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YouTube crypto giveaway scams
- debdut 5y agoWhoever said "Traditional financial systems are rigged with fraud! Crypto solves this" RIP Until the days people are gullible, any amount of tech doesn't solve the problem. Even worse, most people don't understand the slightest of how crypto works and will be easily rigged in crypto world!
- userbinator 5y agoI think you accidentally a word at the beginning of your second paragraph, but it's also worth considering that keeping people gullible and trusting is unfortunately an implicit goal of a lot of (non-scam) companies too. It's much easier to sell things to people who are easy to persuade and convince.
- xwolfi 5y agoBut crypto doesn't solve that. In fact, it worsens it, making people believe a fairy tale of lazy wealth.
- rank0 5y agoThis is a shitty post. No description of the scam itself and incorrectly asserts that YouTube giveaways generate permanent consistent income for a single group. How does it follow that 200k over 12 hours => ransomware is less profitable. Are all 14 transactions victims? Are all 14 transactions paid to the same actor?
- xwolfi 5y agoIt's because it's obvious: they are "double your bitcoin" scams: you send them, they double it back. It's as old as digital currency transfer, themselves much older than bitcoin. I remember doing that in Eve Online.
- wankaway 5y ago[flagged]
- ushakov 5y agowhy do people still fall for this?
- jiveturkey 5y agowhy did people ever fall for this?
- sbassi 5y agogreed
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoThere are mentally challenged people in this world who deserve your sympathy when falling for scams. Do not scorn them for greed, a trait with which many are afflicted, regardless of mental capacity.
- satronaut 5y agoi haven't done my own analysis on this yet, but a lot of times the scammers will send funds to the scam accounts to make it look more legit. The elon musk youtube scammers are horrible people, but I'd be surprised if 200 million was the actual amount stolen
- hamiltonians 5y agoIf they wanted to fake it they would fake outgoing transactions.
- halpert 5y agoIt would be nice to know what the scam entails.
- eqmvii 5y agocrypto scams in general are out of control.
- grizmaldi 5y agoCrypto scam is redundant.
- _fizz_buzz_ 5y agoSo, how does the scam work?
- klipt 5y agoIf it's like other crypto giveaway scams it works like this: Twitter account impersonating some celebrity, e.g. Musk: "to show my love for crypto, I am giving some away. Send bitcoin to <some address> and I'll send double back!" Replies from other Twitter accounts controlled by the scammer: "wow, I had my doubts but I sent some money and got double back. Now I'm rich. Thanks Musk!" Marks: send crypto to that address and never get anything back.
- SAI_Peregrinus 5y agoAKA the EVE Online Jita chat scam.
- tehlike 5y agoPeople usually try with a small amount first. They might get that small amount back - which "confirms" they are getting something back. Then they send a larger amount.
- senectus1 5y agoits astonishing that anyone would fall for this...
- UncleEntity 5y agoBe nice if they specified what the scam is so I don’t become an unsuspecting victim.
- sithadmin 5y agoI find it rather irritating that the author didn't bother to describe the mechanics behind the supposed scam. A quick sample of other posts also suffer from the same lack of information.
- askmike 5y agoIn this situation he describes something that has been happening for a long while (years), and almost everyone active in the space is familiar with the scam. But what people don't know is that right now (still) it appears to scam people out of 6 digits per day. Adding an explainer of what's happening might get rid of your irritation, but it might just irritate many other readers coming there for the meat. All the other posts are about the same topic, so this blog seems to more document details of what's happening as opposed to explain the basics to everyone.
- webo 5y agoNothing complicated. It's the usual "send us btc/eth to get double back" scams. The substack has other posts that have more context. https://scaminvestigations.substack.com/ https://scaminvestigations.substack.com/ Screenshot: https://old.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/n49iye/scam_sent_directly_as_ad_on_youtube_youtube_must/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/n49iye/scam_sent_...
- andrecarini 5y agoCrypto holders can get on EVE Online a free hands-on crash course on currency scams.
- Bancakes 5y agoOr Runescape haha
- roenxi 5y agoIndeed. But this site is probably a pretty typical example of the scam: https://msnews.io/#rules https://msnews.io/#rules I like their calculator. Very helpful.
- jinto36 5y agoAn earlier post seems to provide more context, https://scaminvestigations.substack.com/p/better-than-ransomware-youtube-crypto https://scaminvestigations.substack.com/p/better-than-ransom...
- halpert 5y agoThat still doesn’t explain the scam.
- cookie_monsta 5y agoIt's so dumb you probably missed it: > The scam takes many forms... promising to double Bitcoin sent to an address... But of course, the promised doubled crypto never comes, hence a scam.
- georgeoliver 5y agoThey explain it in the first paragraph.
- evan_ 5y agoThere’s no more to it than the name essentially. A scammer gives an address and says that if you send crypto to that address, you will receive double the amount you send back. Then they keep the money you send. I’m sure they dress it up, maybe they actually fulfill a few or they have shills that claim they did, but it’s really not more complicated. It’s classic “if it sounds too good to be true…” stuff.
- GreenWatermelon 5y agoHoly shit it really is the classic Nigerian Prince scam.
- tootahe45 5y agoThis seems like quite a low effort investigation that also just assumes all transactions are victims. My guess is that throughout the live stream they would have shills in the chat LARPING as genuine viewers sending their crypto and successfully receiving the reward, so a lot of the TXs would be from the scammers themselves used to fool other sheeple.
- hamiltonians 5y agoThis could make sense if there were outgoing transactions but they are all incoming.
- JCharante 5y agoLol a doubling scam. These scams have existed since MMOs began and you could trick people into giving you items/currency under false pretenses. Ironically a smart contract is probably the safest way for a customer to engage in a doubling scam.
- lostmsu 5y agoThat existed before MMO (Diablo parody) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPsxIqawYpo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPsxIqawYpo
- Aunche 5y agoIt's hard enough for most people to read a contract written plain English. How do you expect to read one written in code?
- LaundroMat 5y agoTo me, this (together with the fact that software will always have bugs) is why smart contracts are a very bad idea.
- tbezman 5y agoFor those that aren't aware. It's pretty easy to write an escrow smart contract which ensures both parties got what they signed up for. But anyone falling for this scam definitely isn't going to ask "Can we use an escrow contract to double my money?"
- YATA0 5y ago>For those that aren't aware. It's pretty easy to write an escrow smart contract which ensures both parties got what they signed up for. Press F [0][1] to doubt. [0] https://hackingdistributed.com/2016/06/18/analysis-of-the-dao-exploit/ https://hackingdistributed.com/2016/06/18/analysis-of-the-da... [1] https://hackingdistributed.com/2017/07/22/deep-dive-parity-bug/ https://hackingdistributed.com/2017/07/22/deep-dive-parity-b...
- 5y ago
- cosmotic 5y agoVictims already fell for the first part of the scam, buying into crypto without first understanding what it is.
- danielmarkbruce 5y agoSurely there is a mechanism in these technological marvels which are cryptocurrencies to get the money back?
- AnthonyMouse 5y agoBring the scammer before a judge. The same as when anyone scams you out of cash or gemstones or electronics. "I put a ruby in a box and shipped it to Nigeria because an email told me to. How do I get it back?" It's not a new problem.
- varenc 5y agoI think 100% irreversible purely online/digital transactions are a bit of a new problem? If you wire transferred money to a scammer's bank account it won't be easy getting it back, but if you realize your mistake soon enough you at least have a chance. For example, it's possible to to get the receiving bank to hold the money pending an investigation. With a crypto transfer there's no higher authority to appeal to. (which has pros and cons)
- cmeacham98 5y agoMy understanding is that it is effectively impossible to reverse a wire transfer (except when your bank screws up, such as sending the wrong amount, in which case they will reimburse you). You will be told to go to the police. I'm also not aware of any bank that will allow some random person to call them up and freeze an account, even if they just wired money to that account.
- xwolfi 5y agoOfc there are ! There are 3 know authorities that sometimes intervenes that we must regulate and centralise more: - Tether, which is reasonable enough to block transaction of known stolen USDT - Exchanges who can reverse transactions if they havent left the exchange and are very monitored these days - Miners, who can fork or reject an address if needed, something they dont all do because they're themselves not exactly loved by the country they suck energy out of We need to switch away from decentralized currencies and move to a model of monitored USDT: that would allow the public to access every transaction of every actor, with the ability to block publicly criminals. Weirdly crypto opponent focus a lot on decentralization but I don't think it matters as much as they think, while crime prevention is clearly more needed if people fall for "double your bitcoin" scams.
- beaned 5y agoI don't understand how anyone can be cutting-edge enough to be into crypto and know how to send a transaction, yet not also know how to spot a scam in the year 2022.
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y agoYou mean the people who ‘invest’ in crypto without fully understanding it fall for other get rich quick schemes? No way!
- beaned 5y agoHm, yeah, I guess that take makes sense too.
- climb_stealth 5y agoOh wow, I had a reality-check of this a couple weeks ago when someone casually mentioned "investing into bitcoin" as something to do with a couple of thousand dollars at hand. And everyone agreed. In a group of people that are completely removed from the usual tech nerds. I fear crypto hasn't been cutting edge for years. I still don't quite take it seriously, but apparently it is normal now.
- MattGaiser 5y agoIt isn't cutting edge anymore. Relatives of mine without computers (old ones) have asked about investing in it. Everyone knows about Bitcoin.
- detaro 5y agocryptocurrency exchanges have TV ads and buy football stadium branding ("crypto.com arena") and are easy to access. It's not a cutting-edge thing anymore.
- userbinator 5y ago"There's a sucker born every minute."
- hamiltonians 5y ago
- aplc0r 5y agoI've reported so many of these. Every time there is a SpaceX launch these fake videos fill up my recommendations from "ElonMusk" and "Space X"
- nikolay 5y agoCrypto stinks and that's why I don't wanna touch it with a ten-foot pole. I lose respect for any company, which sprinkles some crypto into their service to make it look cooler when it actually makes it stinkier.
- nikolay 5y ago
- xyst 5y ago“A fool and their money are soon parted”
- MattGaiser 5y agoYou would basically need to appoint a guardian to manage the affairs of these people to prevent them from being scammed.
- aqibgatoo 5y agoAll of this hell has broken loose due to youtube hiding dislikes
- detaro 5y agoThis has been a constant thing for way longer than that.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoA family member lost $3k to this. YouTube promoted a real looking interview with the founder of ETH, high production value, saying they will double your ETH etc. When most of of crypto users are poor and less educated they tend to be targeted…
- xwolfi 5y agoYeah like crypto or not, why would you be paid instantly for doing nothing ? $3k is a month or more of work for most people, did that person really believe the world lied to him and instead of working a month, he could "double" it immediately ?
- nate_meurer 5y agoSeems insane, but it's essentially no different from any other kind of gambling. Suspecting that the game is fixed doesn't stop a lot of people from betting the house regardless.
- fault1 5y agoThey probably did. It's because they've heard of other people getting rich off of crypto. The classic get rich quick swindle. Ponzi schemes and all sorts of other marketing schemes are also similar.
- derimagia 5y agoI saw a few of livestream scams happen real-time so let me explain what I saw. I didn't see it on YouTube but I saw it on Twitch a few times and I never saw anyone mention it before. Short answer is it's an evolution of the Elon Musk Twitter scams where people are told to send crypto (Usually bitcoin) to an address to double it. The main difference than the traditional scams is with livestream you have an audience - the chat. Tens of thousands of viewbots to bring the counter on the livestream high and then the chat is flooded with chat messages but fake accounts that I can see how people could think they were real. Things trying to convince you that it is safe, that it worked, and even talking with each other asking how easy it is. It doesn't matter if the account is banned after 20 minutes or more, it's already done the damage. First time I saw this was about ~6 months ago. It was a fake account with a similar name for a Dota streamer. They had fake footage of the game and I was pretty shocked. It had something like 10,000 viewers and after reporting the channel it was still up for a while. Other times I've seen it with Elon Musk with footage of the Tesla plant talking to a reporter about crypto. I can see how the voices can be fakes as well and how much potential it can have when combined with the chat. These were up for less time.
- Scottn1 5y agoI watch some live Fortnite on Twitch from time to time before falling asleep as I sometimes play with my son. Now I am a natural skeptic but I'm actually a little embarrassed to admit it, but a Twitch one of these scams actually had me for a few minutes. I don't own any crypto but it actually had me searching for the best way to get some bitcoin fast as I didn't want to miss out on this gift from Elon. If I actually owned any crypto I might have fallen for it fully, it was that good of a trick. It was so good I told some my wife the next day I saw one of the best scams in a while. It was exactly as you described - with Elon Musk looking like he was "live" and the chat was busy and full of people saying "it worked for me. Thanks Elon!" type stuff. Even the channel had used ElonMusk in its name. I honestly thought I was just lucky and happened to catch a billionaire, who is also a known crypto supporter, being generous and trying to get more people into crypto as well by giving some away to the lucky few who caught him live. What stopped me obviously is me not actually owning any crypto and not being able to get some instantly and without large fees, but also a few things that didn't feel right in the gut. Like the channel was something like "ElonMusk3239". I thought "surely Twitch would make sure the real one didn't need to have the 3,239th account with his name". Also the website the link directed you to in the chat looked a little to simple and supposedly showing in real-time all the lucky people getting double along with all the crypto addresses - ALL without any sort of signup or verification, etc. You just submitted everything right there and boom you would get double back. Reminded me of those "free VBucks" website my son has come across before. The final reality was when the channel got taken down while I was watching and another popped up within a minute in the Live Chat area again but with another ElonMuskxxxx name. Then that would get taken down and again another popped up. That is when I realized Twitch was currently in a battle with some group trying to scam crypto. Definitely one of the most realistic looking scams I've seen in a while.
- philliphaydon 5y agoThe author says Twitter cracked down on this. But every time Elon musk tweets the first reply is a Bitcoin scam. If you click on any super popular person there’s a reply for sole Bitcoin scam. IMO it’s only got worse on Twitter, not better.
- RichardHeart 5y agoHow does the scam work? They restream copies of my livestreams: https://YouTube.com/RichardHeart https://YouTube.com/RichardHeart, And put a frame around it with a send 1 coin get 2 back giveaway. It's truly sad when I receive direct messages from those who have lost their life savings. And the worst part is, usually in life, hearing about free money is an obvious warning, but in crypto, there truly is free money, and all the time. Bitcoin guys got free BCH, and if they held, BSV, and byteball, and bitcoin gold, and xlm, and xrp, and HEX. Airdrops happen all the time. So it's this weird edge case, where as stupid as send one get two back sounds, in crypto.... It's sometimes almost plausible.
- ackbar03 5y agoI've seen a even more sophisticated one involving one coin. It had a very likely deep faked video of the founder who disappeared a while back trying to pump up the coin.
- tjpnz 5y agoI've reported these on YouTube yet they're still being recommended to me hours later. Clearly they're incapable of moderating their own platform. What's it going to take for them to start taking this seriously?
- PullJosh 5y agoGenuine question: Does anyone here have a good sense of how easy/hard it is to moderate a platform like YouTube? My sense is that the answer is VERY HARD, so I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong. But perhaps I’m being too generous. Is this something that could be prevented if YouTube just tried harder?
- pfraze 5y agoYeah I see just as many complaints about unfair takedowns. At their scale, I think it’s a little more complex than people want to admit.
- tjpnz 5y agoYouTube could at least make it harder for scammers by not promoting streams through the algorithm or at least not showing them unless there's a subscription. I would also argue that they shouldn't just give everybody the ability to livestream at first given how many of the scammer accounts are new. That strikes me as a common sense solution. If both were implemented I suspect these sorts of scams would no longer be worth the effort.
- charcircuit 5y ago>I would also argue that they shouldn't just give everybody the ability to livestream at first They don't. You have to verify your channel first using a phone number.
- beebmam 5y agoHere's an easy solution: only allow people who have proven their identities to have videos promoted by YouTube's algorithms, so they can be held legally liable if they publish videos that break the law
- supernova87a 5y agoSo, when do enough scams on people choosing to participate go from being their problem, to society's problem? And when do we all start to have to pay for this at some point? Because I have a feeling we will, even though I have no idea why.
- hamiltonians 5y agoFor example, drugs have a systemic effect on society, but crypto losses generally do not, so the reluctance to crack down on crypto scams unlike other crimes. Someone sending $50k to fake Saylor is not like 50k in the pockets of narco gangs.
- supernova87a 5y agoI think the same would apply about casinos and gambling, yet those have had to be regulated in the public interest.
- hiyer 5y ago99% of crypto enthusiasts are in the game because they think it's a get rich quick scheme. It's only natural that a significant subset of them would be attracted to such scams.
- bitcoinphishing 5y agoFor the past eight months, a proof-of-concept (PoC) has been underway. In that time, this PoC has taken down nearly 1,500 websites. After the first hundred or so takedowns, it was determined that there would be no easy and effective method. Eradicating Giveaway Scams — No Easy And Effective Method Found https://bitcointech.medium.com/eradicating-giveaway-scams-no-easy-and-effective-method-found-3ca4d556edf https://bitcointech.medium.com/eradicating-giveaway-scams-no...
- bitcoinphishing 5y agoHere's where the problem sits. There's this list of 50 giveaway scam websites currently active: https://pastebin.com/raw/NmTQQq3C https://pastebin.com/raw/NmTQQq3C Most of the sites in that list were found from these Youtube videos (discovered with the help of crowdsourced labor, thanks to Microlancer.io). Many of these websites were registered just recently. It takes about 15 minutes of labor on average to complete the procedures (from a Proof-of-Concept) to archive and submit takedown requests for each of those. That's 15 minutes more per site than the author of this post wishes to allocate, uncompensated, at the present moment. Link to a writeup on the Proof-of-concept: https://bitcointech.medium.com/eradicating-giveaway-scams-no-easy-and-effective-method-found-3ca4d556edf https://bitcointech.medium.com/eradicating-giveaway-scams-no... Tomorrow there'll be a dozen or two new additional sites to add to this list. The day after, another dozen or two. Anyone have any suggestions as to how to combat this problem?