Bitcoin Forum

I got a message on discord (i sign up to a particular server) from an individual informing me that I've been given some bitcoin (0.2) . The message was to the effect that their exchange has increased activity and decided to hold a draw, distribute to random users. Crazy eh? Sticking to the tried and trusted old adage, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Nonetheless, I followed the instructions, signed up to this somewhat-dubious exchange website, put in the activation code. I now have the option to withdraw the bitcoin. When I select "withdraw", I am asked for a bitcoin address.

I have a mycelium wallet. when i click on Account 1 (now working with on this HD account), and then "balances", it shows an address. Is it safe to enter this address into this somewhat dubious website? Or shall I create a second account in mycelium? Or better yet, forget the entire thing?

If you give them an address from mycelium (downloaded from your app store) the most they can do is send funds to it and see what your address is doing.

I'd make a new account purely for the second thing and then pass the funds through a mixer if possible - like chipmixer - (or an exchange like binance) to try to break the chain of tracking they'll be able to do if you send within your own wallet.

Thanks. What's the purpose of the tracking then - what benefits could they get from doing this?

Well the blockchain stores the sending addresses and receiving addresses for each transaction. The company would be able to do some deanonymisation techniques (potentially) which could do things like link your bitcoin wallet to your ip/name if it's in an email signed up with. It's more of a thing thatd just seem a bit weird and if you wanted to stop that, you could just send the funds to a trusted exchange instead.

It's a common scam. Before you can withdraw, they'll ask you for a deposit. And then you'll never see your money again.

Don't waste you're time on obvious scams, people fall for it because of greed.

This type of scam was famous back then and lots of people (even veterans) fell to this trap of requiring you to deposit in order to claim your so-called 'free' BTCs.

One thing I learned throughout the years is that, there is nothing free in this world. Everything has their own benefit and repercussions as there is no absolute 'free' thing that you can gain. If you really want to try it out, then follow the suggestion posted by jackg and create a new account for safety purposes.

They can't steal your coins just by knowing your address if this is what you want to know.
But, they can link that address to your real identity supposing they've asked for your name, address.. and other personal information during the process.
If your intention is to play their game and see what they are up to, then create a new address, generate a new address and give it to them. Don't give them one of your used addresses. As I said they can't steal your coins but they know how much you received and how much you have spent.
Most likely, their next step will be to ask you to send them a small fee to be able to withdraw your winnings. Just ignore them.

OK, I created a second account, they wanted a deposit.

Thanks mate.

Yup, definitely a scam. Created a second a/c in my Mycelium, used that. Interesting that the address is verified first - I deliberately put in a typo, and it came up with an address validation error. When I corrected the address, the following came up ...

"You can withdraw your funds only on external address, which is registered and verified with your account. To verify your (external) address with your account, you need to make a deposit from this address. Deposited amount will be added to your current balance amount and will be available for withdrawal at any time immediately. More information you will find on Deposit area in your profile. Minimal amount of the deposit is 0.01 BTC. Current deposit status: 0 / 0.01 BTC. "

Which of course I have no intention of  doing.

So, yup, looked like it was indeed too good to be true.

Thanks very much everyone.

So what website is this? Might be useful for further scam website collection. It's definitely not new, and I doubt it will be the last either. That discord user is probably a bot too. Lots of scammers use this trick nowadays.

They're pretty much everywhere spamming to thousands and thousands of users hoping that they could victimize a few. They're on Discord, Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and so on. And I suspect they are still earning from it.

I bet more would have fallen to the bait had the deposit required been lowered down to much smaller amounts such 0.0001BTC or even 0.00005BTC. OP could have been one of them.

The lesson? Stop entertaining giveaways! 100% of them is either a scam or too small to be worth something or carries with it unreasonable conditions. The bottom line is, avoid it.

This is obviously a scam because it is demanding you to make a deposit first but remember that businesses like an exchange can not afford to just give you free money to withdraw right away. Not a small one either, 0.2 bitcoin is $6600! A legitimate business would give you "credit" that you can't withdraw but can use to "test" their services.

This is the most common scam that I have seen. The first time I recieved a message like this in my inbox I knew it would be a scam but went along with it to see if they asked for a deposit before I could withdraw. Now I just ignore these messages. Social media is full of these scammers and they always follow a similar pattern so it is quite easy to identify them. Most of the time they are quickly suspended or shadow banned but they must have some success if they keep attempting it so many times.

Edit this in main post and close the thread to prevent further spam comments.

I think everyone that is getting into the crypto space should be able to see this thread about scams because this is very common whether you are using Telegram or Discord, it's always going to be there as long as you are part of a crypto group, you will immediately be part of the receiving end of this kind of messages.

There are more elaborate ways on how they do this, this is just the most common one. If you receive a suspicious PM, better take it with a grain of salt already. They even put multiple groups and invite them towards each others server to fill it out and just try to scam them.

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Since this is resolved, you can now close it just like what ^he said

Is it just me, or is a sort of "list of scam websites" website is kinda pointless? Because after a certain site gets listed there, scammers would simply just create new ones. It's far better to just focus on education than having a website for people to look through if a website they're advertised is listed or not.

They obviously are if not the scam would had stopped since. No scammer would engage themselves in unprofitable scam. Every day, we have newbies coming into the industry in their numbers and without proper guidances they could easily fall victim to this type of scam due to greed she something ignorance.

When you think about it, if the required deposit are that small many won't bother trying out the service, the Human race terms to believe something more when the risk is very high. Everybody is mostly interested in a get rich quick scheme which is what they're mistaking the cryptocurency for and that's why they're coming in during every bull market as they expect to make quick profit and move on.

No one gets free Bitcoin that big these days for nothing. Why in the world would they give out 0.2BTC, maybe if they mistakenly did it.
It's worth checking actually and if it's my address I'd be the happiest person to receive more than $6k as a blessing from a leprechaun but it's going to be damn disappointing when they ask to deposit first before the claiming.

I don't understand this, how? Someone can have many bitcoin and decide to give some out  such amount of bitcoin, some people have money, especially politicians can decide to throw giveaway of bitcoin, just pray to be luckiest person that will receive when it happens, because globally what is impossible is now becoming possible, because i believe one that one day such will come to my way just unknown

Exactly. The other problem with such lists, specially if it is some sort of "review website" is that if they gain sufficient popularity they may start scamming themselves. For example you can check the ICO reviewers that initially started fair warnings about scam ICOs then near the end they started advertising real scams as "legitimate" investments because they were paid to do so.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts!

This is a tactic scammers are using, it is simple that on the exchange you do not have full control over any coin you deposit, that reward alone look too good to be real, if you deposit any bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency into that exchange, your coin will be gone, do not try it because that is most probably scam work and many people have been victimized just this way. The easiest way to scam is to promise free giveaway.

One thing I have learnt from this forum is a phrase which is actually 100% accurate and that is "Too good to be true".
Whatever it is, if it's too good to be true then it's probably a scam. I got the same message you got on discord a few months back.
Upon receiving the message I was sure that it is a scam but thought of trying out up to what extent can it go.
I signed up and entered the withdrawal address and a message was displayed to deposit btc to withdraw which was obviously a scam.
We can see such type of scams frequently and simply avoiding it is the best thing to do.

Yes, it makes sense to invest in education. However, it's not that simple.
Many new users only use social networking sites like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc. Many have never even heard of bitcointalk. Bringing scammer websites to light at least forces them to purchase new domains, incurring new costs for them that will eventually affect their profitability. We may even wreck their ventures in the long run.

I do agree that it's good to invest in education, but I also agree that it's good to expose all scammers and their websites we come across. We will never know how many innocent souls we will save this way.  ;)

The Greed in us is what feeds scammers tummies every time to time, to lure their victims they will offer something eye catching and since we have greed in us it will probably take over our thoughts and wish the scam was true, if you only believe in what you worked for no one can lure you with good offers

Fun fact: Bitcointalk is not the only place to educate yourself. In fact, 95% of my Bitcoin and cryptocurrency knowledge came from just reading articles on social media, and by listening to smart people on YouTube.

Mate. Some domains are literally like $3. And they will change domains regardless if they get exposed on these so called scam listing sites or not.

Never said these scam listing sites were totally useless, but it could also potentially be a negative. "Oh this site must be legit because it's not listed on the scam-listing site!"

I wasn't referring specifically to scam listing sites, but in general, including this forum. Hopefully, google will do the rest. Yes, I know it's a whack-a-mole endeavor, but what other alternative do we have?

I still don't understand how some people can fall for scams like: "send x amount to get y amount" or "you won a prize, send x amount to confirm your withdrawal". However, I just can't accept that there's nothing I can do when I come across such a blatant scam attempt. I am more of a "everyone should do their part" kind of person.

I mean, come on mate you literally quoted me about my statement concerning scam-listing sites. :P

As for an alternative, like I said, education. Linking websites/articles that gives knowledge about scams in general are going to be far more productive and net-positive than linking websites that literally just lists scam websites. There's a huge distinction between the two. Something like teaching people how to think, rather than teaching them what to do.

Something like this would be far beneficial: https://cryptosec.info/scams/

Yes, you are right. Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you meant exposing scam sites on the bitcointalk.

Nothing is free in this world, and that goes for crypto as well. Lately, there have been many scams going around (of which some I  myself have reported) where exchanges offer prizes in BTC or ETH if you deposit a small amount of BTC XD Be careful of such sites.

It might be a scam or a hacker yet it can also be for real. On that part when they asker for your address, you should already know that they cannot hack you through that alone, maybe afterwards they will ask for more information as you get deceived by the money they gave. A second account would be the best course of action since you can seal off your guarantee free from risks and identify whether it is for real or it is just a trick. Ensure always that you take extra precations whenever you are transacting anywhere in the market, scammers are everywhere so it would be better to be safe than sorry.