollar amount that a threat actor tried to get from a client of mine was about $50000 CDN. This article has examples well north of $100000 USD which is insane.
So you might be wondering, what is Truth Social doing to stop this. Here’s what they said:
Gizmodo tried to contact representatives from Truth Social on Thursday, but after sending an email to the address listed for media organizations on the social media platform’s website, it bounced back as undeliverable. After finally getting a hold of someone at something called the MZ Group, which works for Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of Truth Social, the representative said they have “a robust team that actively searches for scams and bots on the platform and bans them as soon as they’re found.” Follow-up questions did not receive a response.
I think that this translates to they’re doing nothing substantial to stop scams on the platform. But I might be reading that wrong. But what this shows is that Truth Social is a target rich environment for threat actors who can scam with impunity. And that’s not surprising because this was a site that was literally thrown together quickly to give Donald Trump someplace to share his thoughts after he got kicked off Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media after the January 6th insurrection. It wasn’t designed to stop this sort of thing from happening. Nor do I believe that Truth Social has the will to stop this sort of thing from happening. Now combine that with the sort of person who goes to Truth Social who are far more likely to fall for this sort of stuff and you get this situation. For those two reasons, I believe that you fully expect more people to be scammed on Truth Social for a whole lot of money, and little if anything done by Truth Social to stop it.
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This entry was posted on October 7, 2024 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Truth Social. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Truth Social Is A Target Rich Environment For Scammers…. Why Am I Not Surprised?
I have to admit that what I read in this Gizmodo story wasn’t on my BINGO card for today. But here I am talking about it. Though perhaps I shouldn’t be shocked by this.
Gizmodo submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FTC for consumer complaints about Truth Social filed in the past two years. The complaints to the federal agency include some stories from people who’ve been banned from the site (unjustly, they claim) and others who say they got signed up for mailing lists they never wanted to be on in the first place. But the complaints about scams are the most shocking, if only because there are such large sums of money involved. And we’re publishing a sample of the full, unedited complaints below.
One person who says they lost $170,000 explained they were initially scammed on a different site but met someone on Truth Social who claimed they could help get their money back. That turned out to be a scam as well. But more often, the victims are first contacted on Truth Social before being told to take the conversation somewhere else, like WhatsApp. Truth Social seems to be a target-rich environment for people who are easy to con.
Another thing that sticks out about the complaints filed with the FTC is that they seem to involve plenty of elderly fans of Donald Trump. One 72-year-old man who reported chatting with a “beautiful” woman on the site was scammed out of $21,000. His complaint ends with, “I haven’t told my wife about this blunder. She still doesn’t know about it.” Another person in their 60s said they lost $500,000 to scammers on Truth Social and seemed to think there might be a way they could get their money back, telling the FTC, “After I pay this they promise there will be no more fees and I will receive my assets.”
I encourage you to read the scams that are listed in this article. Now some of this is the stuff that I see when I get called in to help with the aftermath of someone being scammed. But the dollar amounts that are being highlighted here are mind blowing. The most expensive scam that was successful that I’ve come across was about $4000 CDN. The biggest dollar amount that a threat actor tried to get from a client of mine was about $50000 CDN. This article has examples well north of $100000 USD which is insane.
So you might be wondering, what is Truth Social doing to stop this. Here’s what they said:
Gizmodo tried to contact representatives from Truth Social on Thursday, but after sending an email to the address listed for media organizations on the social media platform’s website, it bounced back as undeliverable. After finally getting a hold of someone at something called the MZ Group, which works for Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of Truth Social, the representative said they have “a robust team that actively searches for scams and bots on the platform and bans them as soon as they’re found.” Follow-up questions did not receive a response.
I think that this translates to they’re doing nothing substantial to stop scams on the platform. But I might be reading that wrong. But what this shows is that Truth Social is a target rich environment for threat actors who can scam with impunity. And that’s not surprising because this was a site that was literally thrown together quickly to give Donald Trump someplace to share his thoughts after he got kicked off Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media after the January 6th insurrection. It wasn’t designed to stop this sort of thing from happening. Nor do I believe that Truth Social has the will to stop this sort of thing from happening. Now combine that with the sort of person who goes to Truth Social who are far more likely to fall for this sort of stuff and you get this situation. For those two reasons, I believe that you fully expect more people to be scammed on Truth Social for a whole lot of money, and little if anything done by Truth Social to stop it.
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This entry was posted on October 7, 2024 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Truth Social. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.