Fake Giveaway Ethereum: by using the blue tick (verification) on his Twitter

[ajiz138]

What happened:: Maybe it's because of the Ethereum Merge in 1 day countdown I see now a lot of fake Ethereum giveaways with the blue tick name Twitter Vitalik.eth, they take advantage of it, but I wonder if it's easy for scamers to have more twitters that have been verified blue ticks?

Scammers Profile Link: N/A

Reference Link:

Code:

https://twitter.com/jordidejong/status/1569470791452086272
https://twitter.com/_BhavyaDua/status/1569446469454729217
https://twitter.com/DJMAX_global/status/1569398095984869376

Amount Scammed: N/A
Payment Method: Ethereum
Proof of Payment: N/A

[Oshosondy]

I will not go much deeper into this, but it should be known that scammers are using fake giveaway means to scam people, people just have greedy nature, like anything related to turning something little into something big. But I wonder why someone will see this kind of thing on social media and fall for it, it is definitely a means scammers are looking for victims and the best thing to do is to avoid it and always make awareness about any new ones seen. Nearly all giveaways these days are fake, but not only fake, but a means to scam.

[NeuroticFish]

I guess that some may not know where to look or simply not aware that the correct account is @VitalikButerin

I am surprised how on earth did those scammers got to verify those accounts (most probably with fake data, else the law enforcement agencies know where to look for them). Or some people were so dumb to sell genuinely verified accounts?!

I am pretty curious on how will this develop further (will this blow in Twitter's face or in the scammers'?).

[Potato Chips]

Accounts reported! tho the other guy has already changed persona 

but I wonder if it's easy for scamers to have more twitters that have been verified blue ticks?

I would say it’s not the hardest thing. There's an endless supply of too lax about security or unsuspecting people which is every hackers bread and butter.  In addition, I doubt twitter’s verification for it is fool proof, I imagine some malicious accounts would still slip thru.

[examplens]

I am not sure what is the purpose of posting up fake giveaways. maybe the only thing that will get more likes and retweets, is even the accounts themselves have 400-1400 followers. therefore there was no significant profit there either.

Accounts reported! tho the other guy has already changed persona 

also, reported.
It is interesting that these are verified accounts, at least judging by the badge next to the nickname

[robelneo]

Code:

[quote author=ajiz138 link=topic=5413348.msg60929171#msg60929171 date=1663039791]

https://twitter.com/jordidejong/status/1569470791452086272
https://twitter.com/_BhavyaDua/status/1569446469454729217
https://twitter.com/DJMAX_global/status/1569398095984869376

One of the accounts mentioned was hacked and the actual owner recovered it, the owners' security is inferior, scammers used it to tweet those giveaways that is why we should not believe in these verified accounts and check deeper, if you're aware of this scheme you know there's no such thing as free money especially if they are asking for your keys.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

also, reported.
It is interesting that these are verified accounts, at least judging by the badge next to the nickname

It's also interesting that these accounts later claims that they were hacked. Could this be a new way of scamming. Everyone likes easy money and twitter users seems to use it as their greatest tools especially some of these verified accounts where the blue badge surely gives a high peace of mind to the people who are not aware of crypto scamming.

[hosemary]

The first two tweets have been already deleted and I checked the third one.
It says that "you can only apply once". With this trick, they are trying to encourage their victims to send more fund and avoid sending small amounts for testing purpose.
I also checked their deposit address. Till now, two people have been scammed by them. One has sent 3 ETH and the other has sent 0.5 ETH.

[Taskford]

The first two tweets have been already deleted and I checked the third one.
It says that "you can only apply once". With this trick, they are trying to encourage their victims to send more fund and avoid sending small amounts for testing purpose.
I also checked their deposit address. Till now, two people have been scammed by them. One has sent 3 ETH and the other has sent 0.5 ETH.

Totally bad for people to fall on this trap because for so many times that this schemes has been used there are still people who fall from fake giveaways. I think they really need to have serious education about those scams since its pretty damn obvious that there's no giveaways will double your money instantly or quickly and those who offer that are scammers only so I guess people need to learn a lesson from past lesson since ignoring them will cause them financial loss.

[coin-investor]

The first two tweets have been already deleted and I checked the third one.
It says that "you can only apply once". With this trick, they are trying to encourage their victims to send more fund and avoid sending small amounts for testing purpose.
I also checked their deposit address. Till now, two people have been scammed by them. One has sent 3 ETH and the other has sent 0.5 ETH.

Sometimes scammers deposit with their own coins to entice people to deposit, I have seen one doubler receiving 20 transactions and it was exposed as coming from the scammer's money to attract people to deposit, newbies will say there are already many people sending their coins this must be legit, they want you to feel FOMO or fear of missing out, FOMO and shill are two ingredients of scams so people should be aware of it.

[Awaklara]

The first two tweets have been already deleted and I checked the third one.
It says that "you can only apply once". With this trick, they are trying to encourage their victims to send more fund and avoid sending small amounts for testing purpose.
I also checked their deposit address. Till now, two people have been scammed by them. One has sent 3 ETH and the other has sent 0.5 ETH.

Sometimes scammers deposit with their own coins to entice people to deposit, I have seen one doubler receiving 20 transactions and it was exposed as coming from the scammer's money to attract people to deposit, newbies will say there are already many people sending their coins this must be legit, they want you to feel FOMO or fear of missing out, FOMO and shill are two ingredients of scams so people should be aware of it.

Tricks like that are often done. it's just to deceive and convince people to believe more in the scam event they run.

regarding the Twitter account with the blue tick, I guess it's part of the hack. I think platforms like Twitter, should provide a stricter experience on blue tick accounts. I mean, special attention regarding login with different IP and devices. that's because we've often seen accounts like that get hacked. although it is easy to restore.

[hosemary]

Sometimes scammers deposit with their own coins to entice people to deposit,

You are right. That's possible, but I doubt that's the case here.
If those transaction had been made by themselves for deceiving people, they could simply send back the 2x transaction too.
Click here to see the transactions made to the scammer's address.

[stompix]

It's also interesting that these accounts later claims that they were hacked. Could this be a new way of scamming. Everyone likes easy money and twitter users seems to use it as their greatest tools especially some of these verified accounts where the blue badge surely gives a high peace of mind to the people who are not aware of crypto scamming.

It's hard to grow these accounts and it's early risky to use them as such.
Verified on twitter used to as (I don't know what's happening now) a pain in the ass, not only you would need documents but you also had to have an active account, to meet engagement quotas, to represent at least some % of interest in a region/ area of interest and many more.

Of course, you could fabricate all this, you could buy followers, buy engagement, and have people face your activity but for 2-3 eth? No, it simply isn't lucrative enough when you can buy low-level hacked accounts for 500-1000 on darkweb. I won't say it's not happening but on a large scale like how those scammers operate it makes little sense.

You are right. That's possible, but I doubt that's the case here.
If those transaction had been made by themselves for deceiving people, they could simply send back the 2x transaction too.
Click here to see the transactions made to the scammer's address.

I'm also thinking those are not real, one address that has only two transactions and suddenly sends it all to this giveaway, the other somewhat active but matching an activity day with the other one? Also, about the sending back, that will never happen as you can't prove person x is the scammer because he sent money to a scam owned by him, but by receiving money from a scam you're definitely in trouble since you're going to be investigated for sure.
Knowing how dumb scammers are sometimes, maybe they tried to fake a real activity and to make people invest more like 2-5-10 eth, and then they realized they don't have the money to fake it!

[examplens]

also, reported.
It is interesting that these are verified accounts, at least judging by the badge next to the nickname

It's also interesting that these accounts later claims that they were hacked. Could this be a new way of scamming. Everyone likes easy money and twitter users seems to use it as their greatest tools especially some of these verified accounts where the blue badge surely gives a high peace of mind to the people who are not aware of crypto scamming.

maybe they were in this group of hijacked Twitter profiles, but they noticed it later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Twitter_account_hijacking
however, it's still strange to me how everything became so viral because accounts with very little influence were used. however, I would be the first to trust a verified profile, hackers usually don't want to compromise their personal info.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Of course, you could fabricate all this, you could buy followers, buy engagement, and have people face your activity but for 2-3 eth? No, it simply isn't lucrative enough when you can buy low-level hacked accounts for 500-1000 on darkweb. I won't say it's not happening but on a large scale like how those scammers operate it makes little sense.

I am not a social media user. I know they exists and basic functions. I have no idea how it works to get this verified badge things. Sounds like for 2 to 3 ETH it's too much to do. May be these are indeed hacked account. We are hearing this type of things more often since the recent Twitter hack few months ago or last year I think.

however, it's still strange to me how everything became so viral because accounts with very little influence were used.

Isn't it how social network works? 2 to 4, 4 to 8, 8 to 16 and quickly it spreads out all over the internet?

[Potato Chips]

however, it's still strange to me how everything became so viral because accounts with very little influence were used.

I honestly don't find the engagement organic as well, most of it could be fake to appear legit.

My guess is these people probably did the usual hijacking of posts from popular accounts to reach more audience. I can't remember when I reported the accounts but in OP's second screenshot, I see one of them replying to Bitcoin Magazine.

[salad daging]

One of the accounts mentioned was hacked and the actual owner recovered it, the owners' security is inferior, scammers used it to tweet those giveaways that is why we should not believe in these verified accounts and check deeper, if you're aware of this scheme you know there's no such thing as free money especially if they are asking for your keys.

One Twitter account (https://twitter.com/DJMAX_global) confirmed that the owner has restored the account, so obviously there has been a lot of hacking going on on social media by a group of people to spread fake sites with gifts they made, I guess this This classic scam will never disappear from social media so one must be careful and careful in seeing anything suspicious in the form of any prizes including verification accounts that arrive not promoting crypto with fake giveaways.

https://twitter.com/DJMAX_global/status/1572877805297496064