7 ms·

Beware of a New Amazon Token Crypto Scam

43 points by saturn5k 5y ago

Wronnay 5y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20211220051443/https://blog.avast.com/beware-of-a-new-amazon-token-crypto-scam https://web.archive.org/web/20211220051443/https://blog.avas...
jrockway 5y ago
What does the conversion rate end up looking like for these scams? Pretending to be major media outlets and stealing Amazon's branding is a compelling scheme, but the "just transfer some ETH to us" seems like a brick wall that would really stop the average person. People seem wary of typing their credit card number into a website, and with a credit card you can call your bank and say "meh I didn't really want the thing I bought" and get your money back. But people have credit cards and know that; with ETH, they probably don't have any laying around. So that seems like it would kill these scams dead. Maybe the flow for buying ETH is really simple, and these sellers aren't clear that every transaction is irrevocable? So people think they can reverse the transaction later, and are left holding the bag when they get scammed? Or, maybe these scams have such wide appeal that they rope in enough victims that a 99.9% bounce rate on the payment page is still worthwhile?
- bener 5y ago
  I feel like they would do rather well - there are so many new crypto "projects" and so many people "investing" in them. Investing in new coins using Eth for purchasing is very normalised in those circles, and people are super hungry for opportunities to enter an ICO. Most of the people (or people with bots) making any sort of money with these new coins are getting in on the ICO and dumping their coins during the initial peak after public release. The whole thing is like a high frequency pump and dump, and there are large profits to be had for the few who can pull it off, which makes buyers particularly rushed. The Binance Smart Chain has even more of this going on, it's madness. It's like the wild west of defi.
  - mrorbitman 5y ago
    Yeah, eth is bad enough, but BSC and Solana are where the truly depraved and desperate get-rich-quick victims are. Absolutely brutal.
- nope96 5y ago
  I would have thought the REAL scam would be to have an actual token - and get crypto holders to buy that token, fully knowing it is a scam - but thinking they can buy in low early & dump it in a week on the victims.
  - Beltiras 5y ago
    You mean like Dogecoin?
- mrorbitman 5y ago
  My parents reached out asking me to help them figure out how to buy this Amazon crypto. They've recently become interested in crypto and so I've been teaching them how it works and how to use it. Luckily I hadn't taught them anything about eth except how to buy it and how to self-custody it yet. After seeing how easily they were scammed into believing this was real, I am recommending they steer clear of eth entirely and just stick to learning about bitcoin. Too many (believable) scams on smart contract chains. The only btc scams I've seen are along the lines of "Send me your btc and I'll double it back for you!" which is obvious even for them.
  - nope96 5y ago
    > steer clear of eth entirely and just stick to learning about bitcoin Although even that isn't so clear cut - you have to educate/warn about Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, and so on.
    - mrorbitman 5y ago
      True. I only told them how to use CashApp which only sells bitcoin.
      - alostpuppy 5y ago
        That’s a good call. Any app that has a curated list of tokens really.
  - JackFr 5y ago
    You know, other than the Bitcoin itself.
mdoms 5y ago
I have a special immunity to crypto scams. I simply never have and never will purchase any kind of crypto "currency" until someone can articulate, at a bare minimum, one advantage it confers to me over and above "normal" currency in day to day usage. Bonus points if that benefit even comes close to offsetting the environmental carnage the ecosystem wreaks.
- cmckn 5y ago
  I think crypto folks generally consider the (possibly) getting rich part to be the killer feature.
  - masterof0 5y ago
    ^^ this, I'm not a crypto maxi, but for what I have seen so far, the main point of all of those coins, is to get earlier, and hope that someone *cough* Elon *cough* pump it , so we can finally escape the rat race.
  - dehrmann 5y ago
    Could just buy lotto tickets or put $10k on 00. At least those are regulated.
- notch656a 5y ago
  It needn't provide an advantage in day-to-day usage, just some niche advantage that works at least once. For instance, buying metal bullion from a major online vendor such as APMEX, you can avoid credit card fees or long wait for a check/ACH/wire(faster than previous two but still takes hours) to clear by paying in crypto. It's basically <30min clearing for any arbitrary large amount. The closest you can get to that without crypto through most major bullion vendors is a wire, which depending on your bank is anywhere from free (rare) to $25+. Sometimes the crypto fees are waived, other times they're merely much closer to check price than credit price.
  - dehrmann 5y ago
    If you're buying physical metal and can wait a few days for it to ship, you can wait a day for the ACH payment to clear. Bitcoin is also very volatile, so you can end up losing out on the spread, but not notice it.
denton-scratch 5y ago
> These malicious advertisements rely on people’s trust in the Amazon brand and desire to get in early on cryptocurrency initial coin offerings (ICOs). Gosh. I'm doubly-lucky: I don't trust the Amazon brand further than the end of my nose, and I haven't the slightest interest in ICOs. I don't trust Avast either, but I can't remember why.
- akiselev 5y ago
  > I don't trust Avast either, but I can't remember why. Something about the cure being worse than the disease
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't post low-information, high-indignation comments to HN. They're flamebait, and inevitably point discussions in less interesting, predictable, and nasty directions. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
gentleman11 5y ago
Avast is famous for bundling spyware into their antivirus products
saturn5k 5y ago
How is Facebook even approving these ads? Is there any human moderation at all? I've reported these multiple times in the past month, and they keep popping up from different profiles.

43 points by saturn5k 5y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20211220051443/https://blog.avast.com/beware-of-a-new-amazon-token-crypto-scam https://web.archive.org/web/20211220051443/https://blog.avas...

jrockway 5y ago

What does the conversion rate end up looking like for these scams? Pretending to be major media outlets and stealing Amazon's branding is a compelling scheme, but the "just transfer some ETH to us" seems like a brick wall that would really stop the average person. People seem wary of typing their credit card number into a website, and with a credit card you can call your bank and say "meh I didn't really want the thing I bought" and get your money back. But people have credit cards and know that; with ETH, they probably don't have any laying around. So that seems like it would kill these scams dead. Maybe the flow for buying ETH is really simple, and these sellers aren't clear that every transaction is irrevocable? So people think they can reverse the transaction later, and are left holding the bag when they get scammed? Or, maybe these scams have such wide appeal that they rope in enough victims that a 99.9% bounce rate on the payment page is still worthwhile?

bener 5y ago
I feel like they would do rather well - there are so many new crypto "projects" and so many people "investing" in them. Investing in new coins using Eth for purchasing is very normalised in those circles, and people are super hungry for opportunities to enter an ICO. Most of the people (or people with bots) making any sort of money with these new coins are getting in on the ICO and dumping their coins during the initial peak after public release. The whole thing is like a high frequency pump and dump, and there are large profits to be had for the few who can pull it off, which makes buyers particularly rushed. The Binance Smart Chain has even more of this going on, it's madness. It's like the wild west of defi.
- mrorbitman 5y ago
  Yeah, eth is bad enough, but BSC and Solana are where the truly depraved and desperate get-rich-quick victims are. Absolutely brutal.
nope96 5y ago
I would have thought the REAL scam would be to have an actual token - and get crypto holders to buy that token, fully knowing it is a scam - but thinking they can buy in low early & dump it in a week on the victims.
- Beltiras 5y ago
  You mean like Dogecoin?
mrorbitman 5y ago
My parents reached out asking me to help them figure out how to buy this Amazon crypto. They've recently become interested in crypto and so I've been teaching them how it works and how to use it. Luckily I hadn't taught them anything about eth except how to buy it and how to self-custody it yet. After seeing how easily they were scammed into believing this was real, I am recommending they steer clear of eth entirely and just stick to learning about bitcoin. Too many (believable) scams on smart contract chains. The only btc scams I've seen are along the lines of "Send me your btc and I'll double it back for you!" which is obvious even for them.
- nope96 5y ago
  > steer clear of eth entirely and just stick to learning about bitcoin Although even that isn't so clear cut - you have to educate/warn about Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, and so on.
  - mrorbitman 5y ago
    True. I only told them how to use CashApp which only sells bitcoin.
    - alostpuppy 5y ago
      That’s a good call. Any app that has a curated list of tokens really.
- JackFr 5y ago
  You know, other than the Bitcoin itself.

mdoms 5y ago

I have a special immunity to crypto scams. I simply never have and never will purchase any kind of crypto "currency" until someone can articulate, at a bare minimum, one advantage it confers to me over and above "normal" currency in day to day usage. Bonus points if that benefit even comes close to offsetting the environmental carnage the ecosystem wreaks.

cmckn 5y ago
I think crypto folks generally consider the (possibly) getting rich part to be the killer feature.
- masterof0 5y ago
  ^^ this, I'm not a crypto maxi, but for what I have seen so far, the main point of all of those coins, is to get earlier, and hope that someone *cough* Elon *cough* pump it , so we can finally escape the rat race.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  Could just buy lotto tickets or put $10k on 00. At least those are regulated.
notch656a 5y ago
It needn't provide an advantage in day-to-day usage, just some niche advantage that works at least once. For instance, buying metal bullion from a major online vendor such as APMEX, you can avoid credit card fees or long wait for a check/ACH/wire(faster than previous two but still takes hours) to clear by paying in crypto. It's basically <30min clearing for any arbitrary large amount. The closest you can get to that without crypto through most major bullion vendors is a wire, which depending on your bank is anywhere from free (rare) to $25+. Sometimes the crypto fees are waived, other times they're merely much closer to check price than credit price.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  If you're buying physical metal and can wait a few days for it to ship, you can wait a day for the ACH payment to clear. Bitcoin is also very volatile, so you can end up losing out on the spread, but not notice it.

denton-scratch 5y ago

> These malicious advertisements rely on people’s trust in the Amazon brand and desire to get in early on cryptocurrency initial coin offerings (ICOs). Gosh. I'm doubly-lucky: I don't trust the Amazon brand further than the end of my nose, and I haven't the slightest interest in ICOs. I don't trust Avast either, but I can't remember why.

akiselev 5y ago
> I don't trust Avast either, but I can't remember why. Something about the cure being worse than the disease
dang 5y ago
Please don't post low-information, high-indignation comments to HN. They're flamebait, and inevitably point discussions in less interesting, predictable, and nasty directions. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

gentleman11 5y ago

Avast is famous for bundling spyware into their antivirus products

saturn5k 5y ago

How is Facebook even approving these ads? Is there any human moderation at all? I've reported these multiple times in the past month, and they keep popping up from different profiles.