here are a few of the weirdest things
celebrities get into number nine
anna nicole smith late model and reality
star anna nicole smith began promoting a
weight loss pill called trim spa in
2003. before smith the company was
making about 16 million when smith
joined the team profits shot to over 43
million a 172 percent increase by 2004.
she said the pill helped her lose 69
pounds in eight months trim spot was
sold as a high-speed dream body diet
pill that promised up to 70 pounds of
effortless weight loss according to the
company one of its ingredients hudia
cordoni suppressed appetite and helped
users lose weight the federal trade
commission ftc fined the company in 2007
because it didn't have adequate evidence
to support these claims trim spa paid
1.5 million to the ftc to settle the
allegations but it was too late the
public already knew about the false
claims and sales dwindled when smith
unexpectedly died trim spa took another
huge financial hit as it was unclear if
smith was taking the pill at the time of
her passing in october 2008 the company
was liquidated and all remaining assets
went up for auction those assets
included thousands of trim spa bottles
two custom motorcycles two custom cars
with smith's face painted on them a race
car and a lot of office equipment number
eight elon musk and dodge coin
the ceo of tesla and spacex has always
been a man of the future he proved it
once again when he announced his
ownership of several cryptocurrencies
such as bitcoin ethereum and dodge coin
but dodge coin a satirical meme inspired
form of crypto seemed to be his favorite
musk mentioned it in several interviews
in social media posts in turn a lot of
musk employees purchased dodge coin he
publicly called it the people's crypto
because it's more customer friendly than
bitcoin and ethereum which may seem
intimidating and confusing to the
average person musk said dodge coin was
created to make fun of crypto but it
ended up taking off so much so that it
became a respected form of
cryptocurrency he also said that he
supports dodge coin over the more
popular bitcoin he argued that bitcoin
isn't actually suitable for transactions
because of its low transaction value and
high transaction cost dodge coin however
makes more sense for everyday use
according to musk a lot of people took
his word for it even business tycoon
dallas mavericks owner and shark tank
favorite mark cuban weighed in calling
dodge coin the strongest form of
cryptocurrency as a medium for exchange
under his direction the dallas mavericks
began accepting dodge coin for
merchandise payments cuban offered
special prices to customers willing to
pay with dodge coin he said that while
other forms of crypto are used for
investments dodge coin is used as a form
of currency for daily transactions the
value of dodge coin increased but
experts say you should be careful dodge
coin doesn't have any of the financial
scarcity or technological backing that
other well-established currencies like
bitcoin have number seven ja rule and
fire festival everyone knows the
infamous fire festival which sold itself
as an exclusive music festival on a
remote tropical island in the bahamas
with famous invitees like kendall jenner
and bella hadid tickets sold for up to
49 thousand dollars along with
expectations for a luxurious immersive
music experience with gourmet food and
famous guests things didn't go as
planned though when word got out that
fire media co-founded by rapper ja rule
was nowhere near prepared to accommodate
guests instead guests were put up in
flimsy tents given cold meals in
styrofoam containers and met with no
musical performances ja rule made a
statement on twitter saying that he was
heartbroken that fire festival never
came to fruition and defended his
company claiming it wasn't a scam he was
later named in a 100 million dollar
class action lawsuit which claimed he
and other festival organizers were aware
of their unpreparedness and the severe
risks to attendees health yet they
decided to go ahead with the festival
anyway and hope for the best the
festival's promoter billy mcfarland was
sentenced to six years in prison for
multiple counts of fraud ja rule got
lucky and was cleared of any wrongdoing
but received his fair share of bad press
after three scathing documentaries came
out about the firefest disaster you'd
think the rapper learned his lesson but
then in january 2020 he posted on
twitter promoting value tax a tax prep
company he now owns social media went
after him immediately bringing up past
events like the infamous fire fest it
doesn't help that ja rule went to prison
for 28 months back in 2011 for tax
evasion and apparently owed two million
in unpaid taxes in 2019
number six andrew forrest in early 2022
the australian billionaire filed a
lawsuit against facebook for promoting
scam ads using his image they were
targeted ads run by google that showed
up on facebook the ads featured
celebrity faces and presented a catchy
headline claiming that the person in the
image made a big investment when users
clicked on the ad it took them to a fake
news story that included a link to
invest in fake cryptocurrency if the
user entered their details they received
a call asking to invest 250 the calls
would increase after that asking for
more money in one case a 77 year old
woman in queensland australia clicked
the ad that featured forest she
transferred 5 000 to a cryptocurrency
exchange and was encouraged to invest
even more money eventually the scammers
emptied her bank account stealing her
life savings of eighty thousand dollars
the scams increased greatly during the
covet 19 pandemic faced with billions of
fake ads google claimed they blocked 5
000 ads per minute in 2019 but scammers
once caught can just change ad text and
relaunch their fake news stories they
buy hundreds of domain names to host
these ads just in case one site gets
blocked an investigation found that most
of these scam sites were based in moscow
with some in kiev as well this poses a
unique problem since there's only so
much tech regulators can do to punish
overseas digital scammers if you see a
seemingly innocent news story about
andrew forest that later invites you to
invest in crypto it's probably a scam
number 5. zach horowitz in april 2021
horowitz who often used the stage name
zac avery was arrested for running a
multi-million dollar ponzi scheme the
sec obtained an emergency freeze on his
company's assets one in mm or one in a
million capital llc after the scam
raised nearly 700 million he executed
his master plan by selling film rights
to investors claiming that he would then
resell them to netflix or hbo for a
profit however avery had no connection
with either streaming service he showed
investors fake emails and contracts
about film rights and then guaranteed
profits of at least 35 percent he paid
returns to old investors with the funds
he raised from new investors he sent his
investors gift baskets with johnny
walker blue label scotch and a list of
films his company claimed to be
distributing he also used investor funds
for personal use spending the money on a
multi-million dollar mansion lavish
interior design and vacations to las
vegas avery now owes investors over 227
million he was arrested and charged with
wire fraud at his home in los angeles
his home was searched for evidence of
securities and mail fraud money
laundering and other financial crimes
after appearing in court virtually
during covet 19 avery was released on a
1 million bond however avery's hollywood
dreams went down in flames when a
california court sentenced him to 20
years in prison in early 2022 find out
more details by clicking here
number four harry and megan the duke and
duchess of sussex were also used without
their permission on social media to
increase interest in bitcoin related
investments the scammers went so far as
to create fake interviews news articles
and photos with harry and megan showing
the couple's support for these crypto
schemes one headline read special report
people earning millions from home by
using harry and megan's latest advice
the ads also used logos from the
guardian daily mail bbc the sun and good
morning britain to seem more legitimate
harry and megan aren't the only ones
scammers used images of bill gates
richard bronson and mark zuckerberg to
promote fake ads reports of these scams
rose by 400 percent between 2017 and
2022. number three floyd mayweather and
dj khaled in 2018 champion boxer floyd
mayweather jr and music producer dj
khaled were sued for promoting an
illegal cryptocurrency scam they both
signed endorsement deals with cintratec
a company that claimed to sell
cryptocurrency related products khalid
and mayweather repeatedly posted about
investing in centratech on their social
media profiles as part of their
contracts they encouraged their
followers to invest in centratech
causing many people to lose money in
what was later revealed to be a colossal
crypto scam centratech garnered over 32
million in capital from investors when
it came out that centra tech was a sham
these investors sought to reclaim their
money in addition to damages the
founders of the so-called company
raymond trapani robert farkas and sharab
sharma were arrested and charged with
wire fraud and securities fraud in april
of 2018. they were later found guilty of
attempting to defraud investors with
their ico or initial coin offering even
the u.s district attorney's office in
new york weighed in on the scandal
saying that the founders conspired to
con victims into investing millions of
dollars worth of digital funds through
material misrepresentations and lies the
founders now face up to five years in
prison mayweather later paid 600 000 in
a settlement with the securities and
exchange commission number two floyd
mayweather and kim kardashian it seems
that mayweather didn't learn his lesson
since he was involved in yet another
crypto scam in 2022 this time with kim
kardashian both mayweather and
kardashian are being sued for misleading
investors after promoting a small
cryptocurrency startup called ethereum
max on their social media pages ethereum
max is involved in a class class-action
lawsuit with the u.s district court in
california for collaborating to inflate
the tokens price they did this by
recruiting celebrity spokespeople to
make false or misleading statements on
social media about the cryptocurrencies
worth causing people to invest more last
year when kardashian posted about the
ethereum max coin for the first time she
added hashtag ad to her caption
indicating she was paid to write it she
was probably paid somewhere between 500
000 and 1 million for that post alone
mayweather fulfilled his promotional
duties a bit differently in the boxing
ring during his infamous match with
youtube sensation logan paul mayweather
accepted ethereum max cryptocurrency as
a form of payment for tickets according
to the lawsuit this immensely drove up
sales of ethereum max and gave them
widespread publicity since the summer of
2021 ethereum max has lost 97 percent of
its value leading critics to call it a
pump and dump this is an all too
familiar scheme in the crypto world
occurring when people conspired to boost
the assets price through false
advertising even the name should have
been a red flag they went with ethereum
max because it's eerily similar to
ethereum the second most popular
cryptocurrency behind bitcoin this
caused many people to believe the two
currencies were associated and that
ethereum max was just an offshoot of an
already successful cryptocurrency when
kardashian and mayweather got involved
that's when sales really skyrocketed now
their followers are paying the price
along with their reputations
number one tom brady however celebrity
crypto endorsements aren't always a scam
tom brady co-founded an nft company
called autograph with abel testfay more
commonly known as the weeknd the company
has done well since raising over 170
million from investors brady created the
company to link celebrity athletes and
entertainers with the snowballing nft
industry while some celebrities have
fielded criticism for their involvement
in crypto and nfts autograph hopes to
involve celebrities in a more deliberate
and curated way the company already
hosts an impressive list of partners
like tiger woods simone biles derek
jeter naomi osaka usain bolt wayne
gretzky and tony hawk autograph seeks to
partner with athletes who go beyond
their sport as pop culture icons however
adding to brady's crypto cred is his
ability to admit when he's wrong in june
of 2021 bitcoin spiraled 40
falling from 56 000 to 34 000 per coin
laser eyes tom took to twitter posting
about the huge downslide and asking if
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