Tyceno, streamer and YouTuber, was the first person to uncover the fraud. He persuaded young gamers to hand over hundreds of 2K22 MT dollars in the hope of earning thousands of dollars. “I am convinced to believe @StepBackRack to be the person behind an enormous illegal pyramid scheme that took place within the NBA 2K community, in which over $200,000 was taken away from vulnerable players who believed they could ‘flip’ their money,” Tyceno wrote.

However, it’s unclear what the exact circumstances were. Rack or Raangee were aware of the scam or if their accounts were compromised. We’ve tried multiple times to reach them, but to no avail.

According to Tyceno, along with several reported victims who contacted us, “Rack” reached out to several youngsters via the game’s in-game voice chat feature. (NBA 2K’s terms and conditions prohibits using the service for commercial or illegal reasons as well as to bet with other individuals. 2K The publisher of NBA 2K, has not replied to numerous requests for comment.

Tyceno claimed Rack offered players to invest large sums of cash that promised unusually high return of as high as 40 percent. One person aged 21 has told us that he lost $6000 and was supposed to be compensated $11,000 due to the “interest” the victim was expected to collect. “The fraud was started by a dude named Rack posting hundreds of thousand dollars bets, and then trying to brag about the amount of money he had.”

Another victim, who was 17, lodged a cybercrime report with the Australian Cyber Security Centre after an alleged loss of $6,000 in the scam.”He [Rack] described the scheme as lending money that was then repaid by interest,” the teenager said. “He enjoyed a high reputation in the community and took advantage of it to influence me and others into Buy NBA 2K22 MT Coins sending large amounts of money.”