DID I GOT SCAMMED?

[Pigeonas]

Hello guys!

Just letting you know that I do not have any experience in bitcoin mining!

A couple of months ago I was approached by some individuals with the opportunity to invest in a mining pool for profits. They generated the mining address that I sent my initial funds to. A couple of months later I was ready to receive my payout (profits) and I was asked again to transfer a 30% fee of my profits to the generated wallet, they said once I send the fee the payout will appear in my personal wallet. Once I sent the fund they said that amount was not correct and it got stuck and I have to transfer again exactly the amount they asked for me to receive the payment. I did that, but later they said that the payout bounced back and they need to create a new LOG. Once they create a new log I need to transfer 30% of my account value to kick off the log and after that, I will receive my payout. I started asking questions and they sent me a screenshot to prove that there are profits: https://ibb.co/PM1xvh8 and it looked suspicious. I assume it's just a blockain.com explore page with replaced text.

Please confirm if I have been scammed (most likely haha just need a confirmation) and let me know what action should I take,

thanks!

[1715578976]

1715578976

[1715578976]

1715578976

[gt_addict]

yea you have been scammed. There is no action to take apart from learn from it and dont fall for the same thing again.

[Pigeonas]

Is there any action that I should take to report these individuals somewhere?

[Biffa]

The police?

[mikeywith]

I was asked again to transfer a 30% fee of my profits to the generated wallet

So they couldn't just deduct 30% and send you the rest? at least this is where you should have stopped, but well! you learned a lesson.


While this scam is relating to mining pools it has to be in the scam accusation board, I can go into details but the short version of my post is "Yes, you have been scammed, please don't send them any more funds".

It's safe to assume that all these mining-related businesses opportunities are straight out scam attempts, there are no exceptions, the moment you make an exception you get scammed, if you want to make a profit you need to buy the mining gear from the official website, own it in your bedroom, mine to your own wallet directly, and even with that - you are not guaranteed to make a profit.

Please add more details, who are those guys? where did you meet them? do they have a website or you met them on social media, chances are your money is lost forever, but you would at least spread the word so others don't fall for it too.

Sorry for your loss.

[Pigeonas]

Hey,

Thanks for your answer.

Yes, it was very stupid of me, that I actually believed some fake screenshots and etc. I was approached on social media, (link to scammers profile: https://www.instagram.com/__keedward_/?igshid=1ngizu6sg85y0&fbclid=IwAR1WaHD-x1F2c032MHOfkwpd1qLMruKnwCiyixqr8TlWP2XhOivt4v6zeYw ). the account is private so I will include some images:

Account: https://ibb.co/fvgys1K 
Videos of a setup: https://ibb.co/Fbdny8Z
Proofs of payouts: https://ibb.co/3TnX59q
Used miners: https://ibb.co/Jj9mQrY
Promised profits: https://ibb.co/R4X0m9j


The account looked legitimate and included a lot of "REFERENCES" from happy investors and etc.

[stompix]

 

I started asking questions and they sent me a screenshot to prove that there are profits: https://ibb.co/PM1xvh8 and it looked suspicious. I assume it's just a blockain.com explore page with replaced text.

Yeah, pretty obvious and a pretty lame attempt also:
This is the real adress
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/3Q3bXykToSQagtqgazeDxxrWK4yrpA9jQX
it's actually owned by poolin, a real mining pool.

I was approached on social media,

The moment I saw that Instagram link it was all clear, let me guess how the rest of "her" account looks like, sexy girl, exotic locations, tons of money, and mining gear   . If it will comfort you a little bit, you're not the first, nor the last:

Yeah I know it's a scammed and I have been scammed.
That is her profile.
https://www.instagram.com/donna_.wilson/

Here you have the link of the Instagram profile: https://www.instagram.com/sarah__emilly/

and a ton more,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5307064
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5282182
 at least they've got you on Instagram, not on tinder. 

Please add more details, who are those guys? where did you meet them? do they have a website or you met them on social media, chances are your money is lost forever, but you would at least spread the word so others don't fall for it too.

They've been around for a while, probably at least two years since reports have started coming at least once every two weeks, and a lot of them will not get reported here since from what I'm hearing the most active gang is targeting Asian businessmen, tons of fake female profile on their social networks but the same method of scamming.
It won't end as long as everybody in the news is mentioning all day long how profitable bitcoin investments are!

[Pigeonas]

Hey,

Thanks for the replies.

One thing I don't understand is why the Instagram profile is still up and running having almost 2k followers how is it none of the scammed people reporting the account and etc, writing comments under the pictures, and so on. There should be more victims from this scam and I would expect them to at least report the account or take some kind of action.

[numanoid]

The police?

There is no police on here.

. A couple of months later I was ready to receive my payout (profits) and I was asked again to transfer a 30% fee of my profits to the generated wallet

When someone asked you to pay him, the scam started.

[stompix]

One thing I don't understand is why the Instagram profile is still up and running having almost 2k followers how is it none of the scammed people reporting the account and etc, writing comments under the pictures, and so on. There should be more victims from this scam and I would expect them to at least report the account or take some kind of action.

Because:
a) less than 10-20% are maybe real followers, out of those less than 10% have been actually scammed, and half of them are not willing to report it because of different reasons (afraid of police/wife/IRS) or simply letting it go
b) Instagram does a very poor job at handling such things, frauds must be investigated, if you want to have that profile closed the best way is to find the account that the pictures were stolen from, in the past when I was reporting them like that they were getting shut down in 48-72 hours. That's the reason now they make private profiles,  to avoid people reporting it before the scam actually happens.

Either way, although from your point of view it might be useless, try to file a complaint with your cybercrime unit in your city, maybe at one point some higher up will see a pile of hundreds of files laying around and decide it's time to get serious on them.

[Pigeonas]

Thanks for your reply,

Could you please suggest what's the best way of finding the original profile?

is there any way to run picture recognition on Instagram or something like that?

Thanks!

[stompix]

is there any way to run picture recognition on Instagram or something like that?

Nope, Instagram has no features like that.
Your best bet would be to grab all the pictures with her from her account, especially those who are not that generic like a pose in front of the mirror, stuff more specific and easier to distinguish from others, and run them through one of those image search websites listed here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4586576.0
If she is a famous model artist whatever you might get lucky..
ps
DON'T! install any app on your phone that promises to search people on Instagram, none works and some might be themselves shady!

I've also reported the profile for fraud maybe is some more people reading the topic will do the same it will have some effect.

[ololajulo]

Hey,

Thanks for the replies.

One thing I don't understand is why the Instagram profile is still up and running having almost 2k followers how is it none of the scammed people reporting the account and etc, writing comments under the pictures, and so on. There should be more victims from this scam and I would expect them to at least report the account or take some kind of action.

Scammers are smart enough to provide a fake account with fake followers, You must have learnt your lessons and never fall for fake follower even if they are more than 10k.

[Beparanf]

Thanks for your reply,

Could you please suggest what's the best way of finding the original profile?

is there any way to run picture recognition on Instagram or something like that?

Thanks!

There's no chance to find the real profile of the scammer if you just him on the social media because he is just using dummy account with fake follower in the social media. Social media like Instagram or Facebook will not gonna give you any info about the user details incase you request about the user profile.

If you know how to hack social media account like brute forcing the account, That is the only way I know to get any clue about the real profile of the scammer.

[zanezane]

yea you have been scammed. There is no action to take apart from learn from it and dont fall for the same thing again.

OP has fallen for it three times and I do not think that this will be the last time that OP will get scammed. I had a good laugh reading OP because the fact that a 30% did not seem to raise some questions on the legitimacy of the scheme. The first time should have been the last time that you have fallen for it because that is how some of this scams work, they say they want you to send money and then they will say it was not sent so you need to send another which is illogical in the first place. I know that your time was also wasted but next time try to do some research and ask some questions on this board before doing anything.

[Pigeonas]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I would still be interested in investing in crypto mining. Is there any actual legit mining pools you can invest or the only way is to actually buy the hardware and just mine in it yourself?

[TheUltraElite]

Thanks for the replies guys.
I would still be interested in investing in crypto mining. Is there any actual legit mining pools you can invest or the only way is to actually buy the hardware and just mine in it yourself?

Here are the few points that I remind myself when talking about mining:

1. The only way to profit from mining using hardware is gone since 2013 with the difficult rising and hashpower competition with other miners in case you are hoping to be a solo miner with a couple of rigs. What you really need in order to get a decent ROI from the miner costs, electricity costs, labor costs and maintenance cost is a huge farm of mining rigs containing several hundreds of ASICs. I might be a little off on my estimate but thats that.

2. There are mining pools but these are for miners with smaller capacity of devices to join and mine together and get a share of the block subsidy in the proportion of their hashpower.

3. Investing in mining pools is something that I am hearing new here. I would not recommend the same because in case you get scammed by the rest of the "group posing as miners" - you have no legal grounds to sue them. Obviously they will not be some registered company out there but even if they do, I would still be skeptical

If you ask me, the best way to profit is to buy bitcoin at low prices and sell at high prices. Mining is no longer profitable for small-cap users.