False celebrity advertising
Fraudsters abuse Friedrich Merz for Bitcoin rip-off – and he’s mad
No, Friedrich Merz does not advertise dubious cryptocurrency portals
© Maja Hitij / Getty Images
Dubious Bitcoin portals lure gullible customers with Friedrich Merz as the advertising face, reports Stiftung Warentest. The CDU politician speaks of “criminal abuse of my name”.
Since Friedrich Merz has been fighting for the CDU party chairmanship (again), he has been very present in public again. Merz is an economic expert and has earned good money for a few years at Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager. Fraudsters are currently making use of this background, for whom Merz involuntarily has to serve as an advertising face.
As the Stiftung Warentest reports, dubious Bitcoin platforms are currently using the celebrities of the CDU politician to rip off gullible investors. Fake articles are presented on dubious websites on the Internet, in which alleged dream investments by Merz and other celebrities are reported. For example, one is illustrated with a TV appearance by Merz at Markus Lanz.
The readers should be made to register on portals like “Profit Builder”, where they can supposedly earn a lot of money with crypto currencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple or Litecoin. But as is so often the case when wealth is promised faster, the following applies: “If you fall for it, you lose your money”, as Warentest writes.
Well-known celebrity fake scam
In truth, Merz does not advertise at all for Bitcoins and Co .: “There has been systematic criminal abuse of my name here for a long time. There are no authorized advertisements from me for any financial products,” said the politician from Stiftung Warentest.
According to the product test, the scam works like this: Customers who register on the dubious platforms are called from foreign telephone numbers shortly afterwards. The callers try to trick their victims into transferring money or giving their credit card details. Some of the people called were exposed to a “downright telephone terror”, reports Warentest. Again and again they are asked to transfer money. At some point the contact is broken off, the telephone supervisor, the platform – and the money invested – can no longer be reached. And somewhere the next rip-off page pops up.
Friedrich Merz is not the first celebrity to be pulled in front of the cart by such fraudulent financial portals without consent. Dieter Bohlen, Günther Jauch and Frank Thelen also involuntarily advertised supposedly sensational investment opportunities in fake news articles. It was not until the spring of this year that the police picked up a gang from Bulgaria that had relieved German investors of millions.
The financial services regulator Bafin regularly publishes warnings of new dubious trading and investment platforms that are being investigated. But the whole thing is like a game of cat and mouse, as the fraudsters are mostly based abroad and conceal their identity.
Sources: Stiftung Warentest / Bafin