Outdated token, Escrow faking - Telegram awareness

[AB de Royse777]

Does anyone know how to report a user in Telegram? I think it can be done coz I have good business relationship with a user who was labeled as scammer by telegram and his texts always come with the below warning. (According to him, he deals with different betting sites and someone reported his account so TG flagged his account with this warning)

Warning: Many users reported this account as a scam. Please be careful, especially if it asks you for money.

Anyway, I initially thought to create this topic in the scam accusations section but then thought - there were no scam happened and it's basically reputation issue for some forum users and also TG users. So, decided to post it in this board (Reputation).
My bet is that some of the TG users (also has good knowledge about this forum too, possibly they are with this community for long time but they will always pretend that they are new here and somehow got your business information) make a living from scamming other users especially the lenders here.

Strategy is pretty simple: Confuse the lender, change focus (keep them busy with some unnecessary chitchat) and within short time make them to send you an amount and run away with it.

Including yesterday, in a few weeks period - I faced two of these type of scammers and good part is that both time they failed. 2nd one was interesting and knowing his intention I was just taking piss.

https://archive.md/BXyfU#selection-9089.14-9089.56
So I have the ETH address (0x0364b3437650103a82abecaa6fe34a292cfc85fa), a username (Although it was created only day before) to flag over the internet. But it's not enough unless people actually know their strategy and how they execute it.

Case study 1
So,
They will create a TG account or change the TG username to a new one to establish contact with you.
They will text you for some loan and will tell that they have collateral
They pretend that they are new to the forum
They will push you to use an escrow and they will pay the escrow fees. (This may surprise you by thinking that what is wrong with your own account since you are doing business here from long time but the user is having hard time to trust you)
Once agree with an escrow, they will contact a real escrow (in my case it was, DarkStar_)
The real escrow will appear in TG.
The scammer will create a group (Group 1): You, real escrow and him.
They will take a break and will say they will be back soon. Meanwhile you are the real escrow finalize your talk. << This is important for them (the scammer) to plan the next step and everything that will happened once they will re-appear will be very fast. Time is the only currency here.
In a very perfect moment you be added in another group (Group 2, which you are not really aware, you think the real escrow just text you in this new group. In the group there will be this fake escrow basically the scammer, the scammer and you), the fake escrow will tell you that he received the collateral.
If you want to see then he will ask you to wait a few minutes.
He then will tell you to send the BTC to him (fake escrow) instead of the borrower.

These are the pre written script so far I was able to gather.  Depending on the flow of conversation it may go to any direction. Notice all these times (after starting conversation in the Group 2, the real escrow, DarkStar_ in this case - really have no clue what is going on. To him both lender and borrower is a bit quite and taking their time. Possibly he is waiting for a response from either the borrower or the lender in the first group.)

Case study 2
In the 2nd incident when the scammer was convinced that my account reputation is enough to hold the escrow and I am asking him that I will hold the fund and no need for escrow then he came up with this fake token idea (0.40 BTC NEEDED AS AN LOAN collateral avalible << Very possible that it's this guy) to improvise the situation in his favor. But failed of-course.

May be some note to help you to escape from the scammer:
- While you will have conversation with him initially if you feel that he really knows the forum environment then he actually does, get alerted
- Do not response to his off topic conversations. Instead focus on the deal and try to understand the character of the person.
- Deal with escrow, only in his Bitcoin account not in TG. It's time consuming but risk free.
- Ask the escrow to sign the text always with a know bitcoin address that he used in the forum
- Report the TG user to telegram (I still need to know the process)

An important reading may help you to get to know the strategy of the scammers:
List of (un)known methods scammers user to scam users with honorable mention
(Possibly these knowledge saved me both the times to keep me safe, help yourself too)

Cheers,

Tag the users:
WHellscryp
thoreone122

[1713892690]

1713892690

[1713892690]

1713892690

[1713892690]

1713892690

[1713892690]

1713892690

[1713892690]

1713892690

[AB de Royse777]

Reserved

[shasan]

S/he Tried to trade with me too. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5102555.msg53489704#msg53489704

[AB de Royse777]

S/he Tried to trade with me too. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5102555.msg53489704#msg53489704

At some point they were talking about you too and seems like to you they had different approach with those outdated tokens.



Notice the way they response you. It's like they are really new but when I have given him some task (asking to find my loan topic, make a post, reading the instructions on the OP and some other stuffs which will require time for someone who is not familiar with the platform. But with his response, it was clear that he is well aware of the interface and environment) intentionally to test his skills, his activities were clear that he is pretending.

[rosezionjohn]

Does anyone know how to report a user in Telegram? I think it can be done coz I have good business relationship with a user who was labeled as scammer by telegram and his texts always come with the below warning. (According to him, he deals with different betting sites and someone reported his account so TG flagged his account with this warning)

Telegram encourages anyone to report users who are pretending to be someone else to scam. They can be reported to @NoToScam (look for it on telegram FAQ )


In both cases, the scammer is basically impersonating the escrow on telegram. They are building trust until the lender brings his or her guard then they will execute their dirty trick.

[DireWolfM14]

The same Telegram user (Hmm?) contacted me yesterday with a loan request, and offering ThoreCoin as collateral.  I just opened my telegram a few minutes ago to respond, then went and got a cup of coffee.  When I came back to my computer the Telegram user name changed to @Xerox66.

[AB de Royse777]

And now the username has changed to @sergesupport



He must be fishing to scame ICO investors or possibly pretending to be a support staff of this project named Serge.

¬snip¬
Telegram encourages anyone to report users who are pretending to be someone else to scam. They can be reported to @NoToScam (look for it on telegram FAQ )

Thanks for this TG handle but seems like a regular username and I was expecting an automated bot :-D

[DireWolfM14]

He's on a roll.  Now it's @whatsup221.

I reported the username to @NoToScam.  I don't know how, when, or if they'll do anything, but it's worth a shot.

[DarkStar_]

@hayobtcfan messaged me about borrowing against ThoreCoin as well. Not sure if it's the same person as it doesn't seem like they've changed their username, but I'm guessing it's the same fake token scam attempt.

[Bttzed03]

There is a way to know if the user is the same person even if they change their username often. Forward any of their telegram messages to @userinfobot and the bot will reveal their telegram ID and not just username.

Bot shows it like this:

• username:
• ID:
• First name:

Users can change usernames but not their ID. I know you can also report to @notoscam using telegram ID.

You can read more here

edit: I just found the topic where I first read about the telegram ID posted by @TheFuzzStone https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5200303

[AB de Royse777]

Forward any of their telegram messages to @userinfobot and the bot will reveal their telegram ID and not just username.

I tried with this bot but looks like it's always returning my information
Looks like except him (his message) the other messages from other users are working. I can see their userID and stuffs but for this scammer it always returns my information.

Can anyone confirm that they are also facing this experience?

There could be one reason for that which is changing username? When the scammer was talking to me they had one username and now they have another one, this could be a reason?

@hayobtcfan messaged me about borrowing against ThoreCoin as well. Not sure if it's the same person as it doesn't seem like they've changed their username, but I'm guessing it's the same fake token scam attempt.

It could be same person or different person too. For a single person coming up with so many idea will be time consuming and requires a lot of brainstorming :-D

One this is clear that they found good opportunity to trap inexperience users using the ThoreCoin event (moving their platform to Wave¹ and leaving the old token as outdated)

¹Learnt from other thread by DaveF

Edit: An update

[DireWolfM14]

Looks like except him (his message) the other messages from other users are working. I can see their userID and stuffs but for this scammer it always returns my information.

Can anyone confirm that they are also facing this experience?

I get the same results.  It returns my information when I forward this accounts messages to the bot.  I tried to forward archived messages from deleted accounts, and I get the same results.  It might be that he has us blocked, and that's a privacy feature the bot uses to prevent abuse or stalking.