SHELTON – A disabled man fell for a crypto-currency scam and drained his life savings, according to his parents and his complaint to the FBI.
Joe Allen, 41, who lives with his parents in Shelton, lost $228,000, representing his entire 401(k) account and investment accounts, according to his complaint to the federal agency, which Allen’s parents sent to CTinsider Sunday.
Unable to walk or move his right arm, Allen has a neurological condition called vanishing white matter disease, his mother, Carol Allen, said. She said her son, a divorced father of two children who had worked as a physical therapist until three years ago, answered a text message in August for a work-at-home job. Feeling bad that he couldn’t help out around the house or yard, Joe Allen “wanted to feel like he was contributing,” his mother said.
The text he received touted a job opportunity: Watch videos from the comfort of your home, and for every video you “like,” money will be added to a crypto-currency account in your name. The videos, Carol Allen said, appeared to be advertisements for sports products.
During the two months he was engaged in the effort, Joe Allen told the FBI, he was given various reasons why he had to wire large sums of money, including paying a fee to unfreeze his account and paying taxes on his financial gains.
“The last straw was when I was told that I needed to pay $30,000 to do a password reset because I forgot my password,” he wrote. “I was not going to ask my mother to loan me the $30,000, considering all of the money I had already invested into this endeavor and lost.”
The scammers told her son at one point that if he invested $30,000, his return would be $368,000, Carol Allen said. She said Joe Allen, who was not available for comment Sunday, has been devastated by the fraud and the realization that the money likely is gone. The divorced father of two children also filed a complaint with Shelton police, but the family was told that the odds are long that any suspects will be caught, Carol Allen said.
The FBI says crypto-currency scams are among the most prevalent and damaging in the U.S. Swindlers gain their targets’ trust over time and then bleed them dry, which is why these scams are called “pig butchering.”
“Once the victim is ready to withdraw all their earnings, they will find their account frozen and an arbitrary requirement will arise, usually in the form of paying ‘taxes’ or ‘fees’ to unlock their funds,” the FBI says.
The particular hoax that victimized Allen is called a ‘task scam,” according to the Federal Trade Commission. Scammers ask a mark to do simple, repetitive tasks, such as liking videos or rating product images online.
“The supposed ‘job’ is to complete tasks in an app or online platform for which you’ll ‘earn money’ from a ‘commission’ on each click. But those promises are fake: there aren’t any commissions and nobody but the scammers make any money,” according to the FTC.
Just as Allen experienced, task scams usually start with an unexpected text offering online work. Crooks promise “good money” for “product boosting” or doing “optimization tasks” online, the FTC says.
“Once you complete each task, you’ll see an ever-increasing tally of supposed earnings in the app. (They’re fake),” the FTC description says. “At some point, the app or online platform will ask you to deposit your own money – usually in crypto – to complete your next set of tasks and to get your supposed (fake) earnings out of the app. But if you make the deposit, not only is your real money gone, you’ll never get those fake earnings.”
This article originally published at Shelton man with disability loses life savings in a crypto currency ‘task scam’.
