A Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) enthusiast recently narrowly escaped a potential disaster when confronted by a scammer posing as a Forbes journalist.
On November 27, “Crumz,” a nonfungible token (NFT) collector, recounted his encounter with this fraudulent individual.
Crumz received a direct message from someone impersonating a real Forbes editor, Robert LaFanco. The imposter offered an interview opportunity for a new article about BAYC.
Despite noticing some red flags, such as the use of a non-premium Zoom account and a request to use a separate recording bot, Crumz proceeded with the interview.
During the conversation, the scammer asked Crumz to grant access for recording purposes. Initially, Crumz complied, not suspecting anything amiss.
However, towards the end of the interview, the imposter made an unusual request for Crumz to mention something related to his Bored Ape. Specifically, the scammer suggested mentioning a banana.
Crumz soon realized that this was an attempt to distract him from his computer while the scammer took control of his system to steal his valuable assets.
Instead of following the distraction, Crumz stayed vigilant by his computer. As expected, the scammers attempted to manipulate his screen.
Quick thinking saved the day as Crumz muted his screen, preventing any video feed and thwarting the scammers when they tried to access delegate.cash.
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Crypto casino Rollbit partner borowik.eth raised the alarm to his 140,000 followers on X (formerly Twitter) on the same day.
He identified a fake account posing as Robert LaFranco, claiming to be a Forbes assistant managing editor.
Borowik.eth warned that the imposter’s intentions were to deceive and gain access to users’ PCs to steal their valuable NFTs.
Additionally, BAYC community member Laura Rod also reported being contacted by the same bogus Forbes editor.
This incident is not isolated, as blockchain security firm Slowmist recently exposed a series of scams in which victims lost their cryptocurrency assets to fake journalists.
The attackers typically scheduled interviews, guided victims to join Telegram interviews, provided interview outlines, conducted lengthy interviews, and then shared malicious links for publication consent.
In a similar case in October, a user on Friend.tech fell victim to a fake Bloomberg journalist who lured them into clicking a link for a supposed “consent form,” which ultimately resulted in their Friend.tech account being drained.
To stay safe in the cryptocurrency and NFT space, industry observers advise being cautious of scammers using BAYC profile pictures on platforms like X. Vigilance and skepticism are essential tools in guarding against such fraudulent attempts.
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