Bitcoin Forum

I've been a part of two recent attempts to scam our forum's lenders on Telegram.  If you use that platform for communication, please take every precaution to ensure with whom you are communicating.

The scammer will contact a couple of reputable forum members; one for a loan and the other for collateral escrow, then create an account to impersonate the escrow provider, and start a group discussion with the impostor account.

Please be careful, and lets prevent this dirtbag from scamming anyone.

Tricky: a scammer could also contact both parties individuality at the same time, ask the other party to confirm by PM on Bitcointalk, and it'll be very difficult to spot there's a man in the middle attack going on!

All messages can be forwarded unedited, except for Bitcoin addresses.

Best way is to sign a message at the beginning of each conversation.

It's not so easy to contact both at the same time because they can answer at the same time and then the scheme collapse.
First ask one if they can be the escrow for a deal or the lender for a collateral loan. They fits them anyway any answer.

If the lender agrees to be the escrow, then they copycat his name and create a group with the copycat account (escrow) and the victim (lender) to convince him that is the real  escrow account/ member. So the victim (lender) can send the funds to the escrow (copycat) address.

If the lender agrees to fill it then they ask for an escrow, "since they are newbies here" excuse for example, and they copycat the name of the escrow that the lender choose. Then they make the group with the same goal. I hope that you understand what i'm trying to say.

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On TG?! As far as i know, you can't sign a message to verify that you are the real owner of a TG account.

If you're going to use Telegram for communication that's fine, but insist on all official business be posted here on the forum.  Out in the open is better, but at the very least through PM if needed.  

This morning jbdee discovered he was being targeted immediately after I posted this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5201269.msg53156801#msg53156801

Just get them to sign the important ones imo. You only need one signature to prove they're who they say they are.

Very similar to the Steam middleman scam which I've seen aplenty. Through the chat window, buyer impersonates a reputable middleman/ friend/ whoever the seller chooses and then the rest is history.


Perhaps if the escrow could sign and link his/ her own Telegram profile, something like this?

Something similar happened to me around a year ago, it's likely the same person up to his old tricks again.

Here's a scam report I made on the situation, it contains some information that could be potentially used to dox him.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5054304.msg47098833#msg47098833

I think you're right.  The fake borrower who tired to scam me by impersonating condoras last week was also very likely from Serbia.  I have evidence that suggests so much, anyway.  Who ever it is, I think he's somewhat active here.  The timing of deleting the Telegram accounts during the two scam attempts I was part of make me think he's was reading posts here on the forum while trying his scam on Telegram.

If there are any trusted members from Serbia who are willing to help, I would share the information I have that may expose this shitstick.

A lot people read posts in every section of the forum, so it can be anybody from everywhere. Even if we got something though that proves that scammer (in this case) is from Serbia,  what can we do? Filing a lawsuit against him for trying a web fraud, by using nicknames from a forum; :-\

Not to mention the cost for an abroad lawsuit... ::)

Thanks for this I am a newbia and had some scammers in telegram there is a lot of ways

Telegram is not designed to be a platform to conduct business on. It is possible to remove messages from the person you are speaking with’s account, making it difficult to prove wrongdoing if there is a dispute. There may be a scenario in which both parties caused messages to be removed in the others account.

You may negotiate details via TG, but it would probably be better to finalize/confirm details on a platform that doesn’t allow messages to be modified/removed and where you can directly confirm the persons reputation.

As scammers are getting smarter, so also should the lenders be doing so. For me, the moment the discussion is taken outside the forum to other platform either for convenience or easy accessibility the rate of care on the part of the lender should be activated to 150% because its at that point the vulnerability has reached another level. A potent red flag is if the borrower is now taking over the discussion and taking active charge of the transaction by pushing for him/her reaching out to escrow, forming busy, trying to emphasise the urgency of the transactions without giving room for the lender then its a red flag. For the lender, the best is to have list of your own trusted escrows that you have a connection with and the moment anyone comes and make claims, you have your own way of verifying the veracity of such claims.

It's really any platform out there. The only time someone contacted me through TG I instantly had them message me through the forum with a signed message. turned out they were exactly who they said they were. I dropped the ball using Discord, my own dumb fault.
The thing that makes TG worse is that either party can delete the messages on either side of the conversation.

When in doubt don't worry if you seem like the asshole. Someone wants to borrow your funds or is contacting you to make a deal, you are taking the risk, making them jump through hoops to protect yourself is the only wise course of action - I don't mean like a power wielding maniac either but basic security and "verification".

Exposing them could be well and good in that it might prevent them from carrying on scamming. I wouldn't hold my breath, but the more info you have on them the more likely it is to trip them up trying to scam in the future.

I used to lend here, a long long time ago. My finances were better back then. I had more than one similar scam attempts like these. Back then there was no Telegram, or at least I didn't know of it, it was all through skype (remember that piece of trash? lol)

And I agree, it has to be the same person because the MO sticks out and has remained virtually unchanged, except he moved from Skype to Telegram.