Neither will Kanye, Bill Gates, Apple, or anyone else.
I’ve been up here on my soapbox screaming for the past eleven years that more people should play massively multiplayer online games. Specifically RuneScape. Why do I say that? Well as I have noted since 2009 playing these games gives you helpful life tips like buying low and selling high, managing time, managing your possessions, social skills, and most importantly of all it teaches you all about the world of scams.
If you’ve played an MMO with any sort of functioning economy then odds are you’ve been the target of a scam, and probably the victim of a scam. You learn that scams are generally cyclical, and get recycled from person to person. Eventually they become obvious and you are no longer fooled by them.
So if more people played MMOs then we wouldn’t be seeing the most obvious scam on the internet net in more than a hundred thousand dollars. If you are currently on Twitter as of this publishing you are probably seeing your timeline lose its collective shiz. Accounts from Jeff Bezos to Joe Biden, Apple, Uber, Kanye West, as well as prominent Bitcoin accounts are promising to double whatever Bitcoin you send them.
It’s a simple scam, the money doubler. It’s an obvious scam. It’s so obvious that it couldn’t be more obvious unless it was wearing a glowing neon sign that said “lol this is a scam.” But it works, and it feeds off of people’s greed taking over their other sensibilities. As of this publishing the account has brought in over $110,000 USD in Bitcoin from 302 people.
It’s disappointing to see so many people falling for what should be a self-explanatory scam, but as I said the reason the scam works is because the short notice coupled with greed overrides what might otherwise be a sensible person’s rationality. Especially when that is apparently coming from a trusted source like Jeff Bezos’ own verified Twitter. Or Joe Biden. Or Obama. Or Bill Gates.
Yous you’re brian, Peeps.
MMO Fallout 