As I mentioned before, I started with NFTs on $Solana, simply because it was cheaper. I got myself a few different NFTs from different collections with good Roadmaps and hopefully honest people. I had no idea there was so much scams going on.
Like most of the new NFT Investors, I was looking for a quick flip, the next Bored Ape or Crypto Punks on $ETH, where the real money is. And I fell in the trap.
I was following this specific account, which I thought was a legitimated successful NFT Promoter:
46K Followers, Giving WL and free $ETH to people ... what could be wrong with this Guy really? Wrong ... I was about to find out the hard way that the NFT World is not for Noobs.
And he promoted Hype Ape Club. An exclusive collection of 888 Apes which would change the metaverse in partnership with The SandBoxGame (How exclusive was that for a guy who was always complaining about the 10.000 NFTs Collection).
First thing first, I joined the discord. I have been in $SOLANA discords before and I have never seen so much activity before in a discord. There was so much HYPE that the 400 people could barely talk to each other. Seen all this, I transfer $400 USD to my Metamask to make sure I have enough money to mint the $0.088 Ape. Then go to their website ( which no longer exists by the way)
and I minted my very first $ETH NFT ... a RARE Junk in the Top 30 NFTs of the actual Fake Collection. Imagine how excited I was showing it to everybody in the discord, having people telling me I was so lucky to have minted a RARE, etc. Then ... everything started to change that same evening.
Future Marc would no longer answer Tweets or Discords questions. I thought that maybe he was in a different Time Zone and would come back latter ... so I went to bed. Next morning I tried to log on the Discord, and it was GONE. I checked the Floor price on Opensea to realize it was down to nothing 0.002 $ETH. And the reality hit me like brick in the face: I got Rugged.
I went to twitter to check the Hype Ape Club Account to find out it no longer existed and was then @27sjsyns, nothing to do with what is was before. As for Future Marc, his account as well changed to 
( by the way he must have changes his name and profile like 10 times since then, but this will be for another post).
I fell betrayed, devastated, angry at myself ... stupid for falling for such a Rug. But at the same time, this experience gave me the motivation to find out more about NFTs and understand what they are, look for Rugs, Scams and Real legitimate projects.
Unfortunately, the #RugPullMafia managed to get away with around $150.000 USD with that 1 Rug alone in the in 2 days only. I have no idea how many they had prior to this one they got me ... but I have been following them since then and call out every single one of the scam they promote. Each and every single Tweet they push for an upcoming project is 100% a rug Pull. The sad part is, even if I warn people ... they still manage to get away with too many naive new investors like I used to be, who are easily impressed with Fake Punks, Fake Bored Apes profile Pictures or Fake Giveaway contests.
I decided to call them the #RugPullMafia. A well organized Gang operating freely on twitter and creating overnight fake NFT Projects to Scam people.
In my next post I will share the names of all the Rugs I have been following from this specific gang since January 22, how much money they made with each of them, how they manage to fool people, their twitter usernames, and more...
Stay Tuned