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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMade In Macedonia: Americans Lose Millions Buying Fake Donald Trump Debit Cards
BELGRADE -- Last September, 86-year-old Ann Bratton thought she'd stumbled onto the investment of a lifetime.
An ad on one of the encrypted Telegram app channels the Nashville-area retiree had joined was offering debit-like "Trump cards" featuring the billionaire U.S. ex-president's image, each supposedly preloaded with $200,000. After years of forking out tens of thousands of dollars on souvenir banknotes, coins, and other Trump memorabilia, she calculated that she could quickly and easily turn a $6,000 investment into a $4 million nest egg.
What she didn't know was that behind the offer of "Trump Collection" cards was an opaque group of web-based vendors from a faded industrial city 8,500 kilometers away. And that city, in the Balkan country of North Macedonia, was already notorious for being home to legions of scammers who had fraudulently monetized Donald Trump's popularity in the United States and around the world.
snip
But it's an open secret in this corner of the Balkans that a startlingly successful digital disinformation and fake news industry that emerged in the Macedonian city of Veles alongside the political rise of Donald Trump helped lay the groundwork for a thriving new business in fraudulent goods marketed through encrypted channels to Trump-style conservatives and "patriots" an ocean away.
https://www.rferl.org/a/macedonia-trump-debit-cards-scam/32836128.html
**** as a note: If you read the article, you will see just how big a fool Bratton is (when she describes Trump in paragraph 7)
Croney
(4,678 posts)Skittles
(153,310 posts)you cannot get much more stupid than that
kwijybo
(243 posts)'Nuff said
dalton99a
(81,707 posts)No sympathy, 86 years old and supporting trump, just nope
Skittles
(153,310 posts)pretty damn sad
no_hypocrisy
(46,311 posts)BlueKota
(1,862 posts)Gore1FL
(21,168 posts)niyad
(113,949 posts)Shermann
(7,488 posts)Never seen on video, but a lot of people are saying so!
niyad
(113,949 posts)Midnight Writer
(21,853 posts)Shermann
(7,488 posts)SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)niyad
(113,949 posts)GB_RN
(2,409 posts)Hed probably look at it and then say it like it was a Scottish last name: Mack-a-DOE-nee-ya.😂
Floyd R. Turbo
(26,712 posts)Norbert
(6,043 posts)GreenWave
(6,825 posts)MorbidButterflyTat
(1,881 posts)Meadowoak
(5,574 posts)niyad
(113,949 posts)tazkcmo
(7,306 posts)sop
(10,297 posts)mwb970
(11,375 posts)They will believe anything! No critical thinking ability at all. This "startlingly successful digital disinformation and fake news industry" is actually an obvious source of endless scams.
This makes it clear why trump ran for office as a republican after being a Democrat all his life. He knew that his lies and bluster would never work on liberals. We're just too smart for that!
SarcasticSatyr
(1,185 posts)They just never learn ....
rpannier
(24,350 posts)Donald Jr and Ivanka are used, but not Eric
My guess is, nobody knows who he is
bluesbassman
(19,385 posts)And theyre right.
sop
(10,297 posts)(Quote often attributed to Mark Twain.)
AllyCat
(16,266 posts)Last edited Sat Mar 2, 2024, 09:56 AM - Edit history (1)
A Scam. No one would be dumb enough to fall for that.
Except the cult. They will.
rpannier
(24,350 posts)Now the Donald Trump scam
He'll send you 20000 Trump bucks and you wire him 10000 U.S. dollars
niyad
(113,949 posts)scams, perpetrated by supposed "friends", before I found out and ended it. The last attempted one was trying to get her to invest $25,000, for a guaranteed return of 2 million. These "friends" had already taken her for over 10,000. Their little con artist careers came to a very abrupt end, even after they threatened me.
AllyCat
(16,266 posts)Terrible. Can see it more probable when its someone a person knows.
But stranger on the internet?
niyad
(113,949 posts)does something like that. Needless to say, I was not amused.
AllyCat
(16,266 posts)How awful to think the others were friends but were among the worst kind of people.
niyad
(113,949 posts)them, thereby making her look gullible and foolish. Her ego couldn't take the hit.
Bristlecone
(10,146 posts)For your friend and millions like her. Their ego wont allow them to back down. So they dig in and become more entrenched; and dare I say angry/aggressive with anyone who may challenge their decision(s). Even if in an effort to help them.
Old Crank
(3,675 posts)Mark, easy mark.
Evidently there is well more than one born every minute.
samsingh
(17,605 posts)70sEraVet
(3,536 posts)If they didnt spend their dollars on fake Trump junk, they'd have spent it on REAL Trump junk!
In this case, every dollar stolen from them is GOOD for America!
Blue Owl
(50,578 posts)Fuck them all and the corruption they rode in on
Emile
(23,184 posts)ms liberty
(8,627 posts)Gore1FL
(21,168 posts)Colorado-based companies Patriots Dynasty, Patriots Future and USA Patriots have been advertising products with Trump's likeness, including black $10,000 Trump Buckssold for $99.99they said could be redeemed as legal tender at most banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, though none responded to inquiries from NBC News.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2023/05/27/trump-supporters-scammed-by-novelty-items-trump-bucks-advertised-as-legal-tender/
niyad
(113,949 posts)to believe something that obviously nuts.
Buns_of_Fire
(17,213 posts)(I've got to see if I can find Ann Bratton's address for my mailing list. I'll check with our local Nigerian prince.)
Wonder Why
(3,336 posts)617Blue
(1,282 posts)3Hotdogs
(12,466 posts)he didn't have to put any of his own effort into turning it into shit.
hatrack
(59,602 posts)Second, WOMP FUCKING WOMP.
After Bratton received 20 "Trump Collection" cards in October 2023, eager for her payout, she tried to use them to withdraw some of the promised cash from a local ATM. "The point I saw [advertised by the vendor] was that I can go to any ATM and withdraw cash, so I did that," she said. The ATM "just shot [the card] right back out, you know." She tried several other ATMs, including one operated by Bank Of America.
Bank Of America, the United States' second-largest bank, was among the institutions most frequently mentioned in the false ads as locations where purchasers could use their "Trump" cards to withdraw money.
"Bank of America has nothing to do with those products. These are souvenirs," William Halldin, a senior bank media representative, told RFE/RL. He said there were no figures to suggest how many people had tried to cash in on such products. Asked whether there was any way the cards could be turned into cash from his institution, Halldin was brief: "No."
https://www.msnbc.com/inside-with-jen-psaki/watch/trump-rnc-donors-begging-to-be-stolen-from-james-carville-says-press-on-the-gop-chaos-204987461657
"These people want to be stolen from, and Trump is going to accomodate them."
Ocelot II
(115,985 posts)Gruenemann
(984 posts)Will fall for anything.
crud
(629 posts)The easiest marks in the world. I think the conspiracy spreaders are really just looking for the most gullible people so they can take their money.
oswaldactedalone
(3,491 posts)Think about how stupid the average person is, then realize that 50% of people are stupider than that and we live amongst them. How can it be?
Oopsie Daisy
(2,778 posts)I'm having a hard time finding pity for these folks.
Farmer-Rick
(10,240 posts)But come on these Trump supporters are just asking for it.
First they buy into crazy right wing conspiracy theories (which is why they click on these ads.), then they waste their money on Trump memorabilia (proving they like to buy junk if it's related to Trump), then someone cons them into Trump conspiracy financial investments.
Some of them bought US dollars with Trump's face on the fake money. They believe that when Trump is the US dictator in chief again, this money will be the new US currency. All the crap you have to believe to just hope this scenario will play out is mind boggling.
paleotn
(18,014 posts)But I'm finding it very, very difficult.
keithbvadu2
(37,044 posts)Why else would Trump and the evangelists team up.
Lunabell
(6,141 posts)Those idiots are gullible and stupid. A fool and his mobey are soon parted.
I'm too ethical to defraud even trump thumpers. It's also one of the reasons I don't have a mega church cult.
Turbineguy
(37,415 posts)Your marks want to be fleeced.
Backseat Driver
(4,402 posts)constitute a flock. There's at least another mighty psychopath/NPD individual living and grifting in North Macedonia. Like the one we all know and despise, the other claims he came to know self-awareness,, instead in an Israeli jail after getting caught in a business fraud, but as another "stable genius," decided to make the best of it post-incarceration. Can it be there's some sort of competition quantumly playing out? Ever hear of Sam Vaknin?
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/north-macedonia/#people-and-society
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Vaknin
There's still another kooky Israeli mathematician living here, but nobody in everyday life likely has ever heard of this one: Ilan Sadeh is roughly in the same age range as the first two. Perhaps he's content to just work out his problems in a world apart?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilan_Sadeh
DBoon
(22,427 posts)They were raised to believe whatever an authority figure says. Questioning authority goes completely against their nature.
They were taught to obey and not to reason.
republianmushroom
(13,857 posts)Dumb and dumber.
keep_left
(1,798 posts)The scam itself apparently goes back to the GW Bush era, but it was updated for the Trump regime due in part to some astonishingly ignorant remarks Trump made about international currency devaluations (in particular, the Chinese yuan)--once again proving that Trump can never be trusted to utter a single word of sense when it comes to business and commerce. Trump's dumbass followers somehow distorted his comments into a fantasy scenario whereby Trump would "revalue the dinar", making any small holder of the currency into a millionaire overnight.
The Chapo Trap House podcast satirized the fools who fell for the scam, and they did not hold back their customary venom in doing so.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217949403#post20 (see also post #2)
MorbidButterflyTat
(1,881 posts)"Neither the Republican presidential hopeful Trump nor any of his organizations appear to have any connection to the manufacturers, platforms, or sellers."
No fucking way the king of grift isn't getting his cut. NO WAY.
MAGAts are stupid gullible marks, recognized by criminals around the world. No sympathy here.
Silent3
(15,438 posts)"I believe in President Trump, and I think he is honest."
If anything screams "I'm a sucker!", this would be it.