Bitcoin Forum

I know i was bit late to report the situation but it better than never.

On December, 1st 2020 after Vitalik congratulation message on twitter for the launch of ETH2.0, a group of scammer seized the opportunity to scam ETH enthusiast out of their holding by providing a Ethereum foundation airdrop giveaway as showing in the below image which indicates that the message was not posted by Vitalik himself but I'm still surprised how the scammer manage to his account alive for years.

Newbies beware and understand that everything thats seem too good to be the true in crypto investment is a scam.

The launch of ETH2.0 was a very good thing for the Ethereum holders however there are scammers who always try to take advantage of the situation and try to scam people.
One of my friend was recently contacted by such scammers and wanted to help in eth staking. Beware of all these scams attempts.

I think this is purely about ethereum and will fit to be moved to 'Altcoin discussions.

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Ether staking was just implemented with the launch of Ethereum 2.0 on December 1, 2020. This will make scammers to take advantage of people that do not learn about ethereum staking but just want to stake, there will be many fake pools now, and many scammers will try to impersonate people, and many ignorant people will be scammed, we need to be careful of scammers. People that are ether holders that want to stake their coin should learn about it in depth before staking in order to avoid scammers.

LOL! The audacity!

Is it that easy to get that "verified" badge? The account even has 67.2K followers ;D It's either a legit account that was hacked long ago (most likely) or someone who bought followers.

+1, it's easier for the scammers when people do not research or understand what they are doing, and are only keen to earn returns, that way they do not verify any info and will often get scammed, holders on the eth network who understand appropriately what staking is, will definitely know the right way to go about it without encountering or sending their ethereum to scammers.
AFAIK, it's not easy to get your account verified, but for followers, scammers do easily get fake and bot followers to make their account look real, but notwithstanding how real an account looks, users should not trust without verifying.

Scammers will always find ways to scam naive or greedy people but upon checking on the Ethereum address (https://etherscan.io/address/0xAEd44Ccb06eD816C99c13E6E0b2EB48557Fc50F5) that they used, it seems only 2 transactions were made that has 5 Ethereum on the wallet and it seems they failed to scam people.

The 67.2K Followers (scammer account) and the 1M Followers (the real Vitalik Buterin) are far different and if you do a little bit of research you immediately find out what is the difference.  Probably Twitter users have been learned about the recent scam happen and this is the same technique the scammers used.

It's obviously hacked or a bought account from the legitimate users just because of the verified badge.  Is there someone who reported the account to the Twitter team?

That's case belongs to this, https://help.twitter.com/en/safety-and-security/report-twitter-impersonation

All the things that are heavily promoted by the media and many of the news they circulate are considered a fat meal for many fraudsters because they know that beginners will search for it and therefore their reference will be either the first result by Google or social media.
you must learn about it from different sources and never send money if it fast/early earning project.

Why the hell that account has a verified badge? Of course some will thought of this as legit but with a username like that anyone should noticed it.

I can see that many scammers are doing this kind of modus. Copying influencers identity and post some new projects or gonna ask to send ETH or something. I've seen a lot of these kind of scam in degen community where the suspect using a fake account that is highly famous on making calls. Damn, now they targeting the event of eth 2.0 for their own greed. Hope the account will be reported for impersonation and fraud.

This kind of modus from scammers are already existing long time ago, even Ethereum 2.0 haven't started. But these kinds of scammers are really perfect timing with this Ethereum 2.0, they have know subject and their targets are still for sure newbies.
I also saw this tweet before replying on Vitalik's tweet, jeez, it is really look real but if you love your money, you will not fall for it.

With the same date this scamer resembles his original Vitalik Buterin with a blue tick, even in liking that tweet more than 500 means that a lot has happened to him oh my god hope there aren't many victims in this matter.

Tricks like this have been around for a long time, even we as users of this forum are not surprising, but beginners are still their target to drain their money.

The ones that become a lot of imitation scammers are Uniswap and Ethereum which continue to be scammers.

As I can see, this old story is still working.

I would have said that this is mainly a newbie trap, but if someone sent 27 ETH, I suppose he is not such a newbie neither :-\

Beware guys, most of crypto people are good hearted, I think, but there is always some scammer around who gives us the bad fame. Get sure you check everything twice, specially before sending data or money.

scammer mode continues to evolve following current developments such as the launch of ETH 2.0.  Scammer accounts like this need to be watched out for.  Butterin vitalic real account will never ask you to send ETH to any address.  A beginner also needs to be vigilant.  if someone has sent 27 ETH on a scammer, Lol it's a wrong decision and just made the scammer rich.  Don't trust twitter and other social media too much, check first.  scammers target anyone who isn't careful.

Well, as scammer has player a very good game, he might have shown one own transaction of 27 ETH to make people believe that people are actually sending ether to his address while claiming that he is Vitalik with blue tick.

People never seize to amaze me with the way it is very easy for them to throw money around, imagine someone send over such eth without any proper research, how can some people just do stuff like this without thinking it through, am really surprised to see how easy it is to scam some people.

Oh, people still believe in so stupid scam. Really sad to me that this stil works. People need to have at least a bit more attention to details

27 ETH isn't something small. Like how can they just put their money without even doing their proper research? But if twitter complied to the authorities demands, they might somehow track the scammers since they are verified in twitter, obviously they twitter have the data to that account's owner. Nonetheless, that tweets timing was so perfect though. It's like they've been waiting just for this moment.

maybe so, 27ETH transactions are just bait to catch bigger fish.  These are the methods that get people into traps.  

In order to trace the scammer, it is necessary to report quite a lot of victims who were deceived.  Even though the account has been verified, the account is an account that was taken over by someone else and the data in it cannot reveal who the scammer is.  If only 1 person reports it is difficult to find out who the scammer is.  Twitter seems to be more selective and should immediately block many harmful scammer accounts.  We can also do a report so that it will be blocked immediately.

It's no surprise a lot of scammers will pop up due to the ETH 2.0 I think a lot of fake pools will pop up and would be scamming too. I think the Ethereum posted the list of pools on where to stake so I think everyone should read it to avoid being scammed.

I don't see the 27 ETH you write about here. Probably scammers changes the address of the contract to which you need to send Ethereum. Now I see that 5 ETH was sent to the address indicated on the site: https://etherscan.io/address/0xAEd44Ccb06eD816C99c13E6E0b2EB48557Fc50F5 Scammers offer to double your Ethereum in 24 hours. And this scam will continue as long as Twitter does not ban the specified profile.

The account has been verified, it does not mean that it is true, I also fully agree with you, it could be that the account buys several followers, to get a Verified account they can trick everyone into taking advantage of the moment, so least we can draw a conclusion to always stay alert against fraud, at least this information is enough to help us in the future ..

that user also have verified logo these scammers really do anything to scam everyone. first thing was the ICO then it comes to IEO then to DeFi now to Ethereum staking. we should be careful scammers are everywhere.

Scam will always happen until people stop looking for ways to make money fast.
It's just a classic scam scheme
It is sad that there are still people who believe in this, and do not even try to understand the situation, ask questions and check the date of the site's creation.

The best example of a scam:

Yes, there are even phishing groups that exist on par with the official group time and more members than the official group.
This morning I was almost fooled by a group of scammers who took the name of the AnRKey project to do the presale. When the members are more than 5k people and the official group is only 3k9 people. I almost sent USDT to that group of scammers and luckily I was awake and checked again.
So the following signs to recognize a scam is that they always limit the time to send money and how to do it will be very easy. Also, before sending money you should also carefully check the official link, the careful never be redundant. ;)

Just now noticed it. How is it possible to get the "verified" badge (blue tick), when Vitalik is already having a verified account with the same name? This is what happens when Twitter spends most of their resources to promote left-wing agenda, rather than working to prevent scams and other forms of crime which happens on their platform. In this case, Twitter is responsible, if any user is losing his hard earned coins.

Aside scammers faking to be Vitalik Buterin and other Ethereum core team members, doing fake airdrops to scam gullible ETH holders, we should expect fake ETH staking sites to keep popping up and also clones of legit ETH staking platforms. There is no way to deter scammers entirely, our best tool to combat scams is common sense.

So many people are still not learning to first verify the airdrop if it is legit and really comes from real accounts, we already have so many reports like this where the imitator ask for a donation in exchange for doubling the amount, for all our information Buterin never ask for a donation or doubling your token because he is not involved in Ponzi scheme or has done anything like this.

Yes, almost my close friends experienced the same thing when eth 2.0 was released, there were someone scamers who tried to contact via telegram PM even had time to talk via cellphone communication. and luckily my friend is not that stupid giving them money.

Scammers take this kinds of opportunities to scam crypto community. It's not new news at all. Thanks for posting to stay alert.

Not only in ETH 2.0, you will find scammers almost everywhere. They pretend to be genuine characters but as soon as they get the opportunity to grab some assets, that's it. We have seen scammers in ICOs, airdrops, bounties and so on. We have to think twice before making any investment or otherwise there is no-one to help you when you lose everything.

This is another Lapse from the Twitter side, Thanks Mate for this warning, It seems that Twitter is getting more vulnerable to this abuse, if you do not examine the account carefully at first look it has the badge so meaning it is a verified account twitter should focus on this problem, I hope that no one was fall with this scamming attempt.

Be careful with all forms of fraud in the name of a return on investment that is higher than your initial capital, I personally always be aware of this, especially about ETH 2.0 which has been released to the public, of course this is a place for scamers to cheat. so, never give them money easily, anyone needs to be careful and don't be easily attracted to multiply your money beyond logic.

Twitter is the most vulnerable social media services because they ought to ban the user account for using same name and picture of Vitalik and what astonished me is the badge they gave to a puppet account that they ought to ban maybe someone from the twitter is the one behind this scam activities because they are not doing their job very well.

This modus will never be gone. These scammers will always impersonate Vitalik and other known crypto personalities for their own gain. Just always be mindful and watchful whenever you'll follow someone on social media. Check the links of the official accounts and as well as the websites that they're giving. Avoid if it's unfamiliar, it's simple as that.

 we must be more vigilant, because some people are not always careful in concluding the news. using the main character as bait, it's like this was planned a long time ago. Moreover, this was raised in connection with the existence of a new moment (eth 2.0) where people would be competing to get big profits, both rightly and by means of a shortcut.

ordinary people who do not understand the risks that will occur continue to do how to get fast money.  instead of getting fast money, they end up being tricked and into the trap that the scammer has set.  believers are the ones who fall for the promise of get-rich-quick schemes.  "Send 2ETH and get 4ETH".  even though it can be concluded that it is a fraud.  Nobody will give a 100% bonus so easily.  In the past I have been caught in this situation and it was still a small number.  From this incident I began to learn that there is no get-rich-quick scheme without working hard.

Scammer are always making more effort to scam their victims its hurt because their target is ETH holder, They will collect the funds from victims, Thanks for this topic I'm aware now because I read this. On telegram there is a lot of groups that invited me and its all talking about ETH 2.0 But there is no legit on them. My mind now was clear because of this.

Damn it, someone already fell to their trap. someone already sent 27 ETH and that's a huge amount of money man. I think they already have it planned as soon as the main founder of ETH announces the good news of launching Ethereum 2.0. These scammers are way intelligent but we can surely prevent ourselves from falling into their trap if we don't rush on investing in that kind of giveaway. I mean, if they just know how to stop themselves when the hype comes to them, there would have been fewer victims to such scams.

Wait What..I'm sure the account was hacked, and the hacker changed the username and twitter profile name. It's crazy considering he has a verified badge on Twitter and trying to scam other people. be careful guys

That scammer is pretty smart. Even I got fooled for a second there because of the name, timing of the post, AND the check after the name. The check is probably that got me. I'm sure I'm not the only one and most likely that victims got scammed because of that check too.

Well, no one cares about them. Probably banned today only for political motives. Of course new users are always wrong. I think they can steal over $ 100,000 for one such post. The main thing is to find the right time. When on the coin, people can easily get lost in a world with more than 4000 coins. And the official sites are not clear where to find. There is no protection from scammers. There will always be new ways to deceive a person. Be vigilant AND check the information.

Twitter people who do this are really limited minded people who can't figure out a way to make money in a better way, not because they are scammers but because they are very low level and failed scammers as well, even scamming requires some sort of quality and these guys lack it.

We have all witnessed those few days where very very famous people got hacked and all the criminal did was publish crypto scam and he had like 200k or so dollar profit from it, think of hacking into all the famous people you can, and only making 200k from it.

I could literally think a million way to not make people realize you hacked into their accounts and get away with tens of millions of dollars if those accounts were mine. So, basically all these people are very very unsuccessful and lack creativity sort of people.