Crypto scam ads on Facebook find new victim

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Cryptocurrency scammers have found a new face to use for their Facebook ads. They are now using the face of Ho Ching, the CEO of $230 billion Singaporean state investor Temasek. According to reports in Singapore, the scam ads have also made up fake quotes, attributing them to her.

The ads claim that Ching has been using a ‘simple’ investment trick to make a killing through Bitcoin trading. Being one of the country’s most renowned investment gurus, the use of Ching’s face is meant to give the ads more credibility and enable the scammers to lure more victims into the trap.

Some of the ads claim that Singapore’s big banks have been calling Ching, urging her to stop ‘sharing the secret.’ Additionally, they all include a caption that states, “Ho Ching urged everyone in Singapore to jump on this amazing opportunity before the big banks shut it down for good.”

To further make them look credible, the ads include fake articles from some of the country’s largest newspapers. They also include fake testimonials, with each claiming to have increased their investment portfolio by up to ten times using the method.

Ching noticed the ads a few days ago and alerted her followers on social media channels. She urged them to steer clear of any Bitcoin investment scheme that uses her image. She also urged them to report the scams to Facebook and WhatsApp.

In Singapore, the scammers have been successful in their tricks. In 2018, between September and November, they made $78,000 from unsuspecting investors using these tricks, according to a police report.

Facebook has been working hard to fight the rise of these scams, a company representative told the Straits Times. The social media giant has already taken down several ads using the faces of politicians and famous entrepreneurs in Singapore.

It’s however not as easy, with the scammers using technology that circumvents Facebook’s monitoring tools. The spokesperson explained, “These scammers use sophisticated cloaking technology to mask content so that it shows different versions to our ad review systems than it does to people. This is a clear violation of our policies as ads must not use tactics intended to circumvent our ad review process or other enforcement systems. We have removed the ads and disabled the associated pages and ad accounts.”