Back in 2007, Graeme Garioch won a hefty figure on the Scottish version of the game show Deal or No Deal. He planned on one day retiring and buying a house with the £101K prize, but he got caught up in the middle of a devastating scam that has put a serious dent in his nest egg.
Years after winning the sizable sum, Garioch, the Scottish railway worker was looking to make some investments as he was approaching retirement. So in October 2018 Garioch made a move to invest in Bitcoin.
According to the UK publication, the Daily Record, it all started to go wrong for Garioch when he clicked on a Facebook ad from a company called OMC Markets.
Garioch thought he was speaking to a financial advisor named Daniel Hardy of London.
But in reality the call was coming from Sofia, Bulgaria, and the person on the line was trying to steal his money.
After creating a wallet and buying some bitcoin, Garioch then sent the funds to OMC and signed a contract that stated he would not be allowed to withdraw the Bitcoin for 6 months. OMC was also able to convince Garioch to grant them access to his bank account.
Although it all went sour for Garioch, it was looking great in March 2019. His initial investment was worth double. But when he tried to collect his earnings, his funds disappeared and he lost all contact with OMC.
This story lends a lot of credibility to the old bitcoin adage, “not your keys not your coins.” After giving control of his funds away Garioch was never able to recover them. But the story also speaks to a popular issue surrounding social media platforms. Should these billion-dollar platforms be doing more to rid the internet of these bad actors?
The Aberdeen, Scotland resident hoped to buy a sizable home in his town of Cove but he was forced to adjust his plans.
“I was planning to buy a house but now I’m renting a flat.”
Ultimately, the responsibility lies on each user, but that doesn’t stop Garioch from stating his belief that better measures need to be taken to guard the public.
“Facebook needs to do more. You cry inside,” Garioch said.
The incident with Garioch is not an isolated one. But so far Facebook has only offered encouragement to users to report suspicious posts.
