Turns out, Trump Bucks aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. Just ask John Amann of Houston who said he bought $2,200 worth of the phony currency and other Trump monetary items over the past year only to discover they were worthless when he tried to cash them in at his local bank.
Supporters are told Trump Bucks will propel Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential bid and make the “real patriots” who support him rich when he wins and they can cash in.
How would it work? According to NBC News, those who got duped believe Trump, when he is re-elected, will institute a new monetary system that will make Trump Bucks valuable:
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.
The fine print on the websites offering these items usually notes that they are memorabilia.
But on social media and in promotional videos — many featuring faked celebrity endorsements — the sellers have tapped an audience that believes Trump’s ouster was part of a great conspiracy and that by investing in the Trump Rebate Banking System, or TRB for short, Trump will reward their loyalty by making them rich.
Those who buy these items, the ads from Patriots Dynasty, Patriots Future and USA Patriots suggest, will be rewarded when Trump unveils a new monetary system that will turn these products into legal tender worth far more than the purchase price.
NBC News has identified the Colorado-based companies behind the alleged scam as Patriots Dynasty, Patriots Future and USA Patriots and found at least a dozen people who say they invested thousands of dollars. They wonder if Trump was part of the scam.
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“Now I’m questioning whether he is aware of this,” Amann, 77, told NBC News. He added: “There’s no way to cash out what I have,” he said.
In AI-generated videos on social media and in chat groups, celebrities and politicians, including Trump, appear to endorse the scam. In one, Trump appears to announce the launch of the Trump Rebate Banking system on Fox News.
“Let’s make America wealthy again,” the artificially generated voice of Trump says.
To prove to her mother-in-law that she had been swindled, a Florida woman said she drove her to a nearby bank and urged her to try to redeem the Trump Bucks in her possession.
“We thought she got it, she even admitted she got scammed,” the woman said. “But then giant boxes arrived at the house full of Trump checks and other stuff that she bought for $500 and that would supposedly be worth $6 million one day. We tell her she’s getting scammed and she says, ‘Just wait, Trump will make all the patriots rich.’”
“It’s like she’s in a cult,” the Florida woman said.
One Alabama grandma, turned down by the bank when she tried to redeem her Trump currency, realized she has been taken.
“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.”
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