CLEVER SCAMMERS CHEATING OFF IN THE NAME OF ARBITRAGE!!!!

[atinaditya]

Hello, I was close to getting scammed on BTT. On the India board, I saw a post from Asianfun which read out as TEL ARBITRAGE!! It proclaimed that there was a massive 80% arbitrage opportunity in Telcoin (TEL) on Forkdelta and Kucoin. He also gave a link for the listed coin on forkdelta. I checked out the prices and indeed there was a good gap between the two prices with an arbitrage opportunity. I started collecting my ETH onto a single account so that I don't have to pay multiple transaction fees but thought of rechecking everything.

On a detailed check I found the TELCOIN on forkdelta to be fake. Hence, here I am to provide you with a detailed guide on how not to get scammed with coins.

Step 1) Check on Coin Market Cap. Telcoin was a Rank 110 coin, yet its buy order book on Forkdelta was non-existent. no one was buying the coin whereas the order book on KuCoin was quite vibrant. FLAG 1
Step 2) When I tried to locate Telcoin by scrolling on Forkdelta I came across only the real coin page. The scammer coin was missing. FLAG 2
Step 3) Finally, the link that the scammer had shared for forkdelta contained contract address. On going through etherscan you can read the contract. People with basic knowledge about coding can easily understand that the contract is fake. FLAG 3
Step 4) The executed orders would only have buy orders i.e. orders that were executed by price takers on buying side and not sell orders. BIGGEST FLAG

Scammers have invented a new method where they take any relatively small but among top 300 coins and use the same name/matching name to create their own coin with same metrics. Now they place sell orders at relatively cheaper value than the original coins so that people think that there is an arbitrage opportunity. People buying those coins send their ETH/BTC or whatever and scammers make good money by selling worthless coins.

My two cents would be never take anything at face value. Keep an eye open and look for faults. Look for deviations when doing arbitrage.

Thank you and please share as to how you where scammed or about to be by clever scammers using technology so that the community can be extra vigilant while conducting business on Blockchain.

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER

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[saraschoudhary]

I saw that post too! Just that I don't have any Ethereum at the moment.

Thank you for posting your experience.

Will surely report any such scam oppurtunities if I come across any.

[sureshnsnet]

I am sure that this post will help too many users to good advice stay away from the scammer and thanks for sharing your experience here, so be careful
before going any deals in bitcointalk.

[pozmu]

This interface is a fork of EtherDelta with a ton of improvements

Looks like one improvement they're missing is a warning about tokens with same name.
I think somebody should contact them and EtherDelta and inform about this scam, they should do something to make scammer's life tad more difficult. 

[timerland]

Very sophisticated scam.

If I could summarize, essentially the scammer creates their own shitcoin with a similar name as the real token/coin, which can be any ERC20 token with absolutely no backing, place some sell orders on an exchange, and tell victims that they have an arbitrage opportunity which can be exploited through buying their token (victims are misled into thinking that the fake token is real). Correct me if I'm wrong.

Could you link the profile of the person that is attempting to do this?

It reminds me of when these fake tokens with similar names as real ones are being offered as collateral of loans and several lenders got scammed. I wonder if they are from the same person.

[atinaditya]

Very sophisticated scam.

If I could summarize, essentially the scammer creates their own shitcoin with a similar name as the real token/coin, which can be any ERC20 token with absolutely no backing, place some sell orders on an exchange, and tell victims that they have an arbitrage opportunity which can be exploited through buying their token (victims are misled into thinking that the fake token is real). Correct me if I'm wrong.

Could you link the profile of the person that is attempting to do this?

It reminds me of when these fake tokens with similar names as real ones are being offered as collateral of loans and several lenders got scammed. I wonder if they are from the same person.

Absolutely right. You describe the entire scam correctly.
The thread was there on the Indian board from Asianfun. After realizing that it was a scam, I looked for that thread but could not locate it. I remember the account was a newbie with 7 posts. Most probably the scammer deleted that post.