Crypto, MLM, Ponzi scammers are increasingly using social media platforms in luring people with “high profiting” promises. According to media reports, at least forty-five “Ethereum merge double your money” scammers have been nailed for promoting dubious drives on Twitter with links pointing to phishing websites claiming they will double investors’ money and give bonuses to their wallets if they participated in the campaigns.
A list provided by a whistleblower on Twitter reveals that scammer took advantage of the Ethereum Merge to lure investors into connecting their crypto-wallet and are aggressively excited to cover their illicit transactions using verified profiles.
Sites identified as leading scams said, “To celebrate the merge, Ethereum foundation is giving away 5,000 ETH” with links to various accounts that invite people to send out Ethereum with the promise that they will receive twice as much in return.
The fake accounts and sites monitored by BeInCrypto are currently down, and it’s unclear how much they were able to steal by impersonating other people. Once clicked on, they read, “If you are the owner of this resource, then to resume the site, you need to renew the hosting service. If the suspension of the site is caused by a violation of the terms of the Subscriber Service Agreement, then to resume work, you need to contact the Support Service. We will be happy to help you”.
Following a whistleblower, Investors have been wrestling Twitter with its verification problem for years and questioning why they wouldn’t take action when such scams happened, given the weirdness happening with duplicates of links using credible Twitter accounts.
Twitter is aware of crypto scams, and the Ethereum scam is not something new. In April, Elon Musk said Twitter has many crypto scams. Whenever someone famous tweets, their comment section is quickly inundated with messages from bot accounts about a fake crypto-giveaway. These scams are malicious links designed to steal crypto wallets in the lure of getting profitable from developments.
As the crypto industry grows, scammers are determined to access wallets and rob their digital assets from users. In the past, Hackers hijacked verified and unverified accounts on Twitter to impersonate popular NFT projects, including Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Azuki’s, Moonbirds, and Okay Bears, to steal users’ crypto assets by driving them to phishing sites.
Cryptocurrency scams on Instagram
According to an article published in The Indian Express, twenty-five-year-old Preksha Kasbe, a student based in Pune woke up to a DM on Instagram from her friend Sonali who she knew from school. Excited, she responded to her message chatting about life in general as friends do. “But then Sonali switched the conversation to crypto investments and how it changed her life completely,” Kasbe told indianexpress.com.
Intrigued by the investment advice, and the eagerness to earn quick money led Kasbe to enquire about the lucrative deal. “She (Sonali) said it is pretty simple. You just have to change your email address that is linked to your Instagram to an email address that she (Sonali) sent”, she recounted.
Things took a u-turn as soon as the email address was changed. Kasbe’s account was hacked and started posting fake screenshots on her profile on how she (Kasbe) became wealthy after getting investment advice from Anna (the alleged crypto scammer). The hacker even started posting her photos with fake bank account statements duping her followers to invest their money in a scam token. Upon calling Sonali, Kasbe understood that her friend’s account was also hacked. “This seems like a chain reaction of scams”, Kasbe added.
Vivan Dsouza, 27, a Jaipur-based stock market trader had a different story to tell. Like Kasbe, he too received a message on Instagram, but from a self-proclaimed crypto trading expert, who asked him to invest in Binance, which is a popular crypto exchange.
“After several days of conversation, I made up my mind to invest in a new token listed on Binance but the catch was the link that the scammer sent was not of Binance, but of a fake crypto exchange that posed as Binance”, Dzsouza said. He lost Rs 10,000 and never got any cryptos in his wallet.
Cryptocurrency scams on Instagram are a new rage. These come with the promise of free tokens or secret insider tips on how to get rich quick from Bitcoin or another altcoin. While many of these are just laughable attempts at getting your personal information to steal personal identity and data, some are more convincing than others. But one that stands out is the Bitcoin giveaway scam. The premise is simple: An account promises to give you a certain amount of Bitcoin if you send them a small amount as a fee to claim the ‘free’ cryptocurrency.
Scammers often use stolen photos to make their accounts look legitimate. Worryingly, while most legitimate exchanges and wallets don’t have a presence on Instagram, scammers have started creating fake accounts to trick people into falling for their schemes.
