An Aussie has lost his life savings after fraudsters used a deepfake video of Nick Cave to convince him to invest $130,000 in a phoney crypto scam.
Melbourne man Jake, 61, lost the money after he was persuaded to go all-in on micro trading in cryptocurrency by his favourite n musician in 2023.
Despite not being a ‘money person’, Jake, who wishes to remain anonymous, decided to test his luck after he saw Cave’s fake testimonial.
The phoney Cave swore by the crypto scheme in an AI-generated video posted to Facebook in which he claimed to have made thousands of dollars by doing nothing.
Jakes said his endorsement was the ‘icing on the cake’ of a deal that seemed too good to be.
‘I respect him greatly as an artist, so I’m of course thinking “s*** that’s put the icing on the cake”,’ he told news.com.au.
Looking back however, he said it was ‘pretty frightening’ when dozens of scammers tried to simultaneously reel him in after he interacted with the video.
The emergency relief teacher said losing the money has left him financially crippled and ostracised from his family.
Jake met a man called Max as the ‘tsunami’ of scammers were piling into his inbox.
‘It’s this case of right time, right place – absolute bullseye,’ he said.
‘There I was looking for something and he happened to be at the right place at the right time. He didn’t seem pushy and he seemed like someone I felt reasonably comfortable with.’
The pair began talking on the phone and Max said he worked in a London office.
Max managed to convince Jake to ‘invest’ $370 into the micro trading platform and told him to wait until the returns began rolling in.
When Jake logged back in four months later the balance of his account had skyrocketed to $67,000.
‘A normal person would look at that and say too good to be true, see you later and hang up the phone. I spoke to people, I spoke to friends, my own son who is 16-years-old said “this is bullsh*t”,’ Jake said.
‘But when you have this weird carrot dangled in front of you at the right time in the right space, you don’t listen.’
Max assured Jake that it was in the nature of crypto to wildly fluctuate in value after the 61-year-old asked if it was all too good to be true.
In asking the question Jake had inadvertently let Max know that he was a novice in crypto trading, a naivety that he later learned scammers ‘love’.
When it was time for Jake to withdraw the money he received a suspicious letter telling him that his account had been flagged for possible money laundering.
The only way for him to access the cash was to pay a 10 per cent security deposit in order to prove he was legitimate which led Jake into a ‘vicious circle’.
Every time he tried to withdraw any money he was met with another reason as to why he needed to deposit more.
In one month Jake lost his entire $130,000 as he made deposit after deposit ranging from $4,900 to $18,500.
Eventually Jake called a Sydney company to help him withdraw the funds, but when he explained the situation they told him he had been scammed.
He had been buying ‘fake coins’, the company said.
Upon realising he had lost all his money and there was no hope of getting it back, Jack said his ‘stomach hit the floor and my brains exploded’.
Police told Jake was told he was the victim of ‘criminal activity’ which he prefers to think of as ‘digital burglary’.
Jake’s mother and sisters have been unapologetically critical of his naivety and he said the scam has ‘broken’ his family.
Now Jake is trying to raise awareness of online scams and the tricky new tactics criminals are using to lure people like him in.
Scamwatch reported $43.4 million being lost in social media scams in the first eight months of 2024.
Meta’s crack down of deepfake scams has resulted in 8,000 pages and 9,000 celebrity scams being blocked in its first six months of operation since being launched this year.
Among the celebrities seen in fake Facebook ads are David Koch, Gina Rinehart, Anthony Albanese, Larry Emdur and Guy Sebastian.
Andrew Forest is currently suing the platform over the its alleged failure to remove scams featuring his image.