My dad is retired and very cautious with his savings. But he was targeted by a scam that appealed to his interests—precious metals. He received a flyer and an email promoting a crypto project called GoldMintChain, supposedly backed by real gold reserves. They offered secure staking options, and you could even request physical gold delivery.

They were offering a limited-time token sale with early-bird rewards. After watching their promotional video and reading their whitepaper, he decided to invest $7,000. I warned him it looked sketchy, but he was convinced. The team claimed to have mining operations in Canada and Dubai. They even did a Zoom Q&A.

A month later, the promised token never launched. Their website stopped loading. Phone numbers went straight to voicemail. My dad was crushed. He kept blaming himself.

We later found that the entire project was a scam. The team members had fake LinkedIn profiles, and their whitepaper had been copied from a legitimate gold-backed project. We reported it to authorities, but it was too late.