by Truth Social users say they have lost thousands to online scams on the platform, with some victims fleecing six figures.
Complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission and obtained by Gizmodo detail the myriad schemes of scammers using Donald Trump’s social media platform over the past two years.
Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, has been losing money and struggling to grow revenue.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Many users of the app, particularly retired boomers with life savings, fell for “pig-slaying” scams, in which a scammer convinces a person to participate in a dubious investment plan and tricks the victim into making larger contributions, by tricking them into doing this we make money.
“The scammers often give the victim access to a website that shows a certain dollar amount in “their” account, but the funds have long been depleted,” the report said. “It doesn’t mean they’re withdrawing. It is simply a ruse by the victim to watch their imaginary money grow and thus trick them into “investing” even more.
Some of these older users “do not seem to understand that any amount they see on their site that is supposedly in an account is completely fictitious.”
Many of the complaints filed with the FTC appear to target older fans of Donald Trump.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
A user from Minnesota, aged 60 to 64, said he lost $500,000 after being tricked into investing in cryptocurrencies. According to her complaint, the scammer continually tricked her into paying various fees to transfer her investment to her bank account. “After I pay this, they promise me that there will be no more fees and I will get my assets back,” the victim said.
Another victim who reportedly lost $170,000 said he was initially scammed on another website, but then contacted someone on Truth Social who offered to “get his money back” before he did too cheated. Typically, however, victims are first contacted on Truth Social before being lured elsewhere, such as WhatsApp.
Truth Social’s seemingly audience-rich environment is also home to romance scams, including a 72-year-old man who reported being scammed out of $21,000 after chatting with a “beautiful” woman on the app. “I didn’t tell my wife about this mistake. She still doesn’t know about it,” his complaint read.
A group representing Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, told Gizmodo that they have “a strong team that actively looks for scams and bots on the platform and bans them as soon as they are found.”
The disturbing report came as the chief operating officer of Trump Media & Technology Group resigned. His departure is reportedly related to a whistleblower complaint about mismanagement.
A few days before the surprise resignation, one of the company’s major shareholders announced that he had sold his shares in the company, which had been suffering losses for a long time and was struggling to increase revenues
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