The pitch was simple: How’d you like to make some extra money with just a few taps on your phone?
Start by investing a small amount — say, a couple thousand dollars — in a high-tech scooter-sharing company based in Hong Kong. Watch from your phone as the electric scooters get rented and your money doubles, then triples. Recruit your friends and family and earn even more. Win a cruise or a Tesla.
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“Don’t miss this opportunity,” urged a marketing video for Lightning Shared Scooter Co.
Skeptical?
Small-town mayors endorsed the company, known as LSSC. So did police officers and a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer appeared to give it a shoutout on Cameo, where people ask public figures to record online messages. A photo of French soccer star Kylian Mbappé was used to promote it.
And if that wasn’t good enough, LSSC storefronts and offices popped up in at least eight cities across the United States filled with sleek black scooters — which really worked — and the requisite state paperwork to prove it was all real.
Patricia Livingstone, a group home manager from Philadelphia, poured in close to $11,000 of her savings, thinking the earnings could help support her mother’s retirement in Liberia. Aisha Komara, a nursing assistant from Minnesota, invested $18,000 for a chance at “financial security” for her family. Oliver Mayson, a security professional in New Jersey, put in $65,000 after his sister convinced him and his brother it was genuine.
They logged on to the LSSC app at night, because they believed the people renting the scooters were in Hong Kong. They hit a button to “run” their scooters, then watched as payment for the four-hour rentals ticked up in their accounts.
Until last month, when Livingstone, Komara, Mayson and potentially hundreds, if not thousands, of other app users discovered they were unable to withdraw their “accumulated income.”
A devastating realization sunk in: It was a scam.
“There were police officers promoting this. People in the military. Mayors. I’m seeing videos from all these important people — I believed,” Mayson, 41, said as his 2-year-old son played at his feet in their Newark home.
“I feel upset,” he said. “I feel duped.”
The mass deception has exploded hopes of financial stability in immigrant and lower-income communities that invested heavily in the scam, in which, some say, they dug into their savings or their children’s college funds. The scheme was built on trust — people enlisted family members, friends, fellow churchgoers, co-workers to sign up and invest. Now the victims are using social media to warn others.
The scam has caught the attention of law enforcement in at least six states, with Kyle Hoffman, a police officer in Arlington County, Virginia, estimating the amount of money lost to the fraud nationwide is easily “in the millions.” Hoffman said he is working on the investigation with the FBI’s Richmond field office; the FBI declined to comment. In Salinas, California, police say, the number of victims has reached more than five dozen with a combined loss of $370,734. NBC News interviewed a dozen people across the United States who say that, combined, they injected more than $190,000 into LSSC with little to nothing to show for it.
Investment scams cheated U.S. consumers out of $5.7 billion last year, according to the Federal Trade Commission, which said crooks use sophisticated online measures to make it extremely difficult to catch them and get victims’ money back. The FTC said it doesn’t comment on specific companies or potential investigations. The Better Business Bureau, which labeled LSSC a “pyramid scheme” last week, said it had received complaints from 20 states.
The origin of the LSSC scam is opaque, and the search for its leaders is sprawling. Many of the victims knew only first names: Danny, who described himself as a general manager, and Francois, who ran day-to-day operations. Several people who promoted LSSC online, rented storefronts on LSSC’s behalf or filed state incorporation paperwork for the company said they, too, had been duped and expressed regret. Others didn’t respond to requests for comment.
NBC News traced business records associated with LSSC and discovered one name that appeared twice: Xavier Mitchell-Diggens, who incorporated Lightning Shared Scooter Limited in Hong Kong in August 2024 and also is listed as the director of Lightning Exchange Ltd., a related cryptocurrency trading platform, on a form filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in April.
Reached by phone, Xavier Mitchell-Diggens, who describes himself on LinkedIn as a blockchain investor and decentralized technology expert, said he had never heard of LSSC. He added that he didn’t know why his name was on paperwork filed in Hong Kong but that he was a contractor several years ago for a company based there.
“I guess I probably should figure out who’s using my name,” Mitchell-Diggens said, later adding in an email that he believes his name was leaked and used in the Hong Kong documents with an old passport number without his knowledge.
A Hong Kong police spokesperson said that no complaints have been filed locally with its financial and commercial crimes units and that the company wasn’t under investigation there.
NBC News also reached out to phone numbers, email addresses and social media accounts associated with the scam but got no response.
Spicer said that he donates all proceeds from his Cameos to charity and that the request appeared to be for an individual, not a company.
“Obviously, I don’t know anything about the company, and it was never intended to be used for any kind of commercial or promotional or endorsement purpose,” Spicer said. Cameo didn’t respond to an NBC News request for comment.
A spokesperson said the Army was investigating the video that appeared to show a lieutenant colonel endorsing LSSC, which would be prohibited by Defense Department regulations; a man answering a number listed for the lieutenant colonel said he had “no clue what you’re talking about.” A representative for Mbappé didn’t respond to a request for comment; a man involved with the scam in Dallas admitted the soccer player’s image was used on promotional materials without permission.
Hoffman of the Arlington County Police Department, who began investigating LSSC in June, said the storefronts stocked with actual scooters lent legitimacy to the scheme.
The business “doesn’t seem suspicious until you start digging. All you’re seeing from the outside is a scooter business like Bird or Lime,” Hoffman said. “But once you start digging deeper, the scooters were all just smoke and mirrors.”
Very little, he said, was real.
Scooters arrive in the Mississippi Delta
Surrounded by electric scooters in the newly opened LSSC store in Cleveland, Mississippi, Melanie Townsend-Blackmon smiled at the camera as she described a business venture that she doubted at first. “I thought it was the pyramid game or whatever,” Townsend-Blackmon, the mayor of Drew, a nearby town, said of LSSC in a promotional video recorded late last year. Now, though, she was convinced, and she wanted to spread the word: “You can earn a lot.”
She urged viewers to get in touch with her or George and Vernestine Howard, the couple behind the new scooter store.
“Maybe one day you can obtain your store, as well,” she added.
In the Mississippi Delta, one of the poorest regions of the country, LSSC had arrived.
The Howards said they heard about LSSC through a WhatsApp message from a representative who gave only his first name, Parker. Potential investors attended gatherings at the store and restaurants to learn about the company and sometimes won prizes. Townsend-Blackmon won a Keurig coffee maker. Recruits told their co-workers and in-laws. At Parchman, the state’s troubled penitentiary, corrections workers were urging their colleagues to sign up.
In December, soon after the Howards' grand opening, the Cleveland Police Department gave away at least four LSSC scooters to children performing well in school.
“You can visit LSSC for all your electric scooter needs,” the department posted on Facebook. A video later circulated showing a man who identifies himself as a Cleveland police officer inside the store, promising, “LSSC is not a scam.” Gesturing to the scooters, he adds, “This is actual proof that this is real.”
Cleveland Police Chief Travis Dudley Tribble declined to comment. The police department deleted the Facebook post this month after NBC News reached out, but the video is still circulating.
Marcus Price, who lives two counties from the store in Webb, was juggling jobs as a pizza delivery driver and in the city's public works department when he decided to invest in LSSC. He has two daughters to care for, and the additional money could be life-changing. He could open a trucking business. When his girls were old enough, they could help run it.
Price didn’t know it, but when he joined in late July, warning signs were beginning to surface. On Reddit, users were saying there were complaints about the company with the Better Business Bureau. The newly re-elected mayor of Drew had quietly distanced herself, withdrawn her family’s investment and filed a police report, trying to stop her endorsement from circulating.
But what Price could see — the storefront with the Howards’ names emblazoned over the entrance — seemed fine.
“I know one thing in my mind,” Price said. “You do not have a fraudulent business out in the open like that. Anybody doing fraudulent activity is going to try to be low-key with it.”
Price invested $2,100, but within days, he became suspicious when he heard others were having trouble withdrawing their funds. He needed to provide a bitcoin wallet address to start the process, but he no longer trusted the company enough to share personal information.
Instead, he sued George Howard in small claims court, saying Howard made false promises while he was signing him up for LSSC.
Howard countered that he had never met Price, and he described himself as a victim of the scam, too; his wife said they had lost at least $5,000.
“Me owning the store didn’t give me no bigger position than anybody else,” Howard said in an interview. “It’s just I was the one taking care of it.”
On Aug. 15, the Howards and Price appeared in a small courtroom in Ruleville, Mississippi.
At times, Sunflower County Justice Court Judge Lisa Bell seemed bewildered as other LSSC members described the cloudiness of the endeavor.
No, they’d never met the people in charge. Yes, recruiting others was a part of it.
“You just described the absolute definition of a pyramid scheme,” Bell said.
She didn’t rule, citing a need to learn more about the company.
The Howards shut down the storefront this month; they’re not sure how they’ll pay the remaining two months of rent.
Six miles away in Drew, Townsend-Blackmon hadn’t outrun the video. A stranger called from New York asking her about LSSC this month, and she said she told the caller it was a scam.
“I hate I even did the freaking video,” Townsend-Blackmon said in an interview from City Hall.
Her Keurig was still sitting in its box.
Chinese connections
To victims, LSSC spread like a virus, replicating through their communities and targeting the trusting and the vulnerable.
When newcomers were persuaded to invest, they sent the initial amount — often around $2,180 — to a manager through online payment platforms such as Zelle or Cash App. The manager then converted the money into a form of cryptocurrency like bitcoin, which appeared in the investors’ LSSC apps. Investors could add more money via cryptocurrency to pay for additional scooters they could rent out to make bigger returns. Early on, some investors were easily able to withdraw their earnings, and some described making tens of thousands of dollars.
LSSC shares key elements with established Chinese investment scams, said Erin West, a former prosecutor in California and the president of Project Shamrock, an anti-fraud nonprofit organization.
“This appears to be selling to vulnerable people the American dream, their ability to make their way in the U.S.,” she said.
What makes this scam different from its predecessors are the real-world components — storefronts and actual scooters.
“There’s a physical piece of property, here’s your scooter, so this must be legit,” West said.
LSSC’s website and news releases, as well as its Android and iPhone apps, all have references and connections to China. Sean O’Brien, the founder of the Yale Privacy Lab, which researches digital threats, examined the code of LSSC’s Android app and found it filled with Chinese digital certifications and references to Chinese tech services like QQ, Taobao and Alibaba. Apple requires all apps on its App Store to include custom privacy policies, which for LSSC appears to have been an afterthought. The title is “无标题文档,” Chinese for “Untitled document.”
Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment, but the LSSC app was removed from the store after NBC News asked about it. Android apps can be downloaded directly, without going through Google’s Play Store.
In another connection to China, LSSC’s website shares a domain with a company in Shenzhen that sells rechargeable battery devices. An employee said the company had sold charging devices to LSSC but had no other relationship. The employee didn’t offer a clear explanation of why they shared a web domain.
Patricia Livingstone, the group home manager from Philadelphia who invested $11,000, joined LSSC in April to help her 75-year-old mother in retirement. An LSSC manager instructed her to use not just the LSSC app but also Lightning Exchange, a related crypto investment platform, and a chat app that people who identified themselves as LSSC managers used to communicate with investors. Through the apps, the managers told her to log on at certain times to make specific trades. She began spending hours on the apps, communicating with other members and attending online training sessions. It was exhausting.
“I felt like I was in a cult, like a zombie,” said Livingstone, 35. “I was trading four times a day. It became my life, and I couldn’t sleep.”
Kumba Kenneth, Livingstone’s friend and co-worker who joined because of her, said she felt similarly “under control.”
“I go to work. I have to trade. Then it’s midnight. Look at the LSSC app to run your scooter,” said Kenneth, 44. “We were being manipulated.”
Tah-Ming Lee opened a $1,270-a-month LSSC office in Sandy Springs, Georgia, to host meetings and training sessions. It was funded by a manager named Paul he met on the chat app, but he said he had suspicions about whom he was talking to.
“We thought all these managers were AI,” Lee said. “They were writing in this weird way. They don’t sound like a normal human being.”
Lee said he couldn’t get a straight answer about how the scooters were rented, so he had a friend in Hong Kong check whether any LSSC scooters were zipping around. The friend said no.
In the earlier months of the company last year, Lee said, money was flowing in — he estimates having earned at least $40,000 from his initial $35 investment — making the operation appear legitimate.
But in recent weeks, investors trying to withdraw money from the app received messages saying the withdrawals were “pending.” The money never arrived. LSSC also asked people to pay an account verification fee of $75 to get their money, but members who spoke with NBC News said they refused.
Hoffman, the Arlington County police officer who began investigating LSSC in June, said the verification requirement appeared to be a “last-ditch effort” to squeeze money from desperate members before the scam collapsed.
Seeking payback
Hoffman said he understands how people presumed the scooter sharing app was real.
“We’re in this age of ‘be your own boss,’” he said. “You have DoorDash, Instacart, these legitimate businesses where you can make your own schedule.”
The lure of financial freedom attracted Mayson, the New Jersey man whose sister recruited him, to invest with LSSC. He attended company luncheons and parties and peered into a storefront in Oaklyn, New Jersey, a Philadelphia suburb, that was lined with scooters.
Oaklyn Mayor Greg Brandley had attended a ribbon-cutting for that store, where he announced that he had never heard of LSSC but said, “We just want to wish you much success.”
Brandley didn’t respond to requests for comment. The store appeared to be closed recently, and the business’ voicemail was full.
The Oaklyn Police Department said it is investigating reports of fraud regarding LSSC.
Mayson, who said he and his wife lost about $100,000, has joined a WhatsApp group for victims seeking justice. Some of the members, many of whom are West African immigrants, have filed complaints with law enforcement.
Mayson said he felt particularly manipulated by Vasey Salagbi, who identifies himself in videos as a regional LSSC manager. In one, Salagbi says he has over 1,500 members and proclaims the business is “not a sales scam.”
As Mayson spoke with NBC News at his Newark home last week, he decided to dial Salagbi, whose phone, he said, routinely goes to voicemail.
But Mayson was surprised when Salagbi picked up.
“I was a victim just like Oliver is,” Salagbi told NBC News in the call. “I lose all $90,000 and everybody else is lose. We were all scammed.”
Salagbi said he doesn’t own LSSC and was introduced to it by a man named Samuel in New Jersey. He said he would have to consult a lawyer before he answered further questions and abruptly hung up.
Do you have a story to share about LSSC or a similar scam? Email reporters Erik Ortiz and Bracey Harris.
Others affiliated with LSSC have also claimed to have been deceived. Supervisors said in an Aug. 15 chat app message to investors that “due to poor management at its headquarters,” LSSC was under investigation and its funds had been frozen until March 2027.
“We are just like you. Like you, we have funds invested in it, and we share the same anxiety and frustration,” the message states. “We are victims, not manipulators.”
A Telegram spokesperson said Tuesday that LSSC’s channel on the platform had been banned for breaching its terms of service. After being contacted by NBC News, WhatsApp also removed its LSSC channel for violating platform guidelines, a spokesperson said.
But just before it was removed, there was a new pitch being pushed: It promised refunds to “subscribed members” and the launch of a “brand-new platform — New LSSC.”
To apply for “priority refund processing,” it said, members must invite 30 new users to register with New LSSC.
“Let us move forward together with New LSSC toward a brighter future.”
Erik Ortiz reported from Newark, N.J., and Philadelphia, Bracey Harris from Cleveland, Miss., and Kevin Collier from New York.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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