Breaking news from around the world.
News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
For US News, see the US News community.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
John Amann told NBC News he bought $2,200 worth of Trump Bucks and other items over the past year only to discover they were worthless when he tried to cash them in at his local bank.
Oh man I want video of him trying to cash them in at a real bank so bad.
That’s little comfort to Amann, who is 77 and lives in Houston. “There’s no way to cash out what I have,” he said.
The fact that this is a scam for the elderly makes it less funny. But very importantly, not unfunny. Get fucked ya old bigot.
“listen sweetheart, we’re in AMERICA right now, yeah? Well these were sent direct from the AMERICAN PRESIDENT, and you’re telling me they’re NO GOOD?”
No, Sir, I said he is NO PRESIDENT, now we good?! Cuz Ima need to see AMERICAN DOLLARS for direct deposit.
I'm from Vancouver, Canada. Waaaaaay back, the Canadian dollar was up on the American, and the local classic rock dj called a Walmart in Texas to ask if he could buy a bbq with Canadian dollars. The lady on the line's response was basically this. I think I remember it verbatim, but I could be off a bit:
Honey, we only take American dollars here....so why don't you go back to Canadia and exchange your fake money for real ones, come on back and you can get a bbq.
I don't know, I think the radio shock jock got what he deserved.
Yeah. I don't expect to use USD in the middle of nowhere France or Germany when Euros exist. The exchange rate doesn't really matter: the store isn't equipped to take that currency.
Here in Michigan, we don't blink about taking Canadian pennies because they are common and banks take them. In Texas, I wouldn't expect that.
?!? We dont even have Canadian Pennies in Canada.
I still have a jar full.
No idea what to do with them.
There used to be.
I got a Canadian quarter once in the coin return in an old apartment's laundry machines
I mean it was a bit, he got what he was hoping for.
Cause you could never exchange CAD in the US .... sigh.
Jesus, imagine being the teller who had to explain to an adult without an apparent intellectual disability that paper with Trump’s face on it is not legal tender even if they paid thousands of dollars for it.
I'm not surprised at all he tried to cash them. Meanwhile, my auction for a trump shaped turd still has no bidders :(
He bought $2,200 worth of Trump Bucks and other items over the past year only to discover they were worthless when he tried to cash them in at his local bank
“Now I’m questioning whether he is aware of this,” Amann said of Trump.
"Antifa sold me fake Trump bucks!!!"
Trump is famous for defending ordinary people against scams. Oh no, wait, it's the other way round.
This whole story is full of hilarious bits, and there's far too many good quotes for me to post them all, but from another angle it's just sad that these people are so far gone from reality that they can be taken advantage of like this. You really think Walmart is going to give you a 10000% guaranteed ROI after a year of holding some funny money? That doesn't set off any alarm bells? Why would Trump give you 100x your money before he's even re-elected in 2024? What could he have done to bring about such economic ~~inflation~~ prosperity in a single year?
I think to a large extent it's a case of cognitive dissonance.
Loads of these people have defended Trump for years, supported him despite his obvious lies and grifts and so you kinda have to believe that whatever else he comes up with is also true. If you believe all his previous falsehoods, why not the next?
To admit he's full of shit means your whole belief system has to change. Trump supporters have lost friends, alienated family, spent their money on him... It's much easier to keep believing in him than it is to admit you've been wrong all this time, cause that would mean having to admit you've been taken for a fool this whole time AND it means all your efforts and sacrifices have been for nothing.
The video ends with a slide advertising a free app that promises to “make your favorite celebrity say anything."
This is like Nigerian Prince. It's deliberately set up to only attract people whose level of cognitive ability makes them vulnerable.
74 million of them at the last election.
“Now I realize, well, that was stupid,” she said. “But I bought them because I believed President Trump, because he knows all about finance, and he was going to help the real Trump Patriots get rich.”
Admits to being stupid and then exercises more of it.
Seriously, just Google anything about Trump, and it's all about his grifts and fraud-criming. Name one instance where he helped anybody but himself.
No one motivated by partisanship is going to hear and properly assess any critique of their candidate.
It's why Trump supporters are losing a ton of money on his scams and why we have a brain-dead creep in the White House now.
The grift that keeps on grifting.
Invest now $99 and get $10000 next year is a claim that even a crypto shitcoin wouldn't do
Trump would never lie! Lol these people are so gullible and helpless.
There are multiple people falling prey to Nigerian/Philippines romance scams, thinking a celebrity/influencer/hot person is using an alt account to contact them because they fell in love with them at first sight.
They give thousands of dollars, millions even. They take out loans, sell their houses, lose all their inheritance, all because they think they are special, when in truth they are just lonely enough to believe the lies that make them think their life has any meaning at all.
The way these scams operate and how Trump manipulates people is virtually the same. It's impressive what loneliness and egocentrism do to us and how vulnerable we can be to the most obvious lies.
I have zero sympathy. In fact, I hope it gets even worse.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Though I feel for people taken in by something like this.
The scam has "Trump" in its name, that's a big red flag.
As a side note, pease consider posting US-specific articles and local news to c/usnews.
🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
In the recesses of the internet where some of Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters stoke conspiracies and plot his return to the White House, suspected con artists have been mining their disappointment over the last presidential election for gold.
Additionally, NBC News has found at least a dozen people like Amann who say they invested thousands of dollars after watching the pitches on Telegram and other websites that strongly suggested that Trump himself was endorsing these products.
The Federal Trade Commission, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from NBC News, confirmed it has received one fraud complaint against Patriots Dynasty that was filed in January.
Since 2020, when Joe Biden defeated Trump in the presidential election, internet hucksters have been selling pro-Trump products like coins, checks and cards and marketing them as novelty items.
About six months ago, the grandmother said, she gathered up the Trump Bucks and commemorative coins she had purchased and drove 60 miles east to the nearest Bank of America branch she could find in Pensacola, Florida.
A Florida woman who lives north of Tampa, and who also asked not to be identified by name because she fears internet harassment, said her 77-year-old mother-in-law was also fooled into investing tens of thousands of dollars in Trump Bucks.
Saved 90% of original text.
I've got a golden ticket. I've got a golden chance to make my way and with a golden ticket it's a golden day.
People getting scamed is awful and all but... I'm sorry, this is really creeping towards the edge of my empathy here. At some point, it's kind of like natural selection.
MAGA- or better yet, MAGGOT loyalty requires you to have no sense of morals or ethics and absolutely no education or ability to comprehend reality. Go out there and give it all you got, maggots of the world!
For some reason my first thought was that Simpson’s episode with Itchy and Scratchy money.