$30,000 Astronaut Romance Scam

Описание: A woman from Japan recently was scammed out of $30,000 USD to a scammer that tricked her into thinking she was talking to a Russian cosmonaut who could not afford a ticket to return to Earth.

This story sounds like the plot of a bad movie but reportedly did happen. So this relationship began on Instagram where the 65-year-old woman was talking with a man who claim he was an astronaut in space. the two had on-and-off communications. intermittent loss of communication was blamed on the poor cell service aboard the orbiting space station, (that’s is not quite how the internet works in space)

The commutations began talking about marriage…. But the scammer said they couldn't leave the international space station without enough money to return to Earth.

The woman sent 4.4 million yen (about $30,000) so he could hop on a rocket and leave for earth. Now, there were a total of five money transfers before the police were finally called in

So what made this scam successful?

According to the victim
• Space pictures and the title of the astronaut on the Instagram page
• Official talk about space agencies around the world

Just as a side note, it is reported to cost $50-55 million to get an astronaut up to the international space station.

Despite how fantastical this story is. Romance scams happen every day, not just with pretend astronauts. For many, the need to connect and belong is a strong emotional force that can cloud our judgment to obvious lies. Online relationship building is wonderful and can be very successful. But until things move to the next level standard safety practices apply. If someone truly loves you, they will understand

The FTC found romance scams in 2021 hit a record high. Also claimed in the past five years, people have reported losing $1.3 billion to romance scams. More recently scams involving cryptocurrency have been of particular interest. This is not just a scam for older people, in the same FTC report saw the age ranges of 18 to 29 between 2017 to 2021 having a ten times growth factor in being scammed this way.

Plus, also remember folks can tend to extend the truth about themselves in their online bios

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https://gizmodo.com/astronaut-iss-ins...

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/data-...