Advice to the would-be criminals of the world – know your target before taking action. A potential scammer has fallen for his own tricks after he tried to pull a ruse on a cryptocurrency podcaster, not realizing that his potential victim is an expert in the field. He was able to turn the tables on the scammer, who ended up getting scammed himself. This is the story of the world’s dumbest crypto scammer.
Ben Perrin knows crypto. The Canadian crypto enthusiast hosts a YouTube crypto show and his knowledge of the Bitcoin space is readily evident when viewing his videos. Perrin recently found himself the target of a scammer who contacted him through his Instagram account, and who eventually became a subject of one of Perrin’s stories.
As Perrin tells it, “This morning I awoke on a beautiful holiday Monday in Canada to a message from a clear scammer, promising me untold fortunes if I just bestow some of my Bitcoin upon them. Rather than tell this individual to go pound sand, I opted enlist a mix of [Photoshop], strategically finding random transactions on a block explorer, and social engineering to teach a lesson on behalf of a good cause. What follows are the screenshots of our conversation.”
In the Instagram conversation between the crypto fan and the scammer, “susan_william_2121,” Perrin is offered the investment deal of a lifetime – he would be able to “earn double any amount” he invested within 24 hours through a crypto mining platform that uses “Blockchain 3.0” technology. He played himself off as a crypto novice as he continued to set the hook before reeling in his unsuspecting catch. Before sending $22,000, he wanted substantial evidence that the offer was real.
After a long back-and-forth over whether or not Perrin was convinced the offer was legitimate, he was ultimately able to convince the scammer to send him crypto as proof. Before he knew it, Perrin was $50 richer and he revealed the truth. He informed his attacker that he would be donating the money to Bitcoin Venezuela and chose to use colorful terminology to describe the scammer in an accurate light.
A search for “susan_williams_2121” on Instagram doesn’t produce any results, which most likely means that the account was either removed by the platform or the scammer ran away, crying.
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