IOST Scam Scheme and MEXC Customer Support
About a week ago, friends became victim to a scam and sent tens of thousands of IOST coins to scammers. It started with a mass distribution on Telegram claiming to test the IOST mainnet network and offering a type of airdrop: when a transaction is made at a specific time, the exchange would increase the transfer amount by 3%. Users were assured that the transfer was between their own accounts on exchanges (in reality, scammers registered their address with an ID chosen by the user and requested transfers to it), so they believed it and tried it. The first three transactions went smoothly, but the fourth one somehow failed to go through 🙂. Here's an example of how it looks in the block explorer:
https://www.iostscan.com/account/sachokerThe scammers added 3% several times and eventually took 121599.21014613 IOST coins to their MEXC account. You can conveniently see all those caught on one page here:
https://www.iostscan.com/account/netwiostBut this post is more about MEXC's customer support. I advised my acquaintances to contact them, and later communicated with them on their behalf. Understandably, scammers don't leave stolen funds on the exchange and withdraw them immediately, making it unrealistic to recover anything. However, for some reason, MEXC staff refused to prevent such incidents with their other users. One of them even transferred coins to scammers worth more than $70k USDT:
https://www.iostscan.com/account/pro0891Not only did the correspondence last for several days, but within two hours, I asked the exchange to block the withdrawal of IOST for this user when it became clear that he would lose a considerable sum. The result was only repetitive responses akin to those of bots (or were they indeed bots?) 🔥️️
MEXC Elvin 15May 16:05 GMT+7
Dear user,
The account is frozen for 48 hours until a request is made and the corresponding application is submitted
We sincerely understand your feelings and just as much as such a situation is not pleasant, however, due to the fact that such information will be a disclosure of information about the accounts of 3 persons, it is necessary for us to submit an application for this.
After this, we will check everything and also cooperate with law enforcement agencies, therefore we ask you to send a request as soon as possible.
Best regards, MEXC team
Me 15may 19:22 GMT+7 #ticket #20240515000097#, #ticket #20240515000091##
MEXC Dilan 15May 23:20 GMT+7
Me 15may 23:11 GMT+7 #ticket #20240515000097#, #ticket #20240515000091##
Me 17may 00:55 GMT+7 #ticket #20240515000097#, #ticket #20240515000091##
MEXC Bela 17May 01:09 GMT+7
Me 17may 01:53 GMT+7 #ticket #20240515000097#, #ticket #20240515000091##
Me 17may 03:25 GMT+7 #ticket #20240515000097#, #ticket #20240515000091##
MEXC Dilan 17May 04:34 GMT+7
Dear user, to process your request, you need to follow the instructions that we previously sent to you.
Sincerely, MEXC Support Team
You can correlate the time of correspondence and transactions in the block explorer. If a user contacts customer support, they will also be directed to the police. But if they find out that the exchange knew about the scheme for several days and were asked to block the withdrawal just 3 hours before the funds were sent, how do you think they will feel? 🙂
