Bitcoin Forum

I received an email from nrricaurtc@eafit.edu.co today stating that I have won 8.5 million pounds. Isn't the thing exciting? I have not even participated in anything like this. But in reality it is a trap to steal your personal information. Many may want to take a chance on this winning prize by sharing their information, they may not want to understand how valuable their personal information is. In the first step they will take your general personal information and later they will take your other important personal information as well. Those who are aware of the different types of scams in the internet world are very wary of such scams.

But the biggest concern here is the newbie, because whenever they get an offer, they believe it and follow the scammers' instructions. So that they later face major problems. So if you get any tempting offer, you should check it thoroughly and then think of going to the next step. If you look closely, you will understand their style of writing mail. No professional will write mail in this way.

https://i.ibb.co/NNHC59G/20210530-000313.jpg

Getting this mail all of a sudden without even registering in some kind of giveaway or so is already weird. My e-mail spam folder is literally clogged up by these "you are now a millionaire" e-mails. And let's be honest right now - anyone who tends to fall to these things will have to learn through experience anyway, because if you're this silly then you will probably mess up at least once..

But yeah, if a random e-mail is worth giving away your personal information then I have no words..

This reminds me of more than 10 years ago when my friend got text message from a company manufacturing soft drinks, unknown to both of us that it was a scam, my friend did not participate in any contest or anything that can result to him wining $300 in my country's currency at the time. In the message my friend won $300 and a phone number was in the message that he can call to claim the $300.

He called the number, he was instructed to send $30 worth of recharge card in order to claim the $300, he sent it and he was scammed. If I remind him of the day, he'd remember there was a day he was foolish. Although, we were quite young at the time.

So, the scam can be as a result of phishing text message, or phishing email, few can also be through call. But the best way to avoid this type of scam is to avoid pay 2 to get 4 or more.

---

For scam awareness, I wonder why governments have never had scam as a subject in schools. People should have been learning how to avoid scam even in the basic schools, all what the governments are doing is to deprive people of privacy and yet scam never ceased.

I always say that newbies are not more susceptible to scams like these it's more of greed; they are basically easy to see through strategies which anyone who frequently used the internet should be able to discern. If it's too good to be true, it probably isn't true. An offer of rewards with no source is a huge red flag, more less when you need to offer something to get it.

Personal information could be used to send more personalized scam attempts, it can also be used to brute Force into an email address.

It's basically not possible for everything to be taught in schools, imo, it'll be absurd for a course such as 'scam' to spring up in colleges and other levels of education, reason being that there is what's called intuitive knowledge; and that's what people ought to apply in situations such as obvious scam attempts. People should learn to "be their own security" and not look to the government or any other institution to protect them, sometimes all that's needed to curb people getting scammed is if they can control their own avarice.

I've always had text message that I won big prizes. Guess what it's not a robot generated message but from someone trying to steal money from you. I've always play tricks k  them whenever they message me. Like I will reply that how to claim the prize and they will eagerly message you, asking for details and telling you to give these vital info. Then after a while, thats where  I drop the bomb on them telling them I knew it and go to hell scammers. People like these should be punished. Anyway karma is real.

There must be scam awareness for scam rate to reduce, and people should be taught in practical ways using forums like Bitcointalk and real life scam examples. If not because of the awareness we have on this forum, many of us would be scammed. I still remembered a day I was using pay-to-click site to earn unprofitable amount of Bitcoin before joining this forum, there was a ad that I clicked on, the site displayed me Bitcoin mining in progress, the site mined me 0.005 BTC in less than 15 seconds, displayed to me to pay 0.002 BTC into one bitcoin address to claim the mined amount, thanks to the fact I had no money to pay at the time, I would have fallen victim. Posts on this forum really oriented, just because we are educating ourselves about scam and other related matters happening in the world. If this can be introduced in schools, this will also go a long way, not even only in college but starting from high schools. They best way to prevent scam is not about government depriving people of their privacy, it is about teaching people how to avoid it with practical examples, and schools are the best means for this in away those taught in school can also educate people at home and others.

Well, if someone believes in this and thinks that by some miracle he became a millionaire, do not feel sorry for such eccentrics. How many times have they written here, no need to open spam emails, no need to believe in such distributions, and there are still naive people.
This is a life that teaches. If someone thinks they are special and can suddenly become rich in the blink of an eye, then the lessons that will sober them up will benefit them.
Many such topics with warnings are no longer interesting. Let's hear the stories of those trapped. What feelings does he feel and does he now believe that such miracles do not happen, or will he again step on his rake?

I don't have to get learn from experience to know what such scam is. Because in life, you can see it in many aspects of our society: economics, health, stocks, investments, promos, etc.

If anyone falls into this, it is because they are greed and ignore all scam reminders they have ever seen in their lives. I am sorry for their loses but they really deserve to get loses that are good for their expensive learning from experience.

• Too good to be true.
• Too easy to be true.

Forget such free gifts.

The reason why such blatant scams still exist and people still fall for it more than other scam tactics where you have to send money or download money is that the victims do not realize how valuable their personal information are.
When they receive an email like this, they would say: "Ok, it's most likely a scam but I want lose any thing if I send them my personal info!"
They simply don't know that these data can be sold in the dw and can be used in identity fraud crimes. It can also be used in many other malicious activities such as extortion, social engineering...

Thank you so much. At least with this experience of yours, and most importantly, you bringing it here to share with we newbies, you have indeed save many of future scams. And I am so grateful for that. And I won't mind if you keep informing us more on scams alerts, so that we newbies be be at safer hands.

I got one that's near the same with OP but I knew it's not for me because I don't share my email address with anyone not to talk of any gambling website or platform, only the greedy ones who likes eating what they don't work for will want to check it out and may hot trapped in the process

I think the more important thing is to discard emails that you never did signup in the past, avoid using your emails to the suspicious registration site, never click any links that are sent with the emails, what will happen is that your email might use to scam others or the link contain a malicious script that will do harm, always thinks the worse, even if they offer something irresistible.

I received many text and email from someone or a so called company that I won and I can claim it. What I did is I always discard or delete the email or text message. Sometime I save some of it as a reminder that it is a scam. It is really weird if you didn't join any contests, giveaways or whatever it is and you just huge money out of thin air. It's very obvious that it is a scam attempt.

Tempting offers are for the greedy ones so if they get caught they deserve it, I only expect breads from where I break sweat on because nothing in this world is free, you have to thrive to achieve something not going around looking for some miracles

I tend to agree with it, only greedy and naive people will fall into this kind of trap.  This is very common in my country, you will receive a text message from an unknown number, asking your name, address, email account and etc which common information that might be linked to your bank account.  It's almost a million of our local currency prize that they said I have won.  It's very exciting stuff but I have in my mind I never join any of what the text message I received.

During this pandemic, there's a lot of scam attempt, we should be careful and be vigilant at all times.

BTW, thanks for sharing this OP.

It's not for nothing, you are becoming millionaire for giving your personal info, who wouldn't want that!?

Yeah, and then the credit card number plus the CCV so they can transfer your money to the card :P

I received another email stating that I had won an amount of money. But if I want to get that money, I have to reply to their email. This means I have a chance to get money only if I contact them. But if I reply to this email, they can steal my personal information and scam me in various ways.

https://i.ibb.co/vDxRKBL/20210620-002904.jpg

I will recommend you stop using this particular email if it isn't linked to any important site that you use for your financial activities like exchange etc. The email has been compromised and is a matter of time before the phishing emails becomes more convincing like you actually receiving an email from a site you earlier picked interest in.

Constant spamming of this manner is the reason we're advice to not use our important email for free services like airdrop or bounty etc or make them vulnerable.

Scammers constantly look for gullible targets to scam and thankfully you are knowledgeable to spot this scams. You must not be the only one this message are been sent to and there's every probably that someone will fall victim.

This has been the scam Pattern of many scammers and most times the offer becomes too tempting that we don't even think right to dictate it's a scam. Getting a win on a platform you never participated in looks very suspicious but the bottom line is greed most times swallows ones thinking and makes them preys

If an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  Basically, these scams play on people's greed. Because how does one who never participated in any event expect to make huge financial profit without much effort?

Personally, I have fallen for these scams 🤣. I've learned my lessons and moved on.

Now, when I receive an email or text message from an unknown sender, no matter how sad the story or enticing the reward, it is deleted immediately.

A common scams or probably phishing to get information from users, there are a lot of scams similar to this probably to get the prize your gonna need to pay a amount or they call you to and need your card number to deposit the prize.

This is too good to be true, most of the time it is all scams, so never entertain this type of email, don't click links from this kind of email because there are many clever ways to inject malware/virus or hack ur computer.

There are some people on youtube who mess with these scammers ;D wasting their time by giving fake card numbers and sometimes the scammer is the one who gets hacked.