Electrum Telegram run by scammer

[ChrisVandermeer]

Probably nothing that can be done about it but the Telegram Electrum chat is owned by a scammer who just asked for me to fill out a file to give him my seed phrase. Just a heads up.

[OmegaStarScream]

AFAIK, there is no official telegram group, how did you come across it? Also, I suggest you share the link so we can report it.

[Lucius]

AFAIK, there is no official telegram group, how did you come across it?

I suppose he needed support, so he decided to look for it on the Telegram. A simple search using Google with keywords electrum+telegram gives the following result :

Code:

https://t.me/ElectrumWallet

Currently, I see that the group has 190 members, but I don't use Telegram so all I find is this abuse e-mail address :

Code:

abuse@telegram.org

[DireWolfM14]

What makes you think the owner of the channel is a scammer?  I didn't read the whole history of the channel, but I found a message pinned to the top, that directs people to the official website and twitter account.




Here's the channel owner's profile:




I did a google search for the owner's Telegram username, specifying to search this forum, and the results mostly pointed to user btcven, (u=70647).  Note btcven's signature also references an IRC chat username that's identical to the Telegram username, and has a vanity address that includes the same username.

Code:

1rdymachKZpA9pTYHYHMYZjfjnoBW6B3k

[Lucius]

What makes you think the owner of the channel is a scammer?

Probably nothing that can be done about it but the Telegram Electrum chat is owned by a scammer who just asked for me to fill out a file to give him my seed phrase. Just a heads up.

Maybe because of this bold part? If the truth is what the OP claims (and it would be good to put evidence), asking for seed is sufficient proof that it is a scam. Although I leave the possibility that this is a misinterpreted message from OP side. Also account that you linked is not active from 08 July 2019.

[BitMaxz]

I think he's not talking about a telegram group he might be talking about this user below from telegram.


Username: @Electrum


It has a weird avatar.

I just found him when searching on the telegram web.

[ChrisVandermeer]

https://i.imgur.com/Qli8ESO.png
https://i.imgur.com/opkm5R0.png
https://i.imgur.com/2fm6wet.png
https://i.imgur.com/Sxctf5V.png
https://i.imgur.com/LZ3P8tQ.png

Just figuring out how to post the images properly sorry, but yes it is the group with 190 odd members and I just quickly jumped on there after I almost lost money from the 4.0 malware.

Thank you for the help I have emailed Telegram.

[o_e_l_e_o]

That user "Randy Brito" is definitely trying to scam you. You should never enter your seed phrase anywhere, and Electrum does not have an official support email like he suggests in that last screenshot.

I suspect he links to the real Electrum website and twitter for one or both of two reasons. Firstly, to give himself an air of legitimacy and fool people in to thinking he is not a scammer. Secondly, he is probably unrelated to the fake version 4.0.0 scammers, and doesn't want people to use fake wallets because then be won't be able to scam them himself.

If you have questions about the 4.0.0 malware, better to ask them on here in the open.

[Lucius]

I think he's not talking about a telegram group he might be talking about this user below from telegram.

As you can see from the OP reply, it's not about the user you are referencing, it's about a group pretending to be an official Telegram support for Electrum. Anyone trying to convince others that they need to type their seed online is a scammer, and I'm just wondering how many of those 190 members are real, and how many bots that play false satisfied users.

[ChrisVandermeer]

Yes definitely a scam, thanks for the support.
I have reported the google doc he sent me and sent screen shots to Telegram as well.

[akhjob]

If the claim of ChrisVandermeer is true, then btcven should be tagged as scammer even though he hasn't logged in for almost a year. But I'm not sure if it's the telegram user who scammed is @rdymac.

[Pmalek]

Are you sure you are talking to the right person who has an admin or owner tag next to his name? I don't know what kind of channel that is but a well-known scam is when someone pretends to be the admin of a Telegram group. In that case he will use the same photo and duplicate  the profile of an admin.

I am asking because in this screenshot, @rdymac is not the username of that user, it's his bio/personal info. You can write anything you want in that field. Scammers can't duplicate and use the same username so they will try different techniques to make it look legit. From the screenshot it looks like the user you spoke with doesn't have a username at all and instead he has put the username (@rdymac) of the channel admin in his bio. Someone correct me if I am wrong?!



If you look at this picture, this should be the real Randy.

A quick way for you to check if you spoke with the real admin is to find a post of him in that telegram group, click on his profile and click on 'SEND MESSAGE' like the picture below shows.
Does it open an empty PM history or does it show the previous PMs you already exchanged? If it opens the existing PM history - the real admin of that channel is trying to scam you. If you open a blank PM history, they are two different users.



*Sorry for the huge image size

[DireWolfM14]

Someone correct me if I am wrong?!

You are not wrong.  The image posted by the OP is does make it look like he was chatting with an impostor.

A quick way for you to check if you spoke with the real admin is to find a post of him in that telegram group, click on his profile and click on 'SEND MESSAGE' like the picture below shows.
Does it open an empty PM history or does it show the previous PMs you already exchanged? If it opens the existing PM history - the real admin of that channel is trying to scam you. If you open a blank PM history, they are two different users.

Another way of verifying the user is by forwarding a message to @userinfobot.  Pick any message sent to you by the user in question, right-click on the message, then click on "Forward Message."  A pop-up window titled "Choose recipient" will be displayed, enter @userinfobot into the search field, select the bot, then click send.  The userinfobot will return a message with the user's ID, which is unique and tied to the user's phone number that was used at registration.  The only way an ID can be changed is by registering with a different phone number.

Here's what I get for the admin of that channel:

Code:

@rdymac
Id: 10405624
First: Randy
Last: Brito

[Pmalek]

There are many ways to do it, yeah. One thing you can also do is to check if the user and yourself have any groups in common.
So if you join a group and the admin of the group contacts you, it is logical that you and the admin will have at least that group in common. You are part of it and he is the admin of it. Since scammers impersonate admins they don't join those groups because they would be discovered and banned.

Click on the profile of the user. Notice the field that says "3 groups in common". If you and the person you are talking to have no groups in common, it's an imposer/scammer.

Here is a random picture that shows what I am talking about.

[BitMaxz]

~snip~

It seems both of them are fake no real Randy Brito to any of these accounts.

Randy Brito is one of the contributors according to Electrum Github from here https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/graphs/contributors
as rdymac.

I can't find telegram account from his GitHub account even on his linked in profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/randybrito

Except for this "@btcven" on GitHub account but when I search this account from telegram and it exists and shows this below.

As you can see they are talking about Electrum 4.0.0

So this "@btcven" might be the real account of Randy Brito and the admin of the Electrum group and other accounts from Electrum are fake and only use to attract users to join on that group.

However, I'm still not satisfied if this is own by real Randy Brito unless he actually added it to his GitHub account or LinkedIn and verify that he owns those telegram group.

[ChrisVandermeer]

Someone correct me if I am wrong?!

You are not wrong.  The image posted by the OP is does make it look like he was chatting with an impostor.

A quick way for you to check if you spoke with the real admin is to find a post of him in that telegram group, click on his profile and click on 'SEND MESSAGE' like the picture below shows.
Does it open an empty PM history or does it show the previous PMs you already exchanged? If it opens the existing PM history - the real admin of that channel is trying to scam you. If you open a blank PM history, they are two different users.

Another way of verifying the user is by forwarding a message to @userinfobot.  Pick any message sent to you by the user in question, right-click on the message, then click on "Forward Message."  A pop-up window titled "Choose recipient" will be displayed, enter @userinfobot into the search field, select the bot, then click send.  The userinfobot will return a message with the user's ID, which is unique and tied to the user's phone number that was used at registration.  The only way an ID can be changed is by registering with a different phone number.

Here's what I get for the admin of that channel:

Code:

@rdymac
Id: 10405624
First: Randy
Last: Brito

Yes I get:

Id: 1064611890
First: Randy Brito

From the scammer. And a blank chat box when I message the actual owner.

[Pmalek]

Yes I get:

Id: 1064611890
First: Randy Brito

From the scammer. And a blank chat box when I message the actual owner.

In that case you were talking to an imposer the whole time. Don't trust anything he says.
Now, this does not mean that the actual owner of that Telegram group is to be trusted. We don't know. What we know now is that the person you were talking to is not who he says he is. We also know that Electrum doesn't have an official Telegram account. They have a link to their Facebook page on their official site and that is it when it comes to social media.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The bottom line is that Electrum does not have any official support pages, services, email addresses, Telegram, etc. If you have questions or problems with using it, then your best bet is to ask them publicly on this forum, and not via private message with someone you don't know, regardless of the medium they are using or how "official" their name sounds. See here for more information: https://electrum.org/#community

Telegram in particular is a terrible program. It is a complete scam fest, and your chats aren't even end-to-end encrypted, meaning Telegram can read anything you type and share that information with anybody they want. I have no idea why anybody continues to use it.

[ABCbits]

Anyone who ask your seed phrase is scammer, long discussion/investigation isn't necessary.

and your chats aren't even end-to-end encrypted, meaning Telegram can read anything you type and share that information with anybody they want.

Good point, Telegram advertised as privacy-oriented messenger, but end-to-end encryption not enabled by default.

I doubt anyone (who actually cares about privacy) bother to choose to enable end-to-end encryption manually since there's better option such as Signal.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Good point, Telegram advertised as privacy-oriented messenger, but end-to-end encryption not enabled by default.

Not only that, they only even offer end-to-end encryption for 1-on-1 chats (but as you say, disabled by default). All group chats are not, and cannot be, end-to-end encrypted, meaning anyone with access to Telegram's servers can read all your communications, and Telegram can hand over or sell those communications to anybody they like, if they wanted to.

there's better option such as Signal.

Signal is great. I've been using it for years. It initially took a fair amount of convincing of friends and family to make the switch from WhatsApp, but with more and more stories hitting the headlines about the widespread privacy invasion of various companies, (not least of all Facebook who own and operate WhatsApp), that convincing has become significantly easier over time. It's the only messaging software I use.