The BAYC owner narrowly avoids the fake Forbes scam when asked to give him a banana

The owner of Board Up Yacht Club (BAYC) says he avoided a “dreary day” after initially being asked to take a photo of a banana from someone he thought was going to be interviewed by Forbes.

In the year On November 27, NFT collector ‘Cruz' listed his involvement with a scammer posing as a Forbes reporter.

A man posing as Robert LaFanco — a real Forbes editor — reported receiving a direct message from the impersonator's account, offering to interview him for a new article about BAYCs.

SCAM ALERT!!I've spent the last 2 hours zooming in on ‘@Forbes' it was very sophisticated and well thought out because I'm on the alert most of the time but luckily I didn't get caught. Here's what they did. 1/8

— Crumz (@crumz10) November 26, 2023

During the interview, the scammer pressured Cruise to tap a “button” so he could record the interview. Cruz said that despite some red flags for so-called journalists, they used a non-premium Zoom account and wanted to use a separate recording bot to record the screen.

“I had to press a button to get it to record,” he said, before adding, “I didn't think much of it at first, but it ended up asking me to say something like my monkey and point to a banana.”

‘Cruz' later realized that this was a diversionary attempt to take from his computer where the attacker would take control of his computer to steal his property.

‘Cruise' said instead of getting the banana, he waited at the computer and sure enough the scammers started taking over the screen.

“I closed my screen and there was no video and I just waited on the screen and sure enough they started taking over my screen, I stopped them when they went to delegate.cash.”

8/8 Hopefully I'm fine now. Don't think you can still control it when I turn my computer back on. Please be safe today may be a very scary day

— Crumz (@crumz10) November 26, 2023

Crypto casino Rollbit member ‘@3orovik' echoed the warning to his 140,000 X followers on November 27.

He fingered a rogue account named ‘Robert LaFranco' whose profile claimed to be the Assistant Managing Editor of Forbes. “During this interview, he will try to trick you into accessing your PC and stealing your precious NFTs,” he warned.

⚠️ See ⚠️

A fake Forbes reporter is getting a fake interview for BAYC holders.

During this interview he will try to trick you into accessing your PC and steal your precious NFTs.

Forbes can't reach pic.twitter.com/ViYrT0mk1l

— borovik.eth (@3orovik) November 27, 2023

Meanwhile, BAYC community member Laura Rhode reports that she was contacted by a fake Forbes editor.

Related: Nansen Phishing Emails Flood Crypto Investors' Inboxes

Earlier this month, blockchain security firm Slowmist detailed several scams in which victims lost crypto assets to fake journalists.

After arranging the interview, the attacker reportedly would Telegram the victims to join the interview, provide the interview schedule, conduct a two-hour interview, and then provide the malicious link for publication permission.

In October, a Friends.tech user reported being scammed by a fake Bloomberg reporter.

Meanwhile, several industry observers have noted that scammers on X (Twitter) often have a BAYC profile picture, which is a cause for concern.

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