(WFSB) – A new report reveals cryptocurrency or investment scams are now the riskiest. Better Business Bureau released its annual scam report Monday.
The riskiest scam isn’t necessarily the most common. BBB determines risk by calculating how likely you are to come across a scam (exposure), how likely you are to fall for it (susceptibility), and how much money on average people lose (monetary loss). When you add all that up, cryptocurrency or investment scams are now on top.
In 2023, there were 9 reports of a cryptocurrency scams in Connecticut. One of those reports was from Chris Pegnataro in Branford.
He sent the I-Team screenshots of what he was told was a platform to bid on NFTs. NFT is short for non-fungible token. NFTs are a type of digital asset you can buy using cryptocurrency. It sounds complicated, but for Pegnataro the money came easy.
“I said alright, this is like the gravy train. It’s kind of too good to be true,” said Pegnataro.
Pegnataro learned about the platform from someone he met in a Facebook group. He shared with the I-Team one message where she wrote, “you’ll earn $540 per day in passive income.”
‘The more money you put in the platform, the higher you go up. You go up to different levels,” said Pegnataro.
All Pegnataro had to do was put real money in what was called a “trust wallet”, a form of digital wallet. In total, he invested around $10,000 into the platform. Then one day, it was all gone.
“The next morning I get up, and my money is all gone out of my trust wallet, all of it,” said Pegnataro.
Kristin Johnson with BBB Serving Connecticut says there are a few red flags about Pegnataro’s story.
“Be mindful of sending money through a digital wallet. That’s pretty much the same things as cash. Once you send that money, you’ll have little recourse if you got scammed to try and get it back,” said Johnson. “A hallmark of an investment scam is that you are going to have a huge return, and you’re going to have one quickly.”
BBB’s annual report shows cryptocurrency/investment scams are now the riskiest. The second riskiest are employment scams. Online purchase scams are now the third riskiest. Online purchase scams had been the riskiest since 2019, but it’s the high average dollar amount for crypto scams that put them at the top. 80% of people also report losing money when targeted by a crypto scam.
The median dollar loss for cryptocurrency scams was $3800 across the country. In Connecticut, the average loss was $8,057.
“I just had a feeling that something was not going to go right,” Pegnataro.
In hindsight, Pegnataro now realizes the platform was too new to be reputable. There also wasn’t any contact information. He’s learned that just like trust itself, money in a trust wallet is difficult to earn and easy to lose. Pegnataro filed a report with BBB and also contacted the FBI.
In 2023, there were 762 scam reports to BBB from people in Connecticut. In total, $1,045,152 was lost.
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