Margaret Loke, a widow from San Jose, discovered she had fallen for an online crypto scam after asking ChatGPT whether her supposed investment was real.
According to a report from ABC7 News, Loke lost her retirement funds and faced the possibility of losing her home.
Loke met a man who called himself “Ed” on Facebook in May. They began chatting on WhatsApp later. He said he was a successful businessman and stayed in touch every day.
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Over time, “Ed” started talking about cryptocurrency. Loke said she had no background in investing, but he offered to guide her.
He showed her screenshots of trading results that appeared to show big profits, which convinced Loke to transfer money to an online account he controlled.
Her first transfer was $15,000. She then moved larger sums, including more than $490,000 from her retirement account. Later, she took a $300,000 second mortgage on her home and wired that money too.
Eventually, the online account stopped working. “Ed” claimed the account was “frozen” and demanded another $1 million to unlock it. Confused and scared, Loke asked ChatGPT if the request made sense. Loke said:
ChatGPT told me: No, this is a scam, you’d better go to the police station.
Loke confronted “Ed” and then contacted the police. Investigators later found that her transfers went to a bank in Malaysia, where scammers withdrew the money.
An investigation by the cybersecurity firm AhnLab found that North Korea’s Lazarus Group used spear-phishing throughout the past year to steal digital assets. How does it work? Read the full story.
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