What happened:: A giveaway thread to scam people has been posted at Bitcointalk and advertised in Discord via private messages.They tell you that you won 0.1 BTC that get deposited at mercatox.org (The real exchange is mercatox.com) and when you want to withdraw, they ask you to deposit 0.02 BTC to activate your account, obvious scam.
Scammers Profile Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1167128
Reference Link: archive /Scam thread
Risked amount: 0.02 BTC

Proofs: http://whois.domaintools.com/mercatox.org Domain name created 10 days, they obviously wanted to impersonate mercatox.com which is another exchange.

Messages with support:


Message spammed at discord:

Which Discord server did you get these messages from?

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The original thread seems somewhat shady, considering that I couldn't find anything on the official Mercatox site regarding a giveaway.

The unofficial site also has this to say:


"bellow"

Definitely a scam. But I don't have anything concrete on the thread creator.

I couldn't find any server that is related to this giveway or fake exchange.They just made a bot to send messages to random people they find on Discord projects servers therefore I couldn't find anything concrete about the thread creator/author of this scam sorry.

That's what I thought too, but when looking for the servers in common we joined me and the bot (feature displayed in his profile) there isn't any.Plus I didn't join any server recently,this is very weird indeed but somehow they managed to message people without making them join their server..

I received one of these messages this morning from a bot, here is a copy of the text:

-----------------------------------
:tada::tada: Congratulations! :tada::tada:
You won 0.1 BTC in the Giveaway by Mercatox.org
Detailed Info and Conditions about Giveaway:
https://medium.com/@mercatox.media/mercatox-giveaway-14b17324ba8f

Your Promo Code: 0F9D20C3

How to use the promo code and get your winnings?
1) Register on the site: https://mercatox.org/
2) Go to the Account section and activate you Promo Code.
3) Exchange your BTC for any currency or withdraw to your BTC address.

:bangbang: Attention! :bangbang:
- Don't give this Promo Code to anyone. If someone uses it instead you, we will can't return your winnings to you.
- Promo Code is valid 7 days from the date of issue.


Have some questions about winnings? Email us: mercatox.media@gmail.com
Have some technical problems with Promo Code? Write online support on our website.

Regards,
Mercatox Team.
--------------------------------

Obvious scam as no one gives away .1 BTC for free, it is the very same scam I have encountered with various shills asking for "help" recovering funds from an exchange that popped up only days prior.

Avoid anyone offering to give you a quantity of BTC for free, by helping them move funds, or from a "reward".  And never, ever send funds to an exchange that has not been properly vetted.

A useful tactic if you are approached directly by someone attempting to con you, is ask for a deposit of .01 BTC before you will help them with anything.  If they are genuine, it is a modest amount to request for expert blockchain help (if you are qualified to give such help), and if they are a con, they usually do there best to insult you in English, before finishing with an insult in their native tongue, which when translated into English also makes you laugh

So in the end, avoid these scams but be sure to have fun with the people who are involved with them, ask them for BTC (have a real address ready ), maybe ask them to register at a different exchange in response to see if they play along.

These scams work because the people involved are smarter/sharper than the ones they prey on, you just need to be smarter/sharper than them

The scammer is just pretending to be MEE6 bot, but in reality is just a regular user with the same name and avatar as MEE6. You can check this easily by going to the server you both share and look for MEE6 usernames. You will probably find a real MEE6 bot there, but also a scammer with the same name who DM-ed you.

And if you don't see any shared servers with the scammer, it probably just means the scammer had already been kicked out of the server.

SCAM ALERT:
Scamer here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5174698