A new report from NBC News exposes how supporters of Donald Trump have been duped into doling out sometimes huge sums on what seems to have essentially been marketed as some kind of money but is fake.
The new report outlined several instances where individuals who’d spent some of their real money on such products attempted to use them in actual transactions and encountered the expected result. Someone on the other end informed these individuals they were scammed, evidently referring to a consistent stream of others who’ve also fallen for it.
Promotions for the fraud have spread across the internet, including with faked videos purporting to contain endorsements for the products from figures like Trump himself and Elon Musk. These clips actually contain mere imitations of these individuals’ actual voices that were created with artificial intelligence technology, also called AI.
The basic idea of the scam is that the items these people are buying will somehow be later transformed into a financial kickback for those who put their money behind it, multiplying the value exponentially above the amounts they originally spent from their actual money. That’s obviously not happening. Though Trump’s branding has been used in pushing these fraudulent items, there’s no indication of an actual connection with Donald’s team.
It’s thousands of dollars apiece that some of these individuals targeted by the scam have spent, with one individual whose case was spotlighted by NBC spending over $2,000. Though NBC uncovered the names of some corporate entities evidently involved in pushing “Trump Bucks” across the internet, it didn’t appear their team was able to actually connect with any individual actually responsible, though NBC spoke with both individuals involved in shipping, which they do for third parties, and companies where scam victims might try to turn their fake bucks into real-world reward.
Trump himself, of course, has been involved in plenty of his own suspicion-raising financial activity, including in the fundraising he and his team conducted after the last presidential election on the basis of false claims of election fraud. Much of the money they raised didn’t even end up directly supporting any court fights about the 2020 outcome, instead moving to political operations connected to and around Trump. There’s also the remaining problem of Trump personally profiting from his campaign, since if the campaign rents space at a Trump property — or some other spending entity makes a similar move, then such could financially boost the ex-president himself.
