Bitcoin Forum

I may be being scammed.  Need help!!

I had money I put into https//btcsquaredtc.com.  I may have fucked up.  I have reviewed some exchanges and saw BTCSquare.net but didn't catch the difference when I set it up.  Has anyone else seen this?  I am legit worried this is a scam and I am screwed on my funds. 

Please help.

Thanks!!

Judging by what the site looks like and the fact that the domain has been registered a couple of weeks ago, I'm afraid that you sent the funds to the wrong site. How did you come across that site exactly? It's not showing in google results when I write it down.

Thank you much for responding.  I am an idiot.  I am assuming there is nothing I can do at this point?

Ok, so your funds are still there, right? How about trying an attempt to withdraw it? Or withdrawals are disabled?

Contact their support. Just give it a try.

Not giving you bad hope but the design of the site resembles the spam exchange sites here before wherein users have to deposit a certain amount before they can withdraw. The site's layout is really the same as far as I remember. These sites are just changing website names and registering new domains once they got busted. I will try to look and searched for related threads.

If the transaction has been confirmed, I'm afraid not. Do you mind sharing the address you sent the funds to? Maybe you can track the funds to see if they were sent to a CEX with KYC.

Yes they are still there.  When I try to withdraw it says the running bill is insufficient. Its worked before to transfer some money out but customer service approved it.

Thank you much for checking.

Here is the address

0x0c7370f6b8188ff6f8af4CFe6e1251520cb17001

Thx

Do they have a minimum withdraw limit? Do they charge fees on withdrawals? One of these is usually the reason why you would get a not-enough-balance error message (in case the service is legit).
If your balance is higher than their minimum limit and you have enough to pay for the fees and they are asking you to deposit more, then this is definitely a scam. Do not send them any more money!

Hate to be the one to say it to you @CRussellPrime but if you didn't moved the funds recently - I'm assuming you were the one who transferred the recent 0.115 ETH[1] (dates match up) - it seems that someone else did it according to this recent ransaction ID[2]. If this wasn't you then assume that your money is gone and lost.

However, do consider yourself lucky that you were only stolen about $400 USD - just on April 1st someone sent this address 27 ETH[3] and 14.000 USDT[4]! As you can see the scammers wallet has transacted roughly 62 ETH so far and I don't think this number will stop. The best that we can do is follow this guide[5] and report the scammers to registrar in the hopes of the website being removed/shutdown.

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[1]https://blockchair.com/ethereum/transaction/0x6a718cef0d3a6f151152f49b758fd596250f628d7c2f3f107fcb8b237d11bba4 (https://blockchair.com/ethereum/transaction/0x6a718cef0d3a6f151152f49b758fd596250f628d7c2f3f107fcb8b237d11bba4)
[2]https://blockchair.com/ethereum/transaction/0x7f73fb7ad422bc9ce54a6b890f73df255778496697b14b6b1534a7a9b8a2822f (https://blockchair.com/ethereum/transaction/0x7f73fb7ad422bc9ce54a6b890f73df255778496697b14b6b1534a7a9b8a2822f)
[3]https://blockchair.com/ethereum/transaction/0x61aa4acb0d11b0080adcdd8a8673fe4d86a15b363d1a68099b860234e4bb2e81 (https://blockchair.com/ethereum/transaction/0x61aa4acb0d11b0080adcdd8a8673fe4d86a15b363d1a68099b860234e4bb2e81)
[4]https://blockchair.com/ethereum/transaction/0x786bb2b397651dc800eded1a6e3c33c74c96503e1aa62763e8b0c5eb4880a38f (https://blockchair.com/ethereum/transaction/0x786bb2b397651dc800eded1a6e3c33c74c96503e1aa62763e8b0c5eb4880a38f)
[5]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5281378 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5281378)

I appreciate the information about the transactions.  Are you saying USDT that was transferred in was withdrawn right away from whoever is behind this?

My money was transferred through Coinbase then to the site.  Coinbase does have crime insurance.  Is this something that could qualify?  They allowed the transfer to happen a couple times.  Then the last transaction I was going to make they froze it from being sent and labeled it a black site.  Ideally, I can do something with Coinbase here.  Any thoughts on that? 

From Coinbase site: 
How is my cryptocurrency insured?
Coinbase carries crime insurance that protects a portion of digital assets held across our storage systems against losses from theft, including cybersecurity breaches. However, our policy does not cover any losses resulting from unauthorized access to your personal Coinbase or Coinbase Pro account(s) due to a breach or loss of your credentials. It is your responsibility to use a strong password and maintain control of all login credentials you use to access Coinbase and Coinbase Pro.
Cryptocurrency is not legal tender and is not backed by the government. Cryptocurrency, (including but not limited to tokens such as bitcoin, litecoin and ethereum, and stablecoins such as USDC), is not subject to Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) or Securities Investor Protection Corporation protections.
In case of a covered security event, we will endeavor to make you whole. However, total losses may exceed insurance recoveries so your funds may still be lost.

Indeed. Not only that, it seems that whenever a transaction enters the wallet it doesn't take long for it to be sent to another one. Take this as an example:

• 9.79 ETH (+- $33k USD) where sent to the scammers address on Apr 3rd - 5:55 PM UTC
• 9.80 ETH where then sent to another one of the scammers address (by himself) on Apr 3rd - 5:58 PM UTC (Just 3 minutes after the previous funds were sent to him)

This address - 0xf13446e70b7b6513d7174917d8f42daa245cc5bd]3] - appears to at least one of the main ones that he/she used to transfer the cryptocurrency to and so far it has dealt with +- 72 ETH (+-$ 236k USD). By now the funds are probably sitting in a mixer somewhere...

If you read the sentence carefully you'll see that Coinbase is just saying that they have insurance that protect their clients crypto balance if a theft / hacking / breach of their funds happens. This means that it doesn't cover cases where the user sends crypto to addresses whose owner only purpose is to scam him/her - it should be your responsibility to know how to judge whenever you're sending funds to and making sure it's a legit service.You can, however, file a police report but I'm yet to see any tangible results for such reports... Do take this event as a lesson learnt and be on the lookout for future scamming attempts.

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[1]https://blockchair.com/ethereum/transaction/0x7ce12fa74c44887e33ff6b3bf50d51bb545a0052a551f39ea9ee431af50e910a (https://blockchair.com/ethereum/transaction/0x7ce12fa74c44887e33ff6b3bf50d51bb545a0052a551f39ea9ee431af50e910a)
[2]https://blockchair.com/ethereum/transaction/0xf3bfc05f6ef26942b653d0de9a579221ef346daa3315c2420da4ed7ce246bd2e (https://blockchair.com/ethereum/transaction/0xf3bfc05f6ef26942b653d0de9a579221ef346daa3315c2420da4ed7ce246bd2e)
[3]https://blockchair.com/ethereum/address/0xf13446e70b7b6513d7174917d8f42daa245cc5bd (https://blockchair.com/ethereum/address/0xf13446e70b7b6513d7174917d8f42daa245cc5bd)

Hi,

Btcsquare exchange has the only one valid domain address which is

https://www.btcsquare.net (https://www.btcsquare.net)

You can also check an official thread here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3333116.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3333116.0)

We are also aware of the ongoing scam campaign targeting on Btcsquare with domain names looking very similar to btcsquare.net. We are monitoring the situation and asking domain registrars for immediate takedown.

So far we know about two phishing schemas
- a recommendation from a friend on Facebook (probably from hacked account)
- direct contact through WhatsApp about buying a real estate and then victim is somehow manipulated to deposit into the fake exchange

However it is upon each user to do his homework to verify is he/she is on the right site before making any deposit.





 

But seeing how they approved your previous withdrawal attempt means they weren't trying to scam you straight away. It could be because they were hoping to gain your trust so you'll eventually be more open to deposit a larger amount. What if we make up a story in the hopes of making them believe you'll really deposit a bigger amount?

For instance, (disclaimer: I'm bad at this lol either come up with a new story or improve mine) when talking to support, there'll be a time where you'll be asked to wait while they check your situation on their end. Casually thank them and mention you just needed the money to make up a collateral for a loan so you can trade more hence you'll appreciate it if they can hurry it up. I'd throw one or two praises about their exchange as well and that you're planning to use it as your go-to trading platform from now on.

There's a good chance you'll be asked to deposit more money or get KYC'd before they approve your withdrawal. If any similar situations come up, forget it. The golden rule is to not give them anything, not even a cent.

Sad story, how did you fall into this trap? All the important links should bookmark in your browser. So you can avoid this way. Another way to find the right link is by visiting CMC or CG. No matter what is their service but you will find the right links. Phishing links won't be added there anyway. However, it should lessen for you though it's a costly lesson. Others could learn from here. By the way, sorry for your loss.

I don't think that someone will send about 27 Ethereum to the address of a site that was created several days ago, so the most likely scenario is for this scammer to make some fake deposits to prove that there are huge trading volumes on the site.
To the user, sorry for losing your money, but scammers are lazy and will make mistakes sooner or later. Try to track those coins and if you find that they expired in a central platform, then you may be able to recover them.
But for now, take it as a lesson to you.

It started through LinkedIn.  Someone that had a profile with over 500 connections and a similar connection (1st).  Started talking and slowly got into the crypto talk and they offered to show how you could make money doing short term trades.  It showed success and I could withdraw money and got sucked in over time.  IDIOT is all I can say about myself.

Beware and research everything.  I wish I knew of this forum beforehand of course.  I am grateful for all the information that has been provided.  I have involved authorities to see what, if anything, can be done.

I'm sorry that you fell for that scam and trap. Hopefully, the authorities can do anything to at least track those scammers and get back your fund. There were cases like this in the past that they were able to get those people but also, there were many of them that weren't able to recover.
This is a huge lesson for you and if you see other people that are in the same shoe as you, you may try to help them so that they won't experience the same scamming.

This definitely falls into the pig butchering scam where scammers tries to slowly gain their victims trust until they make that one big deposit. It usually involves romance scam as well but not necessarily.

Since you're involving authorities, this might help you. It's from a victim of the said scam.


While I cant vouch for the org, I did a quick search that time and they were quoted by reputable news outlets as a source of information which you should be able to confirm yourself by DYOR. However this doesn't mean you should blindly trust them! in fact you shouldn't do that to anyone. Be cautious to anything a stranger tries to offer, it would help to think twice before jumping to anything.

Don't call yourself idiot mate but rather a innocent investor since if you know that is a scam platform for sure you will not go there. So just try to make that happening as experience need to learn with and for sure when you encounter the same scheme by those scammers you will not fall for second time around.

Maybe this is the time you should learn for yourself on how to trade since this is the most smart thing to do after that issue happen to you.