BAYC Investor Reportedly Escapes Losing NFTs to Fake Forbes Journalists

A non-fungible token (nft) collector narrowly escaped losing his assets to fake Forbes journalists during a purported Zoom interview.

in a cheepCrumz, the pseudonymous owner of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), detailed his experience with scammers and how they attempted to steal his NFTs by requesting a banana during the interview.

BAYC user escapes losing nft

Crumz revealed that a scammer posing as Robert LaFranco, editor of the American business magazine and media company, approached him and asked for an interview while Forbes was writing an article on BAYC. The supposed editor wanted Crumz to talk about his experience at the club.

Unfortunately, Crumz was unable to discover that the X account that contacted him differed from the original LaFranco, even though they searched for the publisher’s name. While they were a little surprised by the company’s move, the owner of BAYC cooperated with the scammer and set a date for the interview.

The bad actor did not show up for the first call, citing a family emergency, but suggested postponing the interview until November 26. On the scheduled date, they arrived an hour late with another scammer posing as Steven Ehrlich, the director of research. from the crypto arm of Forbes. Interestingly, the scammers did not turn on their cameras during the meeting.

While Crumz was too excited at first to ask the interviewers if they didn’t turn on their cameras, they noticed several other red flags during the interview. The scammers did not have a premium Zoom account; They had to set up multiple call links and the supposed journalists wanted to record Crumz’s screen with a separate recording robot.

The request for a banana

Crumz was asked to press a button to allow access to record his screen, told to say something that sounded like one of his collectibles, and asked to get a banana.

6/8
I had to press a button to allow access to the recording. At first I didn’t think much of it, but in the end he asks me to say something that sounds like my ape and suggests a banana.
He didn’t have a banana on hand so he said it was okay to wait for him to get one.

-Crumz (@crumz10) November 26, 2023

After muting his screen and acting as if they were going to get the banana, Crumz stood still and watched as the scammers began to take over his screen. Although his NFTs were in cold storage, the BAYC owner had to shut down his computer when they went to the nft-owned platform Delegate, instantly cutting off their access.

Meanwhile, Crumz wasn’t the only interview guest. Scammers also sent similar invitations to other cryptocurrency users on X, and some ignored the message.

I received this same message. She was so excited for the interview haha! I’m glad you came out unscathed!!! I definitely would have been scammed!!! Thank you very much for revealing the scam!!!!

– LEMAOW TurboRaveLords.eth (@LeiMai_LeMaow) November 26, 2023

<!– ai CONTENT END 1 –>