How A Get-Rich-Quick Telegram "Telescam" Drains Your Wallet

BrokersView recently spotted an investor sharing their recent encounter with a scam on the social media platform Reddit. Under the absurd banner of "invest $200 and get $2,100 back in 24 hours," fraudsters are using what has become one of the most rampant investment decoys on Telegram. This trader's personal experience reveals how scammers use a series of calculated maneuvers to turn a small-scale trial into a financial disaster-once the first payment is sent, the so-called "get-rich-quick opportunity" rapidly devolves into an endless game of fees.

The Harvest Script: From "High Returns" to Sequential Fees

In this case, the scammers used accounts such as @DAVID_SACKS01 and A_Dave_kowalsky - incidentally, David Sacks himself is the former COO of PayPal and a well-known Silicon Valley venture capitalist. By using a polished persona of "professional investment services," the scammers easily gained the victim's initial trust.

The turning point of the scam occurred immediately after the victim transferred the funds. The originally promised 24-hour trading window was suddenly shortened to 4 hours, after which the scammer claimed that "profits had been generated" but required an extra "service fee" to release the funds. This is a textbook advance-fee scam: every time you pay to retrieve your alleged profits, the scammer immediately invents a new pretext, such as taxes, verification fees, or withdrawal fees. As noted in the community comments, if an "infinite money glitch" actually existed, the operator wouldn't need your $200; their only goal is to drain every cent of a victim's savings through constant psychological pressure.

Reddit user CIAMom420 commented incisively: "At that rate of return, after one year you would have more dollars than there are atoms in the observable universe. If someone had an infinite money glitch, they wouldn't need your money."

Targeted Groups and the Black Hole of Irreversible Transactions

This scam is not an isolated incident, nor is the platform limited to Telegram. In the comment section, another user, Belo354, shared an even more painful experience: losing $40,000 in a "Pump and Dump" group on WhatsApp.

These scams typically funnel victims into WhatsApp groups through social media advertisements. These groups are flooded with so-called "mentors" and "successful investors" (who are actually shills). They exploit the victim's Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), inducing the group to collectively buy a low-liquidity cryptocurrency or stock to artificially inflate the price. Once the victims have bought in, the scammers quickly dump their holdings, causing the price to collapse and leaving the victims with total losses. The FBI and financial regulators in multiple countries have repeatedly warned that being added to an unknown WhatsApp or Telegram investment group is, in itself, a massive red flag.

Once a victim transfers funds via cryptocurrency as requested, the money enters a nearly untraceable black hole. Due to the anonymity and irreversibility of blockchain technology, once funds are sent, it is nearly impossible for an individual to retrieve them unless the exchange can intervene in rare circumstances. Even more cruel is that when you expose a scammer online, you may attract another group of "vultures"-known as Recovery Scams. These fake "recovery experts" promise to retrieve losses through technical means, but in reality, they are simply conducting a secondary harvest of the victim.

BrokersView Reminds You

Investment scams on Telegram are becoming increasingly organized, even utilizing automated bots for large-scale solicitation. In the face of these ever-evolving tactics, BrokersView reminds all investors that the first line of defense for protecting your assets is always a clear-headed awareness.

In the financial world, any promise of "risk-free high returns" that involves a "release fee" is predatory by nature. If you find yourself in a similar conversation, please stop all transfers immediately. You are also welcome to report and expose the scam on BrokersView.