Bitcoin Forum

They have copied the legit site ChangeNow.io
Have reported to google ads + sarek.fi

All links within this phishing website are broken; only the cryptocurrency exchange feature is active. In addition, the phishing domain's age, as per Whois, is only 20 days, while the official domain of ChangeNow.io has been around for six years; by these superficial details and checking and paying attention to the words of the domain and what the domain ends after 'dot' can prevent a person from falling into a scam if this scam phishing domain is sent to him by strangers on Change.io communities or through advertisements that appear in search engines and social media.

Thank you, Op. Now, I will submit the first report and complaint to the domain registrar on my part.

I lost $30 in this scam.
They have sponsored ad on google. "Changénow.Io" , but when I clicked I didnt know I came to changenow.fi..

Their scamprofit is more than $1000 right now.

Sorry for the loss, good thing it's not that big money, but still. That is a shitty behaviour of google accepting ads from scammers without having a thorough quality assurance. This is one of the reasons why is use adblocker to remove those google ads when searching things online because they show in top of the legit results.

Sorry to hear that, I do hope that you learn your lessons, it could be expensive, but at least learn this experience put under your belt and you will be somewhat be vigilant to search using Google because it's a bad practice.

You can search the community if you are looking for exchange instead of Google, and then bookmark the site if you have found the reliable exchange.

There are a lot of scammers and criminals in the world that we evolved in - cryptocurrency.

This is a very common scam these days and you cannot trust Google to provide you with the correct site especially if it is related to financials.
The best way is to find the site manually and confirm it and then bookmark the original site if you use it often.

As an example, just Search "sinbad mixer" on google and you will find so many phishing sites being displayed on top of the real ones. Make it so harder for the newbies (and even the experiended)  to land on the correct site.

https://i.ibb.co/wsmMf5F/scam.png

Sorry for your loss, this is really unfortunate, I am surprised that Google Ads allows ads like these scam ads on Google and brings them hundreds of victims for these scammers.

The least Google should do is make sure the link is correct and does not redirect to another site. This is absolutely unprofessional from a giant company like Google. They must bear responsibility.

Most people think Google ads are safe because they think Google has strict rules about ads, but it turns out now that money is what matters.

That's punycode addresses as bait, it's notoriously more deceptive than using domain variations. It seems that scammers now have a new way to reduce the chance of this domain being discontinued. The reporter must report both addresses.

Google seems to have removed their scam ad. No reply yet from the .fi holder
Google dont check ID on google ads.
"This advertiser is from Ukraine, unverified"

Probably bought their google developer account from timebucks or whatever.

Might be a little OOT, but I have to agree that the best way to ensure safety in crypto financial transaction is to bookmark the legit website. Other way is by accessing it through the link provided in the platforms' ANN threads by the official account of that platform.

As Sinbad were mentioned, I'd like to add as well that yes, there are a lot of phishing site trying to take advantage of Sinbad. The official webpage of sinbad will be

That's unfortunate

Never trust google search results 100%. Always cross check the web address, letter by letter before engaging with a service for business. Always use addons like uBlock Origin that can minimize the risks of getting phishing sites that are advertised by Google and show up at the top.

Since Google doesn't take their time to check the security risks involved in some ads they approve for display, to some point I believe they take the reports of ads very seriously, as I have reported a few from my end and I barely come across them again when I am browsing. Maybe they take the ads very seriously because they have nothing to lose after all, as the advertiser should already have paid for those services.
 
This days any identity can be bought online; there is nothing hackers don't sell online again. Don't be surprised that the developer account you think was purchased might actually be created by the scammer's self, and if that's what requires a verification document, it can also be gotten elsewhere. So don't be deceived by some information you get about a scammer online; nothing seems impossible for them, especially impersonation.

Be grateful you never experienced anything higher than $30 to scam, those that have been victims can relate well in this, we have to always open down our eyes very well because there's no how a fake account or website will look exactly as the original one, that is not possible, we only pay less attention thinking that things were always already the way we expect them to be, they are still learning and warning up in scam.

Oi.  I'm familiar with changenow.io, but not from any search engine.  I always see them on various altcoins' websites under their "exchanges" section.

I didn't read every single post in this thread, and I'm wondering if they popped up at the top of the search results and what it was that OP was searching for in the first place.  In any case, it sucks that you got scammed (never, ever a good feeling) but at least it wasn't for a huge amount--though it could be a significant amount to you; I'm not downplaying that.

Props to you for pointing this out to the community as well, because you might have prevented someone from getting fleeced.

ChangeNow.IO is not a reputable platform, so if you search the forum, you will find many stories of people complaining about problems with the platform.

2,5 BTC ($100K) SCAM Changenow exchange (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5359412.0)
CHANGENOW.IO trying to steal my 3 BTC (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5356594.0)
ChangeNOW is a SCAM exchange that has been illegally holding my 1.38M Zilliqa (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5344863.0)

If you read the comments, you will find that they let you exchange, and when the amount is large, they start making excuses
Therefore, do not try to use them both, or at least you can ask a trusted person here who has a verified account to do the exchange for you.

Sorry to hear that OP and these scammers really are mixing up and tricking people with special characters on the spelling. That's why when I search for something through Google, anything that appears to be on top search and sponsored are being ignored. I'm not blaming you on this one but thank you for sharing and this also will serve as a lesson to you.
You can add this link on your original post for everyone to see and help you to report it.

Found another one that at the moment, only exchanges Bitcoin and USDT: ChangeNcw.com (https://archive.is/kP7zm) ^{[Creation Date: 2023-07-20 (https://www.namecheap.com/domains/whois/result?domain=changencw.com)]}

Sorry to hear that, but would you mind disclosing their address and while you're at it, you might want to also update the opening post by using this "Scam Report Format (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=260073.0)".

+1

There is nothing wrong with the Google search actually the results are based on the keyword You've searched for Sidnbad Mixer now google parser will pick the most optimized website with this keyword accordingly (SEO). Most likely the above site will have more efficiently Optimized that keyword on search. Even though Sindbad is a well-known mixing service here their brand keyword is not properly Search Engine optimized.
 
It's not advisable to blindly visit websites based solely on tickers or keywords. Instead, it's safer to verify the domain below. Moreover, using the Onion address or the official redirect link is a more secure choice compared to mixing platforms. Neglecting proper URL checks can result in financial losses.

Sorry for your loss OP.
But thank you for reporting it and make us aware here, now it seems that @SFR10 also find another one now.
Good and thanks to you both, this is good that it hit daylight.