Stay Wary: Avoiding Scammers in the Pursuit of Quick Money!
Lately, EOS Support has witnessed a surge in reports from individuals falling victim to a novel scam involving fake deposit accounts from known Crypto Exchanges like Binance, Bybit, OKX and others, also EOS testnet activities. Here's how it typically unfolds:
A fraudster (impersonating EOS public entities or exchanges) reaches out via private messages, luring you with promises of effortless earnings. For instance, a scenario like this: (Red underlined text in this article indicates scammer messages.)
"Hi. found you in the general group 2p2 ! I have a working circuit; I need a binary to work.
Interested?"
or
"Hi. Bybit/Binance/OKX/EOS has a promotion running. Send an X amount of tokens to the EOS Account eospromotion and you will get your money plus an interest/profit back instantly.
Interested?"
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"A fresh crypto arbitrage package is now available on a popular exchange.
You can make 2-3% profit with each transaction.
Your funds stay secure, with no transfers to unfamiliar exchanges. Writing this while at work."
Falling for this message prompts scammers to unveil their ploy: They claim to have discovered a method to siphon funds using a fresh Binance/Bybit/OKX deposit address. They assert that each time funds are deposited, Binance/Bybit/OKX automatically adds an extra 1-3% of the deposited sum to your account.
Some are also writing, that you can rename your Binance Account to 12 characters. After they know your 12 characters (for example print screen you sent them), they create an EOS Account with that exact 12 characters, so users think thats their Binance Account which they send money to. But in reality this EOS Account is controlled by the scammer.
In an attempt to substantiate their claims, scammers might share screenshots (below) displaying Binance deposits they purportedly garnered through this maneuver:
Afterward, the scammer tricks the user into believing that their earnings are tied to the amount they invest. They claim that if the user keeps reinvesting more funds, their potential earnings will increase:
"You start earning right away, based on what you can spend. In a day, $1000 could bring you about $500. I'm on day three of this and still want more people to join in."
The scammer explains that they require two accounts on Binance/Bybit/OKX for their scheme. These accounts are intended for moving funds internally between them. Alternatively, there have been cases where the scammer suggests transferring funds from Binance/Bybit/OKX to a different exchange. Then, the scammer lures the victim into a test transfer involving a small sum of money to a deceptive address like "eosndbinance" or "eosbndepnode," along with a MEMO referencing the victim's second account.
Once the unsuspecting user completes this transaction, the scammer adds a slight markup of around 1-3% and promptly forwards the altered amount to the legitimate deposit address on the chosen exchange, accompanied by the correct MEMO. An example of this process involves the user initiating a 5 EOS test transaction, after which the scammer sends them back 5.15 EOS in return.
This makes the user think the scheme is working.
But when the user sends a bigger amount of 479.5 EOS (example from the screenshot) hoping for more earnings, the scammers don't return the money as promised. Instead, they steal it and put it in their own account.
And one more example:
The green box shows the transaction where the scammer returned the money, and the red box shows that the scammer stole the money and transferred it to his account.
Or as a victim attempts to deposit a substantial amount, the scammers employ various tactics such as claiming the transaction is stuck or fabricating other excuses. In some cases, these fraudsters go to the extent of asserting that additional tokens must be sent to a specified address in order to release the stuck transaction.
Same with testnet activities. The scammers usually write something like this promising more money in return and then ask for more money with a reason that the amount sent wasn't enough:
"This test was designed to perform a large volume operation so that we can make sure that the netowrk can process large transactions in large quantitites. Access to participation can be optained from X EOS. The amount you transferred was not enough to create enough blocks to credit the transaction to your account. You need to depsoit the missing amount to get the assets."
Please be careful and remember: The only free cheese is in a mousetrap!
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Here a list of EOS Accounts that are most likely accounts from scammers (reported from scammed EOS users to EOS Support), be careful to send tokens to these accounts!
Fake promotion EOS Accounts reported by scammed EOS users:
Fake promotion EOS Accounts mimicing exchange accounts reported by scammed EOS users:
-> Not reported by a user, but accounts look similar and could be scams:
Fake promotion or testnet EOS Accounts mimicing EOS public accounts reported by scammed EOS users:
Fake system EOS Accounts which seem to be involved in these scams reported by scammed EOS users:
More Fake promotion EOS Accounts reported by scammed EOS users:
Author: Evgeny Chirochkin, Dario Cesaro
Editor: Markus Hinrichs
Sources & References:
Images Credits:
Screenshots by Chirochkin Evgeny