Fundraising threads on behalf of COVID-19. Don't trust, verify.

[tranthidung]

When I saw that thread Raising Funds to fight against COVID 19 in Small Village, I think I have to do something.  

We all known that we have been in a pandemic since late of 2019 as well as the epidemic with abundant threads on COVID-19. My thread is created to help newbies and naive people to avoid a new scam method of scammers. They take the chance of the pandemic and our kindness, generosity to scam and steal money from naive donators.

There are many official places to donate your money and help others: such as Red Cross, local charitable organizations, etc. You don't have to donate your money to unknown charity fundraisers if you don't know how legit they are. It is very risky!

If you see scam fundraising threads, please let me know.

Factsheets

• They usually use newbie or brandnew accounts to create fundraising threads;
• They usually are woke-up accounts. Their passwords were changed or reset recently. See this guide for details
• They likely have active Flags;
• They likely have negative trust counters;
• They likely have positive trust counters but usually not too much. You must not trust their positive trust counters, verify instead.
• They don't use Escrow service for donation funds.

Recommendations

• Immediately ignore if threads are created by newbie/ brandnew accounts like that one: Raising Funds to fight against COVID 19 in Small Village. Some reasons:
  
  • Where were they (months, years) before the pandemic? They join the forum only because want to do fundraising. They joined the forum before the pandemic and only created new accounts to do fundraising. Whatsoever, they likely don't have good purpose as they wrote.
  • Those accounts are likely throw-away ones. When they get funds, they will throw those accounts away and run with money.
• Immediately ignore if they have active flag(s) because with active flags, they are scammers.
• If they have negative trust counters
  
  • If they only have negative trust counters. Ignore them because I am sure they are scammers.
  • If they have a mix between positive trust counters and negative trust counters but the positive counters are significant higher, you can do more investigation on their trust feedbacks.
• If they have positive trust counters but usually not too much. You must not trust their positive trust counters, verify instead. *
• They don't use Escrow service for donation funds.

*: A case study: 3 positive trust feedback ended as scammers, with active flag and 7 negative trust feedback. Zerbis is a Scammer. Zerbis' trust summary page (You have to log in your account to see trust feedback).


Supplementary threads

• Scammers Impersonate WHO To Steal BTC Donation
• Fundraising campaign-Feed the one who are affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic
• [Always Open] Bitcointalk Donation Campaign - List of Charities
• LoyceV's Beginners guide to correct use of the Trust system
• Password changed / Woke up recently. Good signals to know potential scammers

[1715667137]

1715667137

[1715667137]

1715667137

[1715667137]

1715667137

[Rodeo02]

Its just a newbie account so you should not trust them for any donation of money.

If they are legit group that want to help they should have their own website and images of the donations they  do to help people in their own way without asking first for donation.

Scammers is always find a way to fool people even the crisis we have has been use now to ask for money, not only here there are other social media channel they do this kind of scheme.

[Coyster]

I think once the fundraising campaign is run by just one person(mostly newbies)with no escrow, then it is a scam...you cannot run a fundraising campaign on the forum all on your own with your personal bitcoin address; you need to convince people that the funds they are raising for the poor is actually for them, and to do that, you must be a trusted(established)user and another trusted user will escrow the funds, before you send funds to any fundraising campaign you're not sure of, verify through questions, you can start a thread to get opinions from others, just to be sure.

If you want to be of help to people scourged by this pandemic, you can always help that neighbor next door or donate food items to your local grocery store to distribute it to the poor.

[humerh3]

When I saw that thread Raising Funds to fight against COVID 19 in Small Village, I think I have to do something.  

He has a suspicious novice account for fundraising, I looked and found a topic with a different address 1ya6oZNfgoWDn1wWVwRcL3UWqiH7wfnR5

[sheenshane]

snipped-
Factsheets

• They usually use newbie or brandnew accounts to create fundraising threads;
• They likely have active Flags;
• They likely have negative trust counters;
• They likely have positive trust counters but usually not too much. You must not trust their positive trust counters, verify instead.
• They don't use Escrow service for donation funds.

In addition,

• Most likely, a Recently woke up account

Thank you, you already gave these good examples and I think they are very easy to spot if they are making a thread here in the forum. No one established account will do fraud and make a fake fundraising charity thread, it may put in risk and I'm sure they will only gain negative feedback. I believed that members on the forum are very intelligent to spot scam attempts like this.

I may always advise you to "Do Your Own Research" (DYOR) before donating fundraising activity and OP recommendation is right.
Good job OP.

[Jating]

Thanks for the fair warning, but it really looks like very suspicious in my end. So I have my doubts about this newbie account posting about this so called fund raising. Of course, there are still a lot of kind hearted person in this community, but it's better to be cautious and not to fall for this trick. You don't even need to verify it, a newbie account?? Hmm.

Edit: And that images is taken from here: https://twitter.com/Helperbit/status/1247178745603133442 and further research shows that the bitcoin address is: 3NpNJfgpYVyZSa8YCfUufC3idVtF3iSX6d

https://app.helperbit.com/project/5e6a64ee84cb8662d901a29c/covid19-posto-medico-avanzato-per-pretriage

[tranthidung]

In addition,

• Most likely, a Recently woke up account

Much appreciated. I forgot about it when composing OP. I added it as a second important warning.

Factsheets

• They usually use newbie or brandnew accounts to create fundraising threads;
• They usually are woke-up accounts. Their passwords were changed or reset recently. See this guide for details

< ... >
Supplementary threads

• Password changed / Woke up recently. Good signals to know potential scammers

Thanks for the fair warning, but it really looks like very suspicious in my end. So I have my doubts about this newbie account posting about this so called fund raising. Of course, there are still a lot of kind hearted person in this community, but it's better to be cautious and not to fall for this trick. You don't even need to verify it, a newbie account?? Hmm.

This is why I put that warning as the first important one to look at with clarifications in Recommendation section. I left a negative trust feedback on that account for now. I will remove it later if he can prove his fundraising is legit.

[hugeblack]

Even if you think that the user will not scam you, it is difficult to guarantee that he will send the aid to whoever needs it.
The matter is not limited to this pandemic, but all donations or actions that require trust that the user will not need and confidence that he will deliver it to individuals in need.
Even trusted institutions are suspected of trying to steal some money.

The activity you mentioned will be renewed with every hot topic.

[The Cryptovator]

Usually I don't believe any fund raising thread if it's not created by an trusted & well reputed members. I know that's out responsibility to help each other durning global epidemic. But unfortunately some scammers want to make money by using our emotion. By considering such as case I will prefer since this epidemic become worldwide problems means you can help around you. Who is near of you and live around you they deserve first any kind of help from you.  Then if you have lots of money so go ahead with global help. Help for humanity, not for showing others and let's build a decent world. Stay home, stay safe with your family.

[Greatdev]

When I saw that thread Raising Funds to fight against COVID 19 in Small Village, I think I have to do something.  

He has a suspicious novice account for fundraising, I looked and found a topic with a different address 1ya6oZNfgoWDn1wWVwRcL3UWqiH7wfnR5

This is a well crafted scam strategy, I bet many would have fall victim to this, the fact is people have soft heart and once they come across such weakness especially helping the helpless they fall instantly, any donations or fund raising for Cov-19 is illegal, nothing of such is legit

[khaled0111]

I created a fundraising topic in my local board too and, honestly, it was a tough decision.

I hesitated a lot before starting the topic because I couldn't figute out how to prove that collected funds were sent to those who needed it.
Finally, I decided to do it and thankfully many trusted members from our local board supported the initiative.

On the fundraising thread, I stated that am open to all suggestions and any one who donate/willing to donate can ask for any kind of proof (images, videos... but will hide faces)

However, an uknown person who creates a throwaway account and start asking for donations shouldn't be trusted.

[LTU_btc]

Unfortunately, this pandemy is just another great chance for scammers to get easy money. Many people donate people to random people without doing any research. Personally, I donate money online quite rarely, because often it's impossible to check that everything is legit and that money will reach these who need it.
I can't access link in OP anymore, so probably they just deleted topic. I'm on phone now, so I can't check, did they managed to collect money?

[skarais]

Besides Covid-19 is called a pandemic, scammers should also be called a pandemic. Their activities are very bad and rampant. Scammers behavior should not be judged with kindness, instead of helping others affected by Covid-19, they only feed their own stomachs.

Covid-19 is a pandemic that is felt by almost all countries and I think for every country and region in this country there is a form of anticipation from the government and society to help others in meeting their needs and not infrequently we can contribute a little money to those who need it through fundraising both nationally and regionally. Even if we intend to help, then prioritize helping our citizens first rather than donating money to those we dont know and trusted.

This thread will help improve our ability to identify the activities of scammers who take advantage of this pandemic situation, so always verify before making a donation because this is the first step if we want to help others online.

[khaled0111]

I can't access link in OP anymore, so probably they just deleted topic. I'm on phone now, so I can't check, did they managed to collect money?

you are right, it seems like a moderator removet it.
The address they used to raise funds/scam people received two transactions with a total of 0.00276897 btc. Most likely fake transaction they created to deceive people 

[akirasendo17]

The right thing to do is contact the officials who have made fund raising projects and make a bank transfer to an official account in this way ,we can avoid such a frauds, make sure to always verify an organization or people before giving donations, we know people always take advantages of this situation for their own personal interest, again never trust anyone , without verifying if he or she is legitimate so that our help or donation will not go to waste.

[tranthidung]

I didn't archive that thread so the thread is now locked. Thanks for all replies.