3 Years Ago I Lost 5 BTCs from a Scam Sent From BitcoinTalk.org Official Email

[Palider]

True story,

In 2017 I was running my bitcoin blog; one of the first blogs created in the space, when someone contacted me from an official BitcoinTalk.org. They asked for 5 BTCs to post a banner ad on BT. Seeing that the email was coming from an official BT address, I sent them 5 BTCs.

Two weeks later after not hearing from anyone, I received a message from BitcoinTalk.org saying their email was hacked and the ad offer was from a scammer.

5 Bitcoins today = $40,000 USD. I really miss it. I wish BitcoinTalk.org would at least say sorry.

5 BTC is a huge amount of money right now. Hope this is a lesson for you and a reminder for us. Just don't believe that we have no solid proof that someone emailing you is true and not a scam. Find and verify it first before we act so that we can be sure, Today is a time when many thieves and criminals will do everything for money even if it is wrong.

[electronicash]

you got scammed for 5BTC 3 years ago and you just come back to ask bitcointalk.org to say sorry? that's funny. but perhaps providing the details so we can see is a TRUE story just as you claim. because if its true, you should really heard the sorry from someone who spoof the email. that is if we can ever find him. but let me just say SORRY, your money is already gone.

[coin-investor]

OP did not bother to go back here and answer some of the questions, there was no follow up when the accusations are serious but why know it's been three years and remember that Bitcoin is very huge when it hit the all-time high, people doing accusations to a group or individuals and posting it online should further elaborate and come back on his thread ifhe is that serious.

[ReiMomo]

That was huge amount by now worth 5 bitcoin. Sorry for your lost but why you are now appealing to this? Well on that incident, I think that's your mistake because it's easy to say that they are official unless you'll be able to confirm it first before sending that huge amount of bitcoin. I think that's a lesson learned for you not to trust no one especially with regards to money.

[lobat999]

OP did not bother to go back here and answer some of the questions, there was no follow up when the accusations are serious but why know it's been three years and remember that Bitcoin is very huge when it hit the all-time high, people doing accusations to a group or individuals and posting it online should further elaborate and come back on his thread ifhe is that serious.

Maybe he got overwhelmed by the majority of responses that contradicts his statement, requiring him to show proofs to back up his allegations but none has been exhibited so far! To make a long story short, this is all but malicious act with the intent to harm this forum's reputation yet so far it had never succeeded in doing so. I guess we should now move on to discuss other productive topics rather this one. Imho.

[singleplayer]

True story,

In 2017 I was running my bitcoin blog; one of the first blogs created in the space, when someone contacted me from an official BitcoinTalk.org. They asked for 5 BTCs to post a banner ad on BT. Seeing that the email was coming from an official BT address, I sent them 5 BTCs.

Two weeks later after not hearing from anyone, I received a message from BitcoinTalk.org saying their email was hacked and the ad offer was from a scammer.

5 Bitcoins today = $40,000 USD. I really miss it. I wish BitcoinTalk.org would at least say sorry.

Quality shitpost lmao, everyone is eating this up too.

[Kyraishi]

Baseless accusations and without sufficient proofs are almost often dismissed, just like in any court of law as it is suggesting an idea that you are maligning the forum.

Also, I couldn't believe why it take almost two years for you to open this issue and not at the height of the Bitcoin bull run on 2017 where by far I'm sure you would have exerted all efforts to get your BTC back especially when it had reached $20k in December 2017.

He's probably had money issues and is looking for any venue to get his money back, desperate people are desperate. Anyway, he probably got scammed, but it definitely wasn't by bitcointalk.org, because they will never do payments via email. Here's a quote from the thread for this week's advertising space.

If he cannot prove his accusations then I am sensing it was meant to discredit bitcointalk.org and I guess no one will ever believe him. But assuming it did happen, then  I assume he was a  victim of an email phishing attack using a fake look a like email address of bitcointalk.org in which case the staff of this forum has nothing to do with nor committed any kind of fraud and have no liabilities whatsoever since he has only himself to blame for not being cautious from his actions.

Let's assume that they are true allegations and OP did really get scammed out of 5 BTC a couple years ago.

If this did happen, we can all rest assured that it was definitely not bitcointalk that did scam him, because they never organize payments or even offer to sell banner advertisements outside of the forum.

It was likely someone with a fake domain name that was hidden using fake letters. For example, he may have gotten an email from bitcointälk.org (look closely and you'll see the different letter "ä"). Most email services do however flag those as spoofed emals though.

[Broly46]

That’s is massive! I’m not sure if it was true, because my inbox was always so full, and an email that sent from official site and then later informed it was hacked, it does smell fishy here, it could sound like we trust email too much, since we receive email verification for everything personal, idk who to blame now.😅

[uray]

In 2017 I was running my bitcoin blog; one of the first blogs created in the space, when someone contacted me from an official BitcoinTalk.org. They asked for 5 BTCs to post a banner ad on BT. Seeing that the email was coming from an official BT address, I sent them 5 BTCs.
Two weeks later after not hearing from anyone, I received a message from BitcoinTalk.org saying their email was hacked and the ad offer was from a scammer.

I just have a simple doubt, where you in a comma for the past two years and if you are looking to put out an advertisement will you just follow the mail and wait for them to put up the advertisement or come to this forum and make a deal with the admin  .

5 Bitcoins today = $40,000 USD. I really miss it. I wish BitcoinTalk.org would at least say sorry.

It can be a million dollars in the next ten years, there is nothing you can do about it. 5BTC for advertisement in 2017 was surreal and i would like to see the transaction ID since you want an apology from the admin for your foolishness  .

[imstillthebest]

That’s is massive! I’m not sure if it was true, because my inbox was always so full, and an email that sent from official site and then later informed it was hacked, it does smell fishy here, it could sound like we trust email too much, since we receive email verification for everything personal, idk who to blame now.😅

the op said that it was true but im still skeptical about it  .  why would you trust someone that you wont know ? everything can pretend online and even before scammers are already on the loose but until now i still recieve fake emails and spam emails that obviously want to take advantage from us .  thats true that email is important because we recieve such verfication but that is if we sign up or contacted the site , if thats not the case  , say they are the first one that email you then that is already untrustable  .

[The Cryptovator]

True story,
In 2017 I was running my bitcoin blog; one of the first blogs created in the space, when someone contacted me from an official BitcoinTalk.org. They asked for 5 BTCs to post a banner ad on BT. Seeing that the email was coming from an official BT address, I sent them 5 BTCs.

To be honest, I am not going to believe on your story. Although I joined this forum later 2017 but I don't hear about email hacked( not sure if I am missing something like that). I am really not aware any other similar cases. And in 2017 5 btc wasn't very small amount. And you should know that any admin or moderators will never ask for money via email. You were should verify it through forum before sent this huge amount.

[Sithara007]

An ad for 5 BTC in 2017 is freaking excessive. That would have already been a red flag. AFAIK, ads here are being auctioned, not contacted directly. That's sad that you fell through a scam like that. I hope you try to verify the facts first before anything else. Anyone can say they are "Official" unless you verify it. I hope you learned your lesson now. Bitcointalk is nowhere near responsible for your loss.

Couldn't agree anymore. The user should be blaming the hackers and his own carelessness first. No one in their right mind would be willing to spend 5 BTC without carefully studying the reviews and taking the necessary security precautions. A lot of websites and forums get hacked every year and what happened to Bitcointalk then was not something special or unique. At least in this case, this user could have first verified the contents of the email with the admins or the moderators, or should have at least posted a thread in the Meta sub-forum for clarification.

[omone1]

5BTC just for banner ads in 2017 when the price of bitcoin was extremely high, that was huge. Anyone could have known that it was a scam, at first it was even too high, besides there are accounts here carrying staff.

[rijaljun]

Easy to figure out what happened here :

• OP created his account on 2018, means on 2017 he wasn't a member of this forum yet, it is impossible that he agreed to advertise his website on a forum he was never there before.
• OP looks like easily paid a huge amount of money to advertise his site, it is also impossible for anyone to giving out that amount of his money for advertising without any further cooperation with forum's moderators

This is obviously FAKE.

[btctaipei]

IMHO 5BTC isn't much for those of us cpu generated 50 btcs about once every hr with old core clients.

value and refund aside,
Would it of made any difference if it was 10 years ago and lost 5BTCs?  would you expect Satoshi (founder of bitcointalk) apologize for a scam by 3rd party?  

[Wintersoldier]

True story,

In 2017 I was running my bitcoin blog; one of the first blogs created in the space, when someone contacted me from an official BitcoinTalk.org. They asked for 5 BTCs to post a banner ad on BT. Seeing that the email was coming from an official BT address, I sent them 5 BTCs.

Two weeks later after not hearing from anyone, I received a message from BitcoinTalk.org saying their email was hacked and the ad offer was from a scammer.

5 Bitcoins today = $40,000 USD. I really miss it. I wish BitcoinTalk.org would at least say sorry.

I am hardly believing on the info in your topic, even in 2017, the market price of bitcoin is already progressive, and in that case 5BTC is too much for an advertisement. But by the way, this might serve as a lesson for some newly users who might read this post, we should avoid transacting with anonymous person, on the internet, everything is possible, there is allot that might deceive us.

[Arsenyo]

Well, it's huge amount of money actually and I wonder what should it be in that email that you decided to send 5 btc to someone without any proof. Every account could be hacked as well as bitcointalk.org. There are lots of such situations, but it's only your responsibility.

[Broly46]

the op said that it was true but im still skeptical about it  .  why would you trust someone that you wont know ? everything can pretend online and even before scammers are already on the loose but until now i still recieve fake emails and spam emails that obviously want to take advantage from us .  thats true that email is important because we recieve such verfication but that is if we sign up or contacted the site , if thats not the case  , say they are the first one that email you then that is already untrustable  .

Op may be lying but I’m not going to ignore the possibilities of the said incident, because it’s part of the common opsec mistake everyone can eventually fall into it, by understanding the know-how of each scam, we can be certainly more prepared to prevent ourselves getting duped, btw email scams look to be some of the most creative scams one can imagine, it’s not unusual to receive the same letter for verification from reputable conventional banking service, we can’t perfectly tell the source of email is legit since everything  can be spoofed, email address, website url, even the crc check can be spoofed, how safe can we think from being scammed?

[pundit]

Sending 5 BTC to any unknown address w/o verifying is not good. If someone has contacted you, you should atleast varify it first. It was a matter of 5 BTC. You could have sent the money if amount was less but 5 BTC was a big amount to send, I think you must have checked all his credential and should have done payment in parts like you could have sent 1 BTC first and then rest amount once your blog ad was placed on Bitcointalk.

[Anonylz]

Sending 5 BTC to any unknown address w/o verifying is not good. If someone has contacted you, you should atleast varify it first. It was a matter of 5 BTC. You could have sent the money if amount was less but 5 BTC was a big amount to send, I think you must have checked all his credential and should have done payment in parts like you could have sent 1 BTC first and then rest amount once your blog ad was placed on Bitcointalk.

Honestly am finding it hard to believe that someone will just blindly send 5 btc over to an unknown address without any prior communication of any sort, even at 2017 btc price has already gone up, so he can't tell me that 5 btc is small amount that he cant take serious, people use escrow for service like this, he didn't apply the service of an escrow,
how can you pay for service and wait 2 weeks later to get feedback?