Bitcoin Forum

Hi Newbies, please be extra vigilant out there, Don't immediately trust any investment, trade or Airdrop information you find out there, even if the information is coming from the CEO of the project him/herself, because the CEO is not a superhuman, He/She is a normal human being like you and I, He/She can be misinformed, His/Her account can be hacked and hackers use his/her name and account to scam his/her community members, He/She too can make mistakes, He/She can fail to do a due diligence before passing a trade, investment or Airdrop information to his/her community.
Always know that your security is in your hands, in crypto, nobody can secure your wallet/your money for you except you, if you follow a link shared by the CEO and your wallet end up being hacked by scammers, it is your fault, the CEO can only apologize, the loss is on you and you must bear it..... Here is what happened to me this morning.

There is this project i invested in, they partnered with another project called unifarm, the project i invested in offered staking on unifarm for its investors, so I had my tokens staked on unifarm for about three months now.
This morning, while checking my phone, i got a notification from telegram of a new post on the Announcement channel of the project, i decided to check and behold, its an announcement of a new airdrop.. see the screenshot below.

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/12/16/EoWEZ.png

I got excited ;D, who doesnt get excited when they see free money? ???, since this Airdrop information came from the official announcement of the project, and was also posted in the main chat group by the CEO, i assumed it was legitimate and clicked the link, the site opened and when i saw the Airdrop progress bar and how much time was left for the airdrop to come to an end which is 51 minutes...

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/12/16/Eoe48.png

I became so in a hurry to get in, And since this information came from the CEO of the project, i totally threw all caution to the wind, i got my metamask wallet connected immediately and and clicked on the claim button, and in just about 1 second, metamask opened a transaction dialogue prompting me to confirm claim of 175,000 Unifarm.io tokens which were worth about $435, (though I was in a hurry to join the airdrop because of the little time left, I wasn't too in a hurry to read, and this was my savior), immediately i saw the .io extension on the Unifarm token, it quickly occurred to me that this could be scam, i quickly rejected the transaction and disconnected my wallet.

Then I open scamadviser to check the reputation of the site, and behold...

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/12/16/Eo023.png

After the above, i then confronted the admins of the project in the telegram group to know if they verified the legitimacy of this Airdrop from their partner< UNIFARM, and behold< i discovered they didn't.

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/12/16/EolRw.png

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/12/16/Eoxr9.png

The CEO later came online and said the Airdrop was a scam and apologized for not verifying it with Unifarm CEO before sharing it to the community, and after saying this, he immediately deleted all conversations about the Airdrop before I could get a screenshot of it.

ADVICE
Like i said earlier, in crypto, your security is in your hands, always pay 100 percent attention before you take actions, never be too in a hurry to do some research before joining any Airdrop or crowdsale.
The scammers will put something in place that will make you feel time is running out and you have to join immediately if you don't want to miss out, don't pay attention to this, for this is a strategy they use to force you to fomo in without doing some research first, Always pay attention before taking action.

Watch this 2.46 minutes youtube video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BFB0qay-yE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BFB0qay-yE)

EDIT:-the CEO later posted the below on the Announcement channel.
https://talkimg.com/images/2023/12/16/E42WN.png

If you want to join airdrop (that I think waste of time0, you should use a single wallet for it.

If you use a wallet that you store big money for airdrop, some day you will be scammed and your money will be stolen. Even if you get scammed, money in wallet-for-airdrop should be small and much smaller than your main wallet so your loss will be smaller too.

Airdrop-wallet will save you, one way or another, and reduce your loss.

Scammers usually create fake groups on Telegram and other social media. I also suddenly joined a telegram group which I thought was the original group. lucky for me to always checking the username, so I can leave ASAP. Well, just a bit suggestions, fake group mostly talks about airdrops, if you find a group that provides airdrops for coins or altcoins that already have a market, try checking the group username or link, again. Maybe it's a clone, make sure to also check the typosquatting method for web page, this will provide a big chance of theft if you have already connected your wallet to the platform from the fake airdrop.

Incidents like this happen often, I've experienced it too. They are scammers who create fake telegram groups that are the same as the original group or they even copy the developer username to make it the same. Then make some announcements about the airdrop and some of the winners in it. Which in the end is a trap.
Need to be very alert to do any work, airdrop or whatever, be careful and alert even though it's an official account. Never give access to your wallet keys.

Your single sentence warehoused two vital points – The first being that airdrops aren't profitable this day (unlike what we experienced in 2017). It's a waste of time now. Secondly, what you rightly identified in using a different wallet is apt. That's if one must fancy their chances at all and indulge airdrops, then one should create a different wallet for it.

---

OP, you saved so many others the hurt of lost funds. Again, you did well alerting the CEO who should take all the blame for ignorantly misleading his investors. That's if he isn't in on the whole thing to start with in a bid to cash out big time. Trust no man on this cyberspace. With the little time I've spent online and in this industry I've come to conclude that there are just two weapons scammers use successfully. That's, one – Greed and 2 – Hastiness. Scammers want to pry on the greed of their would be victims by making them mouth watering offers they will find difficult to resist. This is coupled with making victims think the offer will close on them and they miss out if they don't hurry up and take the offer. Your story exemplifies both items. For me, I try not to be in a hurry whenever I'm on financial dealings, both in cryptos and outside it. I take my time and every other thing can pause until I'm sluggishly done.

Telegram, airdrops, shitty tokens, and the desire for free money = a perfect opportunity for every scammer... The best way to ensure that something like this never happens to you is to not believe in fairy tales and not think that money grows on trees. Save everything valuable you have in the best possible way, preferably not online, and do not share sensitive information with anyone.

---

I wonder if they all managed to get away with it, because who knows how long that scam was online before the OP noticed it. Half the world may be sleeping, but the other half is awake at the same time.

Thank you OP for this warning, you reminded us to be even stricter when it comes to the security of our wallets because with just one click we can lose everything we have worked for if we apply the desire to earn a lot and if we are not careful.

Maybe, what you should worry more about are your fellow investors in UNIFARM because maybe some of them have been victimized before you even discovered the negligence so that no one is fooled.

It's not uncommon for users to confer the reputation of other users on a project they are affiliated with. In fact, its what goes on in the bounty and signature campaigns. Have a Newbie launch any campaign and there would be issues if the payments could be met and as such, a signed address of escrowed funds would be required but, should it come from am existing reputable manager that have managed several campaigns, doubt is quickly eliminated.

That's the same out there on any channel you are linked with. We ought to realise that humans and change and they could also be used. Hene, it becomes your duty to take security very seriously. Being in a hurry is one trick by scammers as, you tend to drop your guard in other to be time and that could prove to be very costly. Be cautious and always DYOR.

You dodged the bullet there OP, as they would most certainly cleaned your wallet.

Big problem with Metamask is that you can so easily lose everything if you connect it to a wrong website. I know a guy who lost six figure number year ago by connecting his Metamask to a fake website, just because he was in a hurry and wanted to buy some tokens (top result in Google was a fake website). And that guy wasn't some newbie, but someone who is living solely off crypto for the last ~5 years or so. All that you need  is losing your concentration for a minute or two and you are screwed.

CD3D have partnered with Unifarm and shared the airdrop? I don’t know how much legitimate the project CD3D is but it doesn’t seem good. They may share an excuse but I doubt. I'm sure that they were doing this purposely. They are the scammer but playing innocent with you. In crypto, I don’t trust any link. I don't click them if they are not from my authentic source.
Also, always make sure you are in the right group. Most of the times, scammers create group on popular project name and promote these type of scams.

In other words, the CEO is the one who isn't doing his own diligence and putting his reputation and trust at huge risk. But of course, we should be doing our own part as well by not always in a rush and taking time to verify everything first We should always not to be in a rush of anything.

Good thing that you have dodged the bullet mate! Good job! I know that we are all so vulnerable to be in a rush for anything that is promising (especially when it comes to free money), but it is better to have our wallet safe or not compromised by the scammers and hackers.

It's what I have failed for myself before when 3 of my wallets got hacked approximately $12k+ combined that ended up me being depressed and stressed. But because I am now in a good position, so I'm recovering in progress.   

Long story cut short. Concerning airdrops on crypto tokens , at a point I concluded and also realised they are the most useless effort you can make online at least probably not in this time. In the past maybe some benefited and it was less scamming. Now they worth nothing with your time plus you risk your funds and details to claim the shit. Op you are lucky to identify the website wasn't the same and alerting the management safed more gullible free money seekers like you in the group  ;D. For long I came to know there is nothing free especially online. Be careful when you are promised something for free.

CEO is just a title, don't get blinded by it, it doesn't exclude anyone for being a scammer. Anyone can really just call themselves as that title can be added to the list of most abused titles. Do not just trust anyone because they are the CEO of something, consider the possibility that they may possess a dubious personality and what they stand for may be dubious as well.


Same strategy that marketers use- CTA (Call to action), definitive words that prompt hurried decisions/actions.

Well, assuming this Airdrop were to be legitimate, I don't think it would have been a waste of time, because Unifarm is already a bit established, at least, they are listed on a few good exchanges, this airdrop would have fallen in the category of uniswap, 1inch, shapeshift kind of airdrop, where those that were lucky enough to qualify for it were really happy.

Yes, this is a really good idea, but this can not apply to all airdrops, there are airdrops that require you hold a certain type of coin or token in your wallet to be eligible, in this type of airdrop, you have no choice but to participate with the wallet holding the coins or token that is required to make you eligible, for example, uniswap, 1inch and shapeshift airdrops all required you connect a wallet that you have used to trade on the platform before.

There are airdrops that is worth it trying. In my experience, Easier task such as social media interaction and were mostly a shitty token. They just want a traction to their social media and to make free advertisement, They just do a airdrop for their token. Worthy airdrops do platform interactions, They will make you use their platforms and do task like staking and swapping depends on the token platform. Worthy airdrop usually do this to filter multiple accounts that's why they make each wallet do a transaction to their platform. Research is a must since not airdrop is legit. Also practice using a separate wallet for all of airdrop, NEVER use you main wallet to participate in those. I've seen multiple victims that their wallet was swept because of airdrops. Just be careful, Do research and verify.

Connecting our wallets from unknown platform telling that they will give airdrops will put us in huge risk that's why if we are not sure on things we do especially upon participating an airdrop we should do what other say to use dummy wallets intended for airdrops because if hackers get your access they cannot get anything from your wallet. Also we should not participate on any random obvious scam which team members hidden and roadmaps or whitepaper are so questionable nor plagiarized.

Even so, you can create another wallet and send exact amount of that token to be eligible for that airdrop. I know some airdrops have at least 2 conditions: min amount of token, and min holding time (perhaps 4 weeks and above). If you want to join, and want to be safe, create a new wallet, send your token there at the time that is enough to meet holding period requirement between your deposit day and airdrop day, and wait.

In some airdrop, you have to claim it manually, have to give access to your wallet (approval). It is when fake airdrop and hackers can steal your money if you use your main wallet to do it.

Revoke address with https://app.unrekt.net/

Thanks for sharing, glad they didn't get you.  However, it seems piss poor that the CEO or anyone in leadership was unware, even worse no vetting at all.  You may want to reconsider your investment as communication, which is essential, was basically non-existent during a critical time, and if this is any sign on how they run things, then run.  Also sketchy was them deleting your correspondences with them.

The fact that airdrops are no longer relevant still loses its relevance when people still see such prize amounts. What happened in 2017 worked well in history, and many still hope to get free money.

I wouldn't be surprised if the CEO was also involved in this scam.

Positions on the Internet should not play a big role. Until you actually talk to that person by seeing their face, everything else can be fake.

I know a lot of stories from projects in 2018 and 2019 where people were given the position of CEO directors who did not know at all that scammers used their photos. If any item causes you to doubt, you need to immediately stay away from all sorts of distributions. Usually, intuition does not deceive.

i have a bunch of them from gambling sites that can turn you always the winner, or high yield investment programs that offer you 999999% APY, or people from exchanges that can't withdraw their money, or

I don't know why but this keep popping up and people DM you give free money is good to be true in 9999 chance they are a scammer.

I don't know if it is only me, but Telegram is the place where scammers are swarming. Telegram aside from Discord are the 2 most used platforms by scammers, that's why I'm not entertaining any DM that they are sending to me whether it is from Telegram or Discord.

If you feel that you are running out of time then the scammers have full control of your emotion and as an investor, it shouldn't happen. Scammers always use your emotions just to scam you. They will put you to a point where you need to do it immediately or else, you will not get any free token and you as an investor will think "Ohh it's free token and free token = free money blah blah".

I hope newbie investors here will learn from this thread. My advice aside from your advice is to just avoid Telegram or just avoid DM's in general, especially from a random user because project owners will never contact you first through DM.

This is what I thought too, maybe it's an inside job.

They will try to deceive if no one notices and when someone notices they will pretend that they know nothing and say that it was just a mistake but we didn't know that it was intentional, then they will just apologize and promise not to repeat what happened. What if you didn't notice? Gone! Yes I know, you shouldn't blame and maybe it's not intentional but why does someone get through like that? So if I can think I will doubt and I may lose trust in them as well.

Scammers will definitely find ways on how to make things possible, even compromising with the original developer. This is why in a world wherein trust is the biggest issue, one should take the highest caution not to easily fall for scammer's traps, as they can sometimes be highly enticing just to take advantage on your funds and the whole contents of your wallet.  So always secure the privacy of your own wallet and your own keys.

A great lesson from being "HURRY" as this sometimes caught us neglecting to read carefully and even not being able to verify if that is legit or not as we are very curious and pushed with the time limit as it was running out.

Good thing OP you have realized at it was a scam before clicking the confirm button and even saving others' money. This is to say that scammers and hackers are now getting aggressive, they always find a way, and although you save some people, it for sure there are have been fall already into their hands.

Being cautious and hesitant is kinda like a gift that will save you later and it just did happen to OP. Always read and think first before sending/claiming any crypto for it's likely not that free as you think. Sometimes or perhaps there's no free money out there especially in crypto/token/airdrop. Airdrop nowadays has gone and brings nothing but a waste of time since it's not really profitable while some others would claim it is still profitable but I don't find it that way maybe they were part of the scammers team but I just leave them alone since I'm done with the airdrop thingy.

Bounty hunters or airdrop hunters shouldn't do this, always verify and give yourself time to investigate of what you're planning to invest.
Hurrying sometimes will lead us to wipe out our wallets and give into the scammer's hand our assets, that's their trick and usually, their victims are those greedy people that will easily fool them.

However, OP was very lucky.
OP is vigilant and we hope newbies will do the same, this will give us a lesson to us, and always remember there's no free money over on the internet.
If you can, stop following those airdrop groups, they are prone to scams.

I'd say this; alot of people count stupidity for bravery and that serves them right after being roobed off thier cash,what the heck!
There's no authentic airdrop currently,that's as much as I know; I spoke on pm to mocacino about this and he affirmed. I even wanted to try some faucets since I was badly In need of cash but nothing worked smoothly; it was either very slow or impossible,this was immediately after the pandemic.
 Those dudes on telegram go phishing on several coin sites just to avail a good audience,then try to convince you with fake proof of payment, pictures and videos if necessary. This tasks are performed with different account operated by one person, that's the trick! Beware! 
Sandra :-*

Have come to the conclusion that staying away from telegram + keeping pvk/seed phrase actually private roots out most of scams.

This is why you just don't connect your wallet to any website especially if there are many assets inside. Hackers are more clever now, once you approve your wallet to make transactions on their website they will gain access to it even if you didn't provide your private key or seed phrase.


This is my first time to see this website. Are they reliable in checking different sites to see if its a scam?

How cruel the scammers are becoming these days, they are now trying things to look official while giving no time think what we are doing while we are in a hurry but you're lucky probably your instinct kick yourself and asked is that can be real but sadly many people don't realize until they see zero in their wallet or bank account or anywhere they stored their money.

LOL! Everything looks fishy to me. Well, you should not only get disappointed; you should also get suspicious. Why is everybody blind about what's happening? That's the official announcement channel. There are admins. The CEO is the one passing the information. Why is everybody clueless? What are they doing? Are they too busy to care about security? If they failed on this, why should we trust them with everything else about their project?


He/she can also be a scammer himself/herself...

This happens to me almost every time when I enter something into the chat of any telegram group.
All of a sudden I see multiple groups with the same telegram group name. LOL  ;D
On many occasions there are also people from their support team who are very concerned about my issue that I posted on the group.
But I know that all of it are a scam so I just ignore them and sometimes when I am bored I reply them back to have some fun with them.
Most of them just leaves the chat abruptly deleting the converstion  ;D
Make it a habit to question every platform/website and check if they are genuine or not.

Almost happened to me a year ago, through Discord though. I was asking a legitimate question on a coin's group, if I am not mistaken. I was quickly messaged from someone posing as an administrator, trying to advice/pursuade me into using a platform to increase my yield. I literally don't know how I fell for such a stupid scam. I was exhausted and had just returned from work, but still it's no excuse.

Likewise, I tried to connect my wallet to that so-called platform, which informed me that I'd have to connect manually through private key because the automatic connection was unavailable. Stupidly I did, but regretted it right away and my instincts woke up. Instantly made a new wallet, unstaked from any platforms and move all my funds there. They didn't get a single dollar from me, but after talking to a real moderator from the group, a couple more had got scammed by others that day, losing up to $10.000.

Telegram is just a means of communication that has some flaws that scammers take advantage of, but it is actually the fault of naive users who communicate with unknown people or are convinced that they are communicating with someone who is legitimate. Therefore, I would say that you should always be 100% on your guard, and in addition, never keep all your coins in a hot wallet, which will prevent a major accident from happening, even if at some point we lose our guard.

I can't remember if it was related to MetaMask, but I know that some guy lost a large amount of money because he did something stupid at one point (before or after sleeping) and it was a programmer or something like that. Everyone can have a moment of weakness, but it is not nuclear physics to have at least two crypto wallets where one is secured and a little more difficult to access.

if that's possible hackers would have come to signature campaign application were people submit application to participate in signature campaign with their wallet address. Airdrop matter, it's what we should known that we have to advice our up brings or offsprings who are novice to take absolutely precautions to any investment they are adventure into. Concerning exposing of our wallet identity, everyone here won't be exempted from hacking the system, which it's very obvious. Because each of the campaign spreadsheet about twenty to fifteen participants is in campaign at least minimum participants.so everyone would have been hacked long time.

First time I have seen such as stupid CEO who shares links or announcements without acknowledgment of the actual links. Those people already fall into scam responsibility goes to the CEO. Everyone isn't very clever like you that could identify that scam. They might confirm the transaction and get in trouble. Also connecting Metamask with such as site is quite risky as well. However, that's good you notice the matter and save yourself. Hope others would take a lesson from here
 Don't hurry when you are doing something in crypto, that's a very bad habit. Use your brain where something is unrealistic. That would save a lot.

Another best advice is not to waste too much time participating in the airdrop program because in my opinion now the income is not worth the risk. Given that not everyone is aware that they are a target for scammers, then I'm sure many of them wouldn't bother doing something like the OP did. So that's why many newbie are sometimes scammed more often than other experienced members. The main point remains to be careful and never be greedy.

Certainly not the platform's fault. All popular platforms are filled with scammers, Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, email providers, it's not easy to contain them. You can't blame Facebook for having so many fake/scam profiles, it's impossible to avoid every single one of them.

The best we can do as users is to report such scammers, stopping their power by getting their accounts banned and eventually, limiting them from scamming other people.

My advice is to ignore all crypto-related offers that reach you. I've been doing that all along, letting whatever it is that offers me. Be it from Link or directly. Although it looks stupid, but it is the safest thing. You don't have to be curious about what's on offer. You just have to do, such as trading. Even though it's not all bad but that's what makes me comfortable so far.

Your metamask wallet is connected to that phishing site, even though you immediately disconnected it but you better move all your assets to a new metamask wallet which will be more secure.

Scammers often create fake telegram group and copy exactly like the official project group and then add us for scam, this is a very common case. Your case is a phishing link coming from the CEO of the project, which makes me extremely surprised.

As the project's CEO, I don't think he didn't verify before sending it to members. He is probably trying to scam people, but it doesn't seem to be working.

Scammers will never run out of new strategies that will make every victim fall on their trap. And if you are greedy enough to take advantage on the opportunities they offer you, you will most likely to get scammed. So its always good to take caution all the time, no matter how legit the announcement looks like, always take time to check its validity. We are responsible for our own accounts, so we need to take full responsibility on making them safe from all sorts of scamming.

I just hope OP should also consider that. The CEO could also be part of the scam if ever the plan has succeeded. If this happened once, then there will be chances that this will happen again in the future. If you are not cautious and would only grab the offer for a free money, then it’s late to realized that you have been taken advantaged already. That is why whenever you feel doubt and suspicious, take time to research first before taking an action so you won’t regret your decision.

So, the announcement is from their official channel?
Wow, This is something careless that their team did not analyze and confirm beforehand about the truth of the airdrop. What if there is this victim. Will they take responsibility?
Indeed, nowadays scammers are getting prettier and smarter in running their scams. And this is quite bold because they are directly related to the official.

The uncontrollable urge for free money is the main reason why many persons fall for such scams as this.
OP had some control in his chase for the free cash and that's why he was able to identify it was a scam coming through despite the channel it came from.

This is a wake up call for everyone out there, look carefully well before leaping especially on things that are free.

I recently came accross a thread talking about how scammer will send you the secret phrase of an account with some little amount of money but before you would be able to withdraw you'll have to make a deposit first and once you do then they'll (scammers) withdraw both your deposit and the one that came with the wallet.
At first I thought maybe it happened by mistake though is never doubted because I know scammers are capable of doing the unthinkable. On the 25th of July I logged into my Telegram account and I saw some strange and among the messages was a photo of a secret phrase written on a piece of paper, as soon as I saw it I remembered the thread.
I wanted to take a screenshot of the message but I can't seem to find it maybe they've deleted the message or something. But here is am image of the secret phrase and some other messages of scammers. https://imgur.com/gallery/wiPx9U6

There are many scammers on telegram you should not easily get on them. They are very smart on how to catch the attention of the people that they want to scam and some of them they send you an image showing their positive feed back but without knowing that those are fake. Like a friend of mine getting slammed on telegram he deposit around $40 which big money in our country but when the time of withdrawal the scammer give him a task to create a video of good feedback in order to claim the profit and my friend do it but when he sent, the scammer delete all the message and did not reply him anymore.
So we need to be careful in order to prevent this kind of situation.

It is now common for scammers to offer tokens to get people into their hands, I have been a victim to scammers sometimes ago for being to low to believe I can get free token from a trading platform.  People need to be very careful because their are different way these fraudsters operates to trap people.