Bitcoin Forum

Hello, everyone. Todamant, and I have discovered, or maybe it was already known, an interesting issue regarding privnote. I sent him a btc address on privnote to make a payment for some cards. The address I sent is not the address he received. So I double checked and sent the same address to myself through privnote, and what I received is not what I entered. I have done this now with multiple wallet addresses, every time the decrypted privnote gives a different address than what you put in.  Todamont  has confirmed the same thing happens when he does it with a wallet address as well.

I dont know why I sent Todamont my address on privnote, as I have never done that before. I may have just been tired. But the loss on this is minimal, and if I can keep someone else from making this mistake I’d be happy about it. Anyway you guys try it out and confirm, or let me know just how dumb I am for not already knowing this.

Wow,  doesn’t that mean it has to be an inside job from the people that developed the website ?

Also this may not belong in collectables, but it’s the only part of the forum I frequent. Sorry if it needs to be moved.

Sure you’re not using the scam site privnotes ?

Holy chickens.
I remember something like this happened before and it was related to a scam site with a similar name.
If this is the real privnote.com it's either an inside job and the whole thing is compromised or a hack.
Thanks for the info, I'll try it out right now.

Edit: Yes exactly that's was the name of the scam site that does this to BTC addresses.

This is why I have been using zerobin.net  and even more so, just use PGP
Easy enough to sign up at https://keybase.io/

Check your browser history to confirm which site you used. I just tried the legit privnote and it worked fine.

Hey man I just double checked it. It’s privnote.co  
Haha fuck they got me. Yep I’m an idiot. Thanks guys!

Damn! I'm sure you clicked the google sponsored ad on google search instead the legit site when searching "privnote".

https://i.ibb.co/BB1k3nV/Screenshot-2023-06-30-07-57-43-32-e4424258c8b8649f6e67d283a50a2cbc.jpg
Are you using a mobile phone? Or desktop one. I suggest you to use ad blocker on desktop browsers and use firefox/brave or other browser that has built-in ad blocker.
Also, bookmark the site if possible.

Edit: reported the site to google.

privnote.co or privnote.com ??

So Otillio1330 lost his bitcoin payment because GOOGLE served him an ad to a crypto scammer site???

I tested it, it's privnote.co that is mangling the addresses, another scam site.

Wow. Seems like there could be recourse for a small-claims case against Google, to me. Doesn't that make them accessory to the scam???

Yes I was on my phone when that happened. And I kept checking it on my phone when I realized it. So kept getting the same result.  Thanks

Privnote.co

Was on my phone, and never noticed until after  I made this post. And kept testing it on my phone and getting the same result. Lesson learned.

As Homer Simpson would say "D'oh"
and indeed....

Just stick to PGP from now on and never need another website/service :D

It's pretty f'd up. I've seen the same tactic employed in the NFT space, where a paid ad sent people to a BS version of an NFT trading site. People lost their bored apes over this when they were worth $300-400K.

Used privnote plenty before and never had an issue. Will need to be safer and up my game though. Thanks for sharing

I would say that would be a long, tedious drawn out endeavour.

I have seen this happen before and even brought it to the communities attention here,
Google was serving a promoted advert for a fake Trezor web address. I wonder how
many people got burned with that one?

Just goes to show Google do not have the proper checks in place to protect us from
these scams. very worrying.

 This is scary indeed. Anytime I need to do any type of large transaction I send thru two different channels.

  For example....send once thru privnote say thru forum PM and then send a regular email or even thru discord or any other channel.

   Compare the two addys and they should match. Then I would proceed with said transaction.

It’s collectible related. When posts like this come up, I will usually post on two boards. Like I will post the main thread on here then in the scam section I’ll write something in the title like “Fake Privnote website once again” and then in the body of the post I’ll just write “see original post here” and provide a link. Sometimes posts should be in two places, and moderators have always been fine with it when it makes sense.

I remember when this happened originally. It popped up on google before the real site. These scammers are pretty decent.

Have you checked any of the address just to see how much money they’ve stolen so far? I’d be curious to see those addresses.

   I went ahead and used this site and gave the following addy.....see from pic below....you can see what I placed and what was give are not the same just as OP mentioned.

     Here is the balance of the one they gave https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/address/bc1q50r0529jkml7hlswcfj5av2wgqc3efpc35c3wm (https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/address/bc1q50r0529jkml7hlswcfj5av2wgqc3efpc35c3wm)

      I tried another yesterday and it was zero balance....so I guess sometimes they generate a new address.



      https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/07/02/Si1x8.png

       https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/07/02/SicP3.png



    Also years ago there was another site impersonating privnote.....here is an article.

   https://www.hackread.com/fake-version-note-sharing-site-privnote-com-steale-bitcoin/ (http://  https://www.hackread.com/fake-version-note-sharing-site-privnote-com-steale-bitcoin/)


    Again...I say....I would send the btc addy to the person using two different channels.....

     Example....if you want to use privnote that is fine and send thru forum. But I would also use another service totally different and send thru an email...discord or twitter...email...etc etc etc. Then I would compare the addys.

    Another way.....if for any high amount...send $10 in BTC...confirm it has arrived then once that is done, send the rest.

  

Wow that's wild. Scammers are creative that's for sure. Looks like they have been getting people all along. I may have even used the wrong one before just being in a hurry. Thankfully it was never payment addresses recently. But definitely good to know. Thanks for sharing here.

Curious - and maybe I missed it - how did op arrive at the site he used? Did he do a google search and use what appeared? Or did he type it in wrong?

  I wanted to know as well....so using my cell phone I typed in privnote and here is what I got...

 https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/07/02/SKXso.png
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/07/02/SKd9T.png

   Notice on the very top I got the scam website pirvnota and when you scroll down you get the real one!

 So I tried the same thing on my desktop....type in privnote on google and this is what I got.

   https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/07/02/SKwal.png

   Different results than on my cell....on my laptop I got the legit website! 

   I wonder why is that!

Probably because you’ve used the legit site in the past, if you cleared your cache, cookies, DNA etc., it may show up a diff way :)

Yes I get that the search results are fucked but how did OP arrive at the erroneous site? By searching? Was he sent a link to use? Did he type it in?

    I tried this again on another computer that I know for a fact I have never used for privnote and I get the same results.

    Like I said before...is it just on cellphone? Perhaps it is using a different method that detects cellphones and then the sponsor fake website comes to the top? Its probably a bit harder to detect maybe cause its on a phone and not on a computer? Just my theory on to perhaps why this is happening. ???

Yes was on my cel. Typed privnote into google and this fake site was the first result.  Obviously had not heard about this being an issue before.

gotcha - thanks for the clarification. was trying to see if it was a personal error if someone here misled you.

people need to be careful and verify the links and addresses

I asked someone for their shipping address today and I got this:

https://i.ibb.co/SJmMFBt/image.png (https://imgbb.com/)

https://i.ibb.co/YZyVxrx/image.png (https://imgbb.com/)


note the web address pirvnota.com

No I’m just dumb sometimes. Was totally my fault.