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Crypto Scammers Impersonate Elon Musk using a Verified Facebook Page

November 24th, 2021

In many of the year’s most important financial and business stories, digital currencies have been at the forefront.

The rate of online scams associated with those digital currencies continues to rise along with the price of Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies.

Since October 2020, Americans have lost more than $80 million to cryptocurrency investment scams according to a report of the Federal Trade Commission data.

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), scammers are finding new ways to dupe people into making fraudulent crypto investments. Online “tips” on investing are one type of scam that leads people to fraudulent sites.

In one instance, a man in the UK lost nearly half a million dollars worth of Bitcoin to a “crypto giveaway” scam based on the name of Tesla CEO Elon Musk earlier this year.

Scammers are impersonating public figures like Elon Musk in another scam where they promise investors that the public figure will contribute to their investment.

Cryptocurrency Scam Using Elon Musk’s name on Facebook

Earlier this month, a Facebook verified page by the name of Elon Musk was running a Bitcoin scam. The blue tick lured the people into investing money in the crypto giveaway scam.
Old Verified Facebook Page URL: https://www.facebook.com/Elonmuskoffici/
It was made unavailable soon after it was reported by several media outlets.
Now, once again a verified Facebook page by the name of Elon Musk has emerged with a similar username as the previous one.
Scammers Impersonating Elon Musk using a Verified Facebook Page for the second time.

Scammers Impersonating Elon Musk using a Verified Facebook Page for the second time.

The new page was created on 18 May 2014 and has 34K followers. Initially, the page was created by an Arabic name “العلم”, and later renamed multiple times.

About section of the New Verified Facebook Page.

In the about section, the page states that he is a “Political Reporter at Sky News“, and On the Page Transparency section, you can find the name of the Journalist which the scammers might have used to verify the page.

Page Transparency (Ref: Facebook)

In this case, they might have got the page verified by impersonating ‘Aubrey Allegretti‘ who at that time was a Political Reporter at Sky News. The scammers could have used fake documents to verify the page, and later changed the page name to Elon Musk after verification.
Verified Facebook Page Pretending to be Elon Musk running Cryptocurrency Scam

Verified Facebook Page Pretending to be Elon Musk running Cryptocurrency Scam (Ref: Facebook)

How easy it is to get a Facebook Page or Profile Verified?

Facebook says it follows strict guidelines to verify profiles or pages. You need to be Authentic, Notable, & Unique to get verified. But, a few people on the web are still able to exploit this system using PR articles and fake documents to impersonate public figures that have not yet verified themselves on Facebook.
I’ve seen hundreds of posts on various forum sites offering verification on Facebook & Instagram.
One such example is a forum site called ‘swapd.co‘, here you will find people offering services such as Facebook & Instagram verification and also selling verified accounts.
Ehraz Ahmed

Author Ehraz Ahmed

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