BAYC Investor Escapes Losing NFTs Fake Forbes Journalists

• BAYC investor narrowly escaped losing his NFTs to fake Forbes journalists

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

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

🚨🚨SCAM ALERT!!🚨🚨
I just spent the last 2hours on Zoom with ‘@Forbes‘ it was pretty sophisticated and well thought out because I’m usually on high alert but luckily I wasn’t caught. Here’s what they did. 🧵1/8

— Crumz 🇮🇪 (@crumz10) November 26, 2023

Crumz revealed that a scammer pretending to be Robert LaFranco, an editor for the American business magazine and media company, reached out to him, requesting an interview as Forbes was writing an article about BAYC. The supposed editor wanted Crumz to talk about his experience in the club.

Unfortunately, Crumz failed to discover that the X account that contacted him differed from LaFranco’s original one, even though they looked up the editor’s name. 

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While they were a bit surprised at the company’s move, the BAYC owner cooperated with the scammer and fixed a date for the interview.

The bad actor failed to show up for the first call, citing a family emergency, but suggested that the interview be postponed to November 26. 

On the set date, they came an hour late with another scammer pretending to be Steven Ehrlich, the research director of Forbes’ crypto arm. Interestingly, the fraudsters did not turn on their cameras during the meeting.

While Crumz was too excited at the beginning to question the interviewers about not turning on their cameras, he 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 recorder bot.

The Request for a Banana

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

🧵5/8
I talked about my experience in the club from the early days and all the cool things I’ve experienced.

Red flags were that they didn’t have premium Zoom and we had to set up multiple call links and he wanted to record the screen with a separate recorder bot.

— Crumz 🇮🇪 (@crumz10) November 26, 2023

After muting their screen and acting like they went to get the banana, Crumz stood by and watched as the scammers began to control his screen. 

Although their NFTs were in cold storage, the BAYC owner had to shut down his computer when they headed to the NFT ownership platform Delegate, instantly interrupting their access.

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Meanwhile, Crumz was not the only one invited for the interview. The scammers also sent similar invitations to other crypto users on X, with some ignoring the message.