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Comment by marcosscriven | Hacker News Reader

Great write up - sad to hear of the Regium scam. Does anyone know who’s actually behind it?

I don't know, but related: at least some of the faces on their about page were actually plucked straight out of thispersondoesnotexist.com!

It was a lot of fun tracking the drama.

Regium spent a fair bit of money (10s of 1000s) in ads on chess.comm, chess24.com and at least one magazine (although some of the ads might not have required full up front payment) and the videos and website would have either cost money or time plus software.

chess.com had live ads read on streams by presenters, the presenters looked and sounded really sceptical it was legit, didn't stop them from taking the money and advertising it to their customers, though.

Regium spent a total of $2,000 on ads with Chess.com before it was discovered. We have earmarked that money for later this year to be given away to a charity of choice by the winner of the “Best Swindle” prize. More details coming later this year. But again, it wasn’t that much money, and we aren’t keeping it. :) - Chess.com

Are you able to identify who these people actually are, based on the payment details for the ads? It just seems amazing to me they can get away with nothing more than a Kickstarter ban.

This is why I use Chess.com

Thanks :D

Are you sure ads cost that much?

No I'm not sure, but that videos and website look expensive. I know the magazine ad didn't need to be paid in advanced.

Video and website take time, not money. It's a good investment for an unemployed or bored person in a depressed economic area pulling a $50K Kickstarter scam.

The guy does seem to have some skills in marketing and websites, so a lot of it was probably just time.

I think $10,000 is a reasonable figure. $2000 on chess.com (assuming that's correct) and let's say $2000 on chess24, a full page magazine ad that might not have been paid for, some expensive chess boards and chess pieces. translations, maybe voice overs. There was a video of actors endorsing it.

Also possible the ads were paid for with stolen credit cards or counterfeit checks.

Since the website and marketing are totally anonymous/fake people, the ad buys and Kickstarter likely were fake IDs also.

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