Bitcoin Forum

There is a type of scam, on Youtube, in particular that channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/thehotgeek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GWIp4Ukpr4

Ethereum
The scam address has already scammed more than $23k, check it here: https://etherscan.io/address/0x0132946103eFFfa43337128CF65F0B3531378e87
Fortunately, there are people reported that address and it has already been tagged with this warning:

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Litecoin

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Ripple
The same channel but another scam video, this time, with Ripple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kv1nazL8CU
Scam address: ramYnRi2WFLgK79KBExkqjZPcuqVYhQLpg

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I believe that guy will come back with other scam efforts on other coins with same method, and maybe other guys will apply that method to scam.

Just be highly cautious and be careful to protect your capital.

When you see my topic, please give your hands to stop that scammer ASAP by reporting that channel - https://www.youtube.com/user/thehotgeek - and that address - 0x0132946103eFFfa43337128CF65F0B3531378e87.

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Scammers in previous days, applied the same method for their fake 'Ripple' channel.

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Other types of scam on Youtube

{Warning}:Please stay away from this Youtube Channel (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5201335.0) (Baofeng).

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How to report scammer(s)?
A general guide from Google is here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802027?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en
In short, you have to do following steps:
- Log in your account
- Visit that scam channel
- Click on About tab
- Click on the Flag of Report user
- Choose Report user
- In the list of "What is the issue?", I suggest to choose: Spam or scams
- Choose "Scams/ fraud"
- ENTER CHANNEL URL OF THE USER YOU WANT TO REPORT: https://www.youtube.com/user/thehotgeek
- Click on Continue to finish.

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List of scam Youtube channels need to be more reported by community. Please help.
Thanks to all users who reported scam channels in my topic. Please keep doing this if you find new ones.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDgQMaT0abB657OBz4NvPPw
https://www.youtube.com/user/AlosiToyOneiroyLari
https://www.youtube.com/user/R3musFly
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtV41Y5Rv_LlJCbp7JZIbxQ
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWFD0_YgOoyfTuunMMYpmiQ

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Update on 20th Dec. 2019:
There are some scam videos found by the others in that topic: Beware: fake XRP airdrop scam currently going on (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5211076.0)

Update in July 2020:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoQX4hElcSU&feature=emb_rel_pause-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VivCHkbg78A
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5264128.msg54856562#msg54856562

Update in August 2020:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY88PqJedNUKT8RdR3PcBgQ (the report topic is Give away again (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5269975.0)

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Update on 18th January 2022

Bitcoin User Loses Record $1.1M in Scam Michael Saylor Giveaway (https://beincrypto.com/bitcoin-user-loses-record-1-1m-scam-michael-saylor-giveaway/)

It is a huge scam. Take it as a big lesson!

For a moment I thought they are doing the same recycling while faking transactions with the same 2eth but..wow, they actually have a real balance
Of course, it might all be fake but it's disappointing to see scammers having that much money knowing how they probably got it.

And...it's down as we speak, probably they will move to the next one, from Reddit I another 3 channels id results while searching for that address.

Here is another still going:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDgQMaT0abB657OBz4NvPPw
(reported also)

Oh, there are still more:
https://www.youtube.com/user/AlosiToyOneiroyLari
https://www.youtube.com/user/R3musFly
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtV41Y5Rv_LlJCbp7JZIbxQ


 

The Eth Address was already tag as Scam on ETH explorer. I believe that 43tx are from the hackers different accounts. I'm lazy to check each address but if ever some user here manages to track the address one by one then it will be good to prove my hypothesis. And if ever that 43 TX is a legit user that got scam then it's a lesson learned for them but no one in the right mind to believe on that giveaway especially those users who have huge amount of holdings. Most crypto holders that have huge holdings is very aware of the scam scheme like this one.

These lazy scammers never stop to reinvent their scamming tactics. So, their strategy is like that.  There's also this channel "Ripple" that I've found.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWFD0_YgOoyfTuunMMYpmiQ

The strategy is the same, I think the people behind these channels and scam giveaway are one.

Oh no, $23k is a big amount already. It really puzzled me that this type of scam still has lots victims and even scammed lots of money. It seems like people aren't learning their lessons regarding this kind of issues, it has been around the forum and the crypto space but they act like its their first time encountering such thing, the scheme of the scam is being blatantly given yet they still fall for it. People should really take vigilance seriously and add more caution to their every move.

The giveaway link in the OP has been taken down.

All videos reported as well.

Scamming on YouTube even on legit channels in comments is rife at the moment. Be careful and report every channel that is not legitimate. A quick look on social blade will tell you account history very quickly

To me it is astonishing to me the number of scammers on the internet these days. I mean if you think about it, it is just more efficient to learn a skill and become good at it and make your living from that instead of spending your time sending spam messages and setting up all kind of online traps for beginners.. I mean I don't think there are many people falling into this, even if they do I suppose they don't put it big amount of money because as a rule of thumb you need to have a little bit knowledge to have that kind of money to "in these scams".

Just on the first page of Beginners & Help alone, there are 15 scam related threads to one degree or another. That is a pretty grim image to see for any newcomer to the forum, trying to find out about crypto. Now the amount of warnings should be more than enough to put anybody in constant alert, but alas, the resulting projected image is rather negative for crypto in general terms.

Having said that, it does seem pretty surprising that we need to be constantly reminded that fairy tales, such as those announced in the videos referenced on this thread, simply do not exist, and would not whether it be of a crypto-related nature or not.

450 people watching, is that a real human or bot? None one of them make a chat at chatbox.

We live in 2019 and they still can scam us with this method? OMG. I think about the address its not only from the youtube, he also creating a lot phishing site cause the address already marked as a phishing address from etherscan.

I believe these scammer just buying the youtube, you can see at the video at there have some Video Vietnam/Philippine language.

Probably bot? Its quite easy to create multiple accounts and use different virtual boxes to let them watch his/her own stream. To be fair, these types of scams all river down to the fact that users are way too easy to scam. Giving out something to receive it in larger amounts? Without doing anything? Please. Is it still your first time being an adult? The world is in a give and take policy my bros. It's a fault of the scammer but the scammed still has some fault in it and well, I hope they learned their lesson.

It's easy to create multiple account in youtube thru emails, some scammer tries to communicate all by himself to have interaction, or post link in multiple sites to gain views, be very careful. This kind of scheme should not be entertain it's easy to determine now that it is scam. In cryptospace there is no easy investment that can be found in youtube we need to research a lot.

There is also this guy (his TG: @therealcryptodude1) on telegram that is representing himself as the Cryptolove Youtuber and scams project by offering banner ads and video making for what looks like a normal price.

I have also encountered this guy. I have actually spent two days talking to him about his offer for banners as it looked really promising. I'm very happy i found out that he is a ascammer in time..

Scammers will do anything to fool us but this one seems like very obvious 2 eth for 20 eth, if that's really vitalik there is no need to send some eth for giveaways. Some scammers might create fake transactions they keep sending from their other wallets to fool us. BTW subscribers and likes can be bought now.

Whatever the way the scamers will continue to do so that many trapped by it, now many YouTube accounts are sold even with the desired subcriber, I just think it's only manipulation done by the scamer so many people are trusted in their Giveaway hoax on YouTube as a Live.

You can test by chatting but your chat message will be deleted. I don't have clue that all of watchers are bots or real users but they do delete chat messages.

As we all thoroughly know, scammers use their same methods from time to time but people still easily get trapped by scammers. There are very little improvements of scammers on their methods. Simultaneously, scam victims mostly don't change their behavior which leads them to be scammed.

Amazing job identifying these scams and then reporting it and getting it shutdown, but unfortunately most of these videos are just recycled and it

pops up like mushrooms somewhere else.  >:(  In any way, do not stop reporting it under the scam accusations topic on this forum and helping to

warn newbies on this forum, before they fall victim to this. I will give you 1 merit for this thread, because I think it adds value to the forum when we

help to prevent people from losing money. Keep up the good work.                           Also report to Badbitcoin.org

No wonder this channel has been fooling a lot of people, he has his Youtube channel named "Ethereum" and they are promoting that they are giving away Ethereum. Aside from that they made it look like Vitalik is doing an interview in the live stream which makes it more convincing towards a newbie. Currently the live stream has 922 viewers which is really a bad sign that a lot of people are watching and can be potential victims because of it.


Update

The video has now been blocked by Youtube maybe because a lot of people have reported it already. At least people are safe for now.

They are all starting and spreading again in different platform, especially it is  on youtube, lmao. I think this is much risky for every newbie using youtube and will fall in this scam trap.
Already reported those channels or videos.

@everyone, do you think everyone that the stated in OP, the total amount of ETH in the wallet address of scammer are totally came from the victims or maybe some are into the scammer just using it as a bait?

It doesn't totally come from the victims, maybe just a small percentage (hopefully I'm right or I don't know what to say for those who fall on this). To make it more legit and professional, these scammers put an effort by spending tons of money to fill the address.

However, I can't understand why there are still others falling on this. There are even newbies that will understand that the video was an obvious sh*t.

Now for us who knows this scheme, just report this type of video. I do report even those who got received small views. I appreciate Youtube's quick approach to those reported crypto-related scam videos and they take it down quickly.

Isn't it is the same doubler scam other than the fact they are offering profit as big as 10 times the invested amount and used Youtube platform to scale their scam ?
Further they already gather $23k, isn't it a failure on our side as we are not able to properly convince and teach people on how to differentiate between legal and scam projects.

If they carefully check that channel, they will see it comes from the username, thehotgeek. Does Vitalik Buterin use his username on any channel with that one: thehotgeek. Once again, from that username, I want to emphasize that all or most of victims fall into scam because of their carelessness and they can not blame on anyone else for their carelessness and faults, from Ethereum, Youtube to scammers.

Beyond username, they have to check video history. On that channel (of @thehotgeek), they will obviously see very free and dangerous signals of scam because as I wrote in OP, 12/14 of published videos are not related to cryptocurrencies. There are only two and all related to Ethereum, that published recent days solely to scam people.

Probably most of the chat messages are from scammers, and i think they are monitoring it realtime to delete the messages from their victim. And this is really bad aince they can convince their victims that is legit and paying, most likely they will deposit and think that it will double or triple their ETH once they deposit which they should know it is a scam.

And only way we can prevent it is to report the video and channel as fraud. This is really bad because scammera nowadays thinking a new strategy to scam people.

The thing is in the eyes of a newbie or just a common person they will believe in this at first sight without even having any kind of doubts that this is in fact a scam waiting to happen. They won't go look around and investigate the flaws on that channel but they will instead see the "giveaway prize" they are after. Add in to the fire that you will see a lot of fake responses saying that they have received the ETH reward they are waiting, this will surely attract a lot of viewers to send in money on their own.

Scammers comes in many forms, it is very epidemic nowadays seeing frauds everywhere so you need to be extra cautious on the project or trading you are being involved with. Knowing that youtube is easily accessed by anyone, it is an opportunity for scammers to try and aim at you if you are a careless person. If you've seen people reporting an address involved on the said scam, leave as soon as you can and never ever try to win something that's taking free money from stupid participators.

Seems like all those transactions were made by the scammer only since most transactions are coming into the same time batch so he is sending the ether from his different wallets and makes more convincing to a newbie but I don't think people are stupid enough to fall for this trick anymore.

He should have to find a better strategy. ;D

I believe so , there's no transaction coming from the victims and hope nobody doing so. The offers is way too good to be true , only those people who drunk heavily can fall for this 'get 2000 ethereum by sending 2 ethereum' game.

Although it's 2019 heading to 2020 which means people should be smart enough and educated about all of these scam attempts motives, this isn't a new way to scam , it's the same attempt with the same scam concept that has been done repeatedly over the past decade.

Thanks for reminding about the same method used with fake Ripple channel. I knew it too but I forgot to add it in OP.
Bought or hacked account but whatever it is, it does not make sense.
I neither do know nor care about it. I don't think we should spend our time to check it. Scam is scam, and if we already know how they scam, that's enough, IMO. I don't think we should waste our time to dig too deeply.
For newbies who don't know how to use etherscan.io to check transaction history and warning message (with the red color, if there is one message), I can sympathize with their mistakes.

In contrast, for others know already know the etherscan.io site and how to use it as well as its available red tags for high risky addresses, if they still fall into such scam traps, I have nothing to say about them and their mistakes.

Generally, for any type of victims, they have a common characteristic, greedy.

It will be too harsh to term them greedy but yes if they want to earn multiple folds without doing anything it's definitely considered as greed and mostly newbies will be the prime target of these scams, now the scammer is trying ETH and he will do similar attempts with other coins as well. We need to be cautious as this advertisement clearly looks like scam. I would thank OP because this thread would have helped atleast one potential target of the scammer who will not falling trap after reading this.

Litecoin holders, be watch and be careful with that scam.

As I thought days ago, now we have a scam video that aims at Litecoin holders.
Please check it and report to Youtube that channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/thehotgeek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_uh4kJM5F8
The scam address is: https://blockchair.com/litecoin/address/MM4bVEjFvmzuypwJzji9h4yGHMBZpQATY7

They should call YouTube office regarding this and trace where the location of this scammed. YouTube can't automatically diagnose it as a scam unless you report it. I don't know why still many people fall on this Ponzi scheme. There's no easy way to make money. Victims were too blind by the promised return.

Ripple investors, please watch that video and don't fall into that scammer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kv1nazL8CU
It comes from the same scammer, namely @thehotgeek: https://www.youtube.com/user/thehotgeek/videos
The address used to scam: ramYnRi2WFLgK79KBExkqjZPcuqVYhQLpg

Guide to report is added in OP (since today), please read the quote.

I don't track the channel recent days, since the day I made last post in the topic (7 days) but today I rechecked it and I have a very good news for you.
That scam channel has no longer exist: https://www.youtube.com/user/thehotgeek
It is likely Youtube took action and delete that channel already. Scammers will come back with new channels and apply same methods or adjusted ones so I would like to see you reports on Scam Youtube channels, here, when you find them. Your reports (to Youtube and to my topic) make a lot of sense for crypto communities.

I found that topic, today too: {Warning}:Please stay away from this Youtube Channel (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5201335.0)

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Updated OP with a new section for list of scam Youtube channels. Please check and report them.

Damn, I was really unlucky ever got a scammer like this, I saw from the telegram channel, they cloned the telegram channel like official binance support. when it was on the channel many people gave evidence that they got multiples of ETH from what they had sent to that address, and I tried sending 3 eth and after that I realized I was getting a scam. so be careful guys

Yeah, a ton popped-up again, hopefully, the scanning algorithm they have for videos will start blocking them on upload but I don't know how many reports it takes to flag completely down a video this way.

Anyhow, here is a fresh list, have fun reporting

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHAuhhlkJ5nOC_QQrS6vsSA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7FiVjVi555Rkp4icDJQlnw   *15k subs, lols
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7tgLZi3ugh65S7LniLx0Qg
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEj0KFkQtkYshC7TCCIqz7Q/ you've got to be kidding me 180k subs
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC09CPGN97mypOV_LGHkxWrQ
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcdK89z6bcuz-8nVhKmYOWA

Thank you, stompix. I added a new section, for listing scam Youtube channels. Hope that the list will be helpful for crypto communities and partially help them to be less exposed to scammers and reduce their odds of being scammed.

Maybe it will take a lot of reports since if only few people will report those scams channels provably youtube will turn down those reports.



It's different story and you should always look after the real binance telegram channel so that you will not got victimize but anyways since it happens already maybe it's best for you next time to be more vigilant so that you will not encounter any scamming since it's so many scammers doing like that on telegram.

I think there many victims, besides telegram, Twitter also many scams like that, even the name twitter accounts of vitalik (not giving away eth) and also many other Twitter accounts use these words. so really be careful for others.

There are a lot of scammers on YouTube, and you can't ban everyone. You must be alert.

Oh, feels so good clicking the links and seeing only 2 channels surviving and the big ones going down.

Lately, the whole scam seems to have lost momentum, I'm finding less than 2 or 3 a day, probably it's not lucrative anymore or youtube is reacting faster or both, good news anyhow.

Two that are still not nuked and have tons of subscribers (32k, and 213k)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSOxgx5hOJ-cX448XW1WyGg
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvYdKJpqVzWK_p4LC7vPaeQ

Please help with a report to bring this farce to an end.

Sounds like I contributed something but in reality, I am not sure my topic has somewhat good contributions to those channel shutdowns but no matter what kinda of contributions it has, it is good for us to see those channels eventually shut down by Youtube.
Scammers will come back with the other channels, obviously.
Yes, keep doing reports to shut down scam channels.

Yes, I am glad people are doing this and I am glad it is working. Hopefully whoever checks the report on youtube end will pass the info on so there are less of these guys signing up.
There are many ponzi schemes on youtube I have noticed. Most do not stay up for very long which I am very pleased about. I really don't understand why so many people fall for these things.
Maybe I can understand falling for a ponzi like bitconnect but these others.

Please don't clog up the topic with nested quote. Please read my guide and avoid nested/pyramid quotes ([TIPS] to avoid pyramid quotes (for Newbies) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3749076)). If you care about it and have time, please edit your above post too.

I agree with you all, there are a lot of scams on YouTube. For one and a half of these scammers, we are facing a lot of losses. There are many channels on YouTube that are invalid. We need to report them against these. They usually create new channels for scams. We should all be careful.

this social medias are big platform for scamming , telegram discord and youtube and many more thanks for the info , thanks to previous threads here i will be very cautious and not to fall for this scams , if anyone is giving anything for free that too in crypto we should be extra careful better avoid it

Once these scammers are caught they will only rest for a week and get back again on thier work which is scamming people who do not have enough knowledge in investing.

You can also report Youtube channels of scammers on these three websites.
https://cryptoscamdb.org/report/
https://etherscamdb.info/report
https://dnstwister.report/
Nevertheless, they are supplementary sites only. If you find a scam account, your prioritise should be "Reporting to the platform on which that account operates".

Okay mostly some fall to scam of selfdrop, saying if you send .1 eth or btc you will recieved a certain amount, this are post on telegram groups
some are surely scams but some are legit,
also, never fall on links signing up and putting information sharing on telegram , they are just spam, and scam campaigns
to make sure that there are airdrops and free coins, always visit official websites, and not links make sure  to report this activities once
confirm they are scam to make others safe

This could be one of the reasons why Youtube can ban all of the crypto-related videos since a lot of scammers are tricking people about a certain event is happening and a reward will be given once they join in. Therefore, I highly agree with banning some videos who is only promoting some kind of projects that are obviously targetting those new people in cryptocurrency.

And I think that only a few of crypto-related videos could only be allowed to be uploaded that is only supposedly promoting the features and development updates of a crypto project.

I guess it is only kind of probability and Youtube will not release such massive ban on crypto-related videos like what you said. It will do result in damage on their platform. Although that is their platform so Youtube can do whatever they want and think it is good for their platform.
Please see my topic and delete unused parts in your quote or delete all of the quote. I don't see reasons why you quote my OP and let the full quote like that.
[TIPS] to avoid pyramid quotes (for Newbies) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3749076.0)

Bitcoin User Loses Record $1.1M in Scam Michael Saylor Giveaway (https://beincrypto.com/bitcoin-user-loses-record-1-1m-scam-michael-saylor-giveaway/).

The method is as same as old scam Youtube channels. I am very surprised to know a Bitcoin owner is scammed by that old and easily detected scam method.

The scam amount is huge (26 Bitcoin) and the value is huge too ($1.1M). I hope people if have chance to read my topic, will not be scammed by that method at any amount.

Scammers are every where on YouTube,and it takes only people who can identify them and block them.
They use several methods to decieve people and scam them of their money.

They have their modus operandi of operation,and  have a chain of connection that make.