Listing coin in a big exchange ask for a refundable security deposit?

[TheWolf666]

Hi

I am not sure if I am dealing with scammers, but I am dealing with a big exchange right now, and they are asking me to deposit cash as a security deposit, that is refundable the next months.

It sounds like a scam to me (are they going to run with this money and never list my coin)?

Is it a current practice?

[1714862336]

1714862336

[harizen]

Never heard of an exchange asking for a refundable security deposit in coin listing but if that's a big exchange like you mentioned, I don't see any problem with that as no way they will put their name on becoming sh*t as it will ruin their reputation.

But anyways, can you disclose in public the name of the exchange? We can get a better response from the community if the name of the exchange will be mentioned. And are you sure you are dealing with their legit representative?

[TheWolf666]

Never heard of an exchange asking for a refundable security deposit in coin listing but if that's a big exchange like you mentioned, I don't see any problem with that as no way they will put their name on becoming sh*t as it will ruin their reputation.

But anyways, can you disclose in public the name of the exchange? We can get a better response from the community if the name of the exchange will be mentioned. And are you sure you are dealing with their legit representative?

I have actually dumped the people I was talking too, because of suspicion of scam. The exchange was Bithumb.
I also doubt that big exchanges would charge a security deposit of 4 BTC (lot of money) and refund it later. I guess that once you have sent the 4 BTC, you will never heard about these people.

I do not have 4 BTC anyway, so the discussion was over. But I am still doubtful, I haven't seen articles or reports about these kind of practices, so if it is a sophisticated scam, it is good to report it here and let people know, to avoid some people losing all to these scammers.

[ryzaadit]

-snip-

The only problem did you contacted "Bithumb" via their official website or not? If, yes then that the process of their listing agreement. If you got contacted by a random person on a telegram saying they can listing your token to some exchange and you give an email so he can send you some email for an official proposal. This could be lead to a scam attempt, so always make sure you are contacted via official resource.

Remember, every exchange has its own procedure.

[Nalbo]

What medium were you talking through and did you verified the communication channel? It's not a new thing for big exchanges to ask for a security deposit but that comes with a written contract of both the parties. You don't have to send anything unless its well written in your contract.
The official contacts for communication relating to listing a coin in Bithumb is listing@bithumb.pro

[jossiel]

Check the contact that has been contacting you and go to the official website of the exchange and talk to their rep. Just verify if they're really the ones that you're talking about and if they really are requiring a security deposit.

Usually, if that's a big amount, you really don't want to down for it as quickly as possible because you haven't done the transaction. It's best to consult the actual rep and let them know the situation.

[Dump3er]

Never heard of an exchange asking for a refundable security deposit in coin listing but if that's a big exchange like you mentioned, I don't see any problem with that as no way they will put their name on becoming sh*t as it will ruin their reputation.

But anyways, can you disclose in public the name of the exchange? We can get a better response from the community if the name of the exchange will be mentioned. And are you sure you are dealing with their legit representative?

I have actually dumped the people I was talking too, because of suspicion of scam. The exchange was Bithumb.
I also doubt that big exchanges would charge a security deposit of 4 BTC (lot of money) and refund it later. I guess that once you have sent the 4 BTC, you will never heard about these people.

I do not have 4 BTC anyway, so the discussion was over. But I am still doubtful, I haven't seen articles or reports about these kind of practices, so if it is a sophisticated scam, it is good to report it here and let people know, to avoid some people losing all to these scammers.

This is more than suspicious. I doubt you will find anyone on this forum who had to provide a security deposit. What was the reason they mentioned? Just to get started trading over there at Bithumb? Usually they aren't scammers, maybe you didn't even talk to people from Bithumb and fell victim for phishing?

[TheWolf666]

Never heard of an exchange asking for a refundable security deposit in coin listing but if that's a big exchange like you mentioned, I don't see any problem with that as no way they will put their name on becoming sh*t as it will ruin their reputation.

But anyways, can you disclose in public the name of the exchange? We can get a better response from the community if the name of the exchange will be mentioned. And are you sure you are dealing with their legit representative?

I have actually dumped the people I was talking too, because of suspicion of scam. The exchange was Bithumb.
I also doubt that big exchanges would charge a security deposit of 4 BTC (lot of money) and refund it later. I guess that once you have sent the 4 BTC, you will never heard about these people.

I do not have 4 BTC anyway, so the discussion was over. But I am still doubtful, I haven't seen articles or reports about these kind of practices, so if it is a sophisticated scam, it is good to report it here and let people know, to avoid some people losing all to these scammers.

This is more than suspicious. I doubt you will find anyone on this forum who had to provide a security deposit. What was the reason they mentioned? Just to get started trading over there at Bithumb? Usually they aren't scammers, maybe you didn't even talk to people from Bithumb and fell victim for phishing?

I was contacted via Discord. Then they asked me to fill a very simple listing form at @bithumbcorp.com website. Their emails were listing@bithumbcorp.com and everything sounded legit.
They said that they passed the project review (took a week).
Then they created a Telegram account to ask some questions (3 people were there)... the conversation ended up talking about a deposit of 4 BTC for legal reason in case the coin has some litigation issues. This is when I felt the scam and stopped everything.
It is not the first time that I am contacted by people claiming this kind of security deposit, so I immediately catched up the scam.

I have since investigated the emails I received and they were forged, using
"Received: from wgh24.whogohost.com (wgh24.whogohost.com [23.94.191.186])"

You need to read the headers of the email to find the forgery, so it is quite a sophisticated scam, that involves several people and running for weeks.
I am 100% certain now that it is a scam, I am web dev for +20 years and these are very well crafted scam, not your regular Nigerian guy.

I would advise all coin developers to NEVER send BTC for listing your coin. Use USDT instead and be sure that they do an invoice from inside the exchange, that you can pay from money transfered to the exchange first.
Every transaction outside the exchange is suspicious.
Every transaction in BTC cannot be blocked.
USDT has a way to block a transaction and restore the funds, not BTC.

That's my conclusion about this event.
I also was scammed by people using a kucoin domain that was using a different type of i (using ì instead in the domain name. They had re-created almost all the visual for the exchange using kucoìn.com domain. On my 4K monitor I cannot see the difference with the original domain.

So guys be careful, these scams are very sophisticated even for web veterans.

[SyndicateLabs]

I have heard of such scams, and you should be wary of such related messages, if there is any problem contact their support directly. And also choose the top exchanges so that your interests are guaranteed.

[TheWolf666]

For reference here is the first email I received from these scammers.

Code:

Attention: To Whom It May Concern

Greetings from Bithumb!

In the following message, the details of the listing process have been
tendered. By highlighting the three methods by which tokens may be
listed on Bithumb, we hope to provide all stakeholders in the listing
process a clear way to understand why and how certain tokens are listed.
In addition, we are working on ways to provide even more data on token
projects and their backers, so purchasers can do ample research and make
proper assessments.
We firmly believe that a long term approach to working with quality
token teams is the key to successfully fostering a healthy ecosystem and
providing our community with a variety of sustainable, interesting, and
useful tokens to trade.
While we want to support token teams with high promise and demand, we
are also wary of all the risks out there. From regulatory and legal
risks, to cases of incompetence and outright fraud, we have a duty to
our community to do our best in minimizing their exposure to "bad"
tokens. At the same time, we try to select and list tokens that our
users would like to purchase and utilize. This process of due diligence
and selection, coupled with a guess as to how a token will be received
by the community, is more art than science. And ultimately had left our
community, token backers, and token project teams feeling disconnected.
We want to change that. Bithumb is moving to broaden asset support and
further augment trading volumes. Along these lines, we've been engaging
in a lot of project appraisal in order select projects that'd resonate
with our community.

To encourage the liveliness of the community, we aim to partner with
project teams which are able to bring more active users. At our
discretion, we may choose to consider listing some assets on the basis
of our own evaluation, even in the absence of an application. In other
cases, we will attempt to give quick, specific reasons for the approval
or rejection of particular assets. Some projects can be floated into
consideration for direct listing by Bithumb Prime Investors, in line
with our 'Collaboration method' of listing; the second of the brand's
three methods of project listing.


A listing officer will be assigned to your team in order to lend
assistance where and when necessary. The designated official will give
you a step-by-step walkthrough.

Please note:

* Ensure the details of your token/coin are valid and all protocols
licit

* If you have previously filled out the application form, please refrain
from reapplying. Any submissions with duplicative information will be
denied.

* Disclosure of listing information is forbidden until the company
officially issues its listing announcements.

* Unauthorized use of the company's logo in relative marketing material
is prohibited.

Additional questions (if any) will be asked by our listing team.

We thank you for your support.

Listing Application Form: https://forms.gle/qsBkiM6Ut82c3TvA8


Best Regards,

Bithumb Listing Team

Gangnam 17, Yeoksam-ro 7-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea

[TheWolf666]

Can you name an exchange to investigate?
But I, who have a small trading volume and also trade in several exchanges such as Binance, c-patex and graviex, usually have not received any money from me as a deposit and I suspect that this is a scam project.

Exchanges are fine, the problem is coming from scammers who are impersonating an exchange in a very sophisticated way.
Scam projects are easy to detect, just check their news, website and community. As for FRANC, we are doing crypto for +3 years (was Kryptofranc before) did our own blockchain that was working 2 years, and now we are doing this https://wolfonlinekingdom.com a social network with an economy based on crypto.
That's a lot of time and work put into a token.

Now some fancy projects with many people involved are scams, as you don't need to have a company with 10 people in an office to have a great project. These videos and fake websites are built for $20k paid to some Eastern countries. They handle everything for you, the 300 pages audit, the actors playing the CEO, the fake Linked-in etc...
So mainly the project itself is the only real thing that can separate scams from reality.

I agree that it is confusing for every one. And for us who are working on a real project, it is even harder to fight in this toxic environment.

[Dump3er]

Never heard of an exchange asking for a refundable security deposit in coin listing but if that's a big exchange like you mentioned, I don't see any problem with that as no way they will put their name on becoming sh*t as it will ruin their reputation.

But anyways, can you disclose in public the name of the exchange? We can get a better response from the community if the name of the exchange will be mentioned. And are you sure you are dealing with their legit representative?

I have actually dumped the people I was talking too, because of suspicion of scam. The exchange was Bithumb.
I also doubt that big exchanges would charge a security deposit of 4 BTC (lot of money) and refund it later. I guess that once you have sent the 4 BTC, you will never heard about these people.

I do not have 4 BTC anyway, so the discussion was over. But I am still doubtful, I haven't seen articles or reports about these kind of practices, so if it is a sophisticated scam, it is good to report it here and let people know, to avoid some people losing all to these scammers.

This is more than suspicious. I doubt you will find anyone on this forum who had to provide a security deposit. What was the reason they mentioned? Just to get started trading over there at Bithumb? Usually they aren't scammers, maybe you didn't even talk to people from Bithumb and fell victim for phishing?

I was contacted via Discord. Then they asked me to fill a very simple listing form at @bithumbcorp.com website. Their emails were listing@bithumbcorp.com and everything sounded legit.
They said that they passed the project review (took a week).
Then they created a Telegram account to ask some questions (3 people were there)... the conversation ended up talking about a deposit of 4 BTC for legal reason in case the coin has some litigation issues. This is when I felt the scam and stopped everything.
It is not the first time that I am contacted by people claiming this kind of security deposit, so I immediately catched up the scam.

I have since investigated the emails I received and they were forged, using
"Received: from wgh24.whogohost.com (wgh24.whogohost.com [23.94.191.186])"

You need to read the headers of the email to find the forgery, so it is quite a sophisticated scam, that involves several people and running for weeks.
I am 100% certain now that it is a scam, I am web dev for +20 years and these are very well crafted scam, not your regular Nigerian guy.

I would advise all coin developers to NEVER send BTC for listing your coin. Use USDT instead and be sure that they do an invoice from inside the exchange, that you can pay from money transfered to the exchange first.
Every transaction outside the exchange is suspicious.
Every transaction in BTC cannot be blocked.
USDT has a way to block a transaction and restore the funds, not BTC.

That's my conclusion about this event.
I also was scammed by people using a kucoin domain that was using a different type of i (using ì instead in the domain name. They had re-created almost all the visual for the exchange using kucoìn.com domain. On my 4K monitor I cannot see the difference with the original domain.

So guys be careful, these scams are very sophisticated even for web veterans.

Will, just from reading the first couple of lines of your message here it was obvious that it must be a scam. They set up another telegram account haha. That's the point where you should have started laughing because they are so bad at scamming. Happy you got to find out in the end! Take care!

[TheWolf666]

Never heard of an exchange asking for a refundable security deposit in coin listing but if that's a big exchange like you mentioned, I don't see any problem with that as no way they will put their name on becoming sh*t as it will ruin their reputation.

But anyways, can you disclose in public the name of the exchange? We can get a better response from the community if the name of the exchange will be mentioned. And are you sure you are dealing with their legit representative?

I have actually dumped the people I was talking too, because of suspicion of scam. The exchange was Bithumb.
I also doubt that big exchanges would charge a security deposit of 4 BTC (lot of money) and refund it later. I guess that once you have sent the 4 BTC, you will never heard about these people.

I do not have 4 BTC anyway, so the discussion was over. But I am still doubtful, I haven't seen articles or reports about these kind of practices, so if it is a sophisticated scam, it is good to report it here and let people know, to avoid some people losing all to these scammers.

This is more than suspicious. I doubt you will find anyone on this forum who had to provide a security deposit. What was the reason they mentioned? Just to get started trading over there at Bithumb? Usually they aren't scammers, maybe you didn't even talk to people from Bithumb and fell victim for phishing?

I was contacted via Discord. Then they asked me to fill a very simple listing form at @bithumbcorp.com website. Their emails were listing@bithumbcorp.com and everything sounded legit.
They said that they passed the project review (took a week).
Then they created a Telegram account to ask some questions (3 people were there)... the conversation ended up talking about a deposit of 4 BTC for legal reason in case the coin has some litigation issues. This is when I felt the scam and stopped everything.
It is not the first time that I am contacted by people claiming this kind of security deposit, so I immediately catched up the scam.

I have since investigated the emails I received and they were forged, using
"Received: from wgh24.whogohost.com (wgh24.whogohost.com [23.94.191.186])"

You need to read the headers of the email to find the forgery, so it is quite a sophisticated scam, that involves several people and running for weeks.
I am 100% certain now that it is a scam, I am web dev for +20 years and these are very well crafted scam, not your regular Nigerian guy.

I would advise all coin developers to NEVER send BTC for listing your coin. Use USDT instead and be sure that they do an invoice from inside the exchange, that you can pay from money transfered to the exchange first.
Every transaction outside the exchange is suspicious.
Every transaction in BTC cannot be blocked.
USDT has a way to block a transaction and restore the funds, not BTC.

That's my conclusion about this event.
I also was scammed by people using a kucoin domain that was using a different type of i (using ì instead in the domain name. They had re-created almost all the visual for the exchange using kucoìn.com domain. On my 4K monitor I cannot see the difference with the original domain.

So guys be careful, these scams are very sophisticated even for web veterans.

Will, just from reading the first couple of lines of your message here it was obvious that it must be a scam. They set up another telegram account haha. That's the point where you should have started laughing because they are so bad at scamming. Happy you got to find out in the end! Take care!

It was not really like this, they created a group with Telegram and 3 people joined. That was the final shot to try to get me into the scam. It was not so obvious.

[Dump3er]

Never heard of an exchange asking for a refundable security deposit in coin listing but if that's a big exchange like you mentioned, I don't see any problem with that as no way they will put their name on becoming sh*t as it will ruin their reputation.

But anyways, can you disclose in public the name of the exchange? We can get a better response from the community if the name of the exchange will be mentioned. And are you sure you are dealing with their legit representative?

I have actually dumped the people I was talking too, because of suspicion of scam. The exchange was Bithumb.
I also doubt that big exchanges would charge a security deposit of 4 BTC (lot of money) and refund it later. I guess that once you have sent the 4 BTC, you will never heard about these people.

I do not have 4 BTC anyway, so the discussion was over. But I am still doubtful, I haven't seen articles or reports about these kind of practices, so if it is a sophisticated scam, it is good to report it here and let people know, to avoid some people losing all to these scammers.

This is more than suspicious. I doubt you will find anyone on this forum who had to provide a security deposit. What was the reason they mentioned? Just to get started trading over there at Bithumb? Usually they aren't scammers, maybe you didn't even talk to people from Bithumb and fell victim for phishing?

I was contacted via Discord. Then they asked me to fill a very simple listing form at @bithumbcorp.com website. Their emails were listing@bithumbcorp.com and everything sounded legit.
They said that they passed the project review (took a week).
Then they created a Telegram account to ask some questions (3 people were there)... the conversation ended up talking about a deposit of 4 BTC for legal reason in case the coin has some litigation issues. This is when I felt the scam and stopped everything.
It is not the first time that I am contacted by people claiming this kind of security deposit, so I immediately catched up the scam.

I have since investigated the emails I received and they were forged, using
"Received: from wgh24.whogohost.com (wgh24.whogohost.com [23.94.191.186])"

You need to read the headers of the email to find the forgery, so it is quite a sophisticated scam, that involves several people and running for weeks.
I am 100% certain now that it is a scam, I am web dev for +20 years and these are very well crafted scam, not your regular Nigerian guy.

I would advise all coin developers to NEVER send BTC for listing your coin. Use USDT instead and be sure that they do an invoice from inside the exchange, that you can pay from money transfered to the exchange first.
Every transaction outside the exchange is suspicious.
Every transaction in BTC cannot be blocked.
USDT has a way to block a transaction and restore the funds, not BTC.

That's my conclusion about this event.
I also was scammed by people using a kucoin domain that was using a different type of i (using ì instead in the domain name. They had re-created almost all the visual for the exchange using kucoìn.com domain. On my 4K monitor I cannot see the difference with the original domain.

So guys be careful, these scams are very sophisticated even for web veterans.

Will, just from reading the first couple of lines of your message here it was obvious that it must be a scam. They set up another telegram account haha. That's the point where you should have started laughing because they are so bad at scamming. Happy you got to find out in the end! Take care!

It was not really like this, they created a group with Telegram and 3 people joined. That was the final shot to try to get me into the scam. It was not so obvious.

Nono, I didn't want to make you look dumb, but seriously as long as there is no official account involved or the support which you can directly access via their website, please never consider sending to anyone on Telegram. I get messages all day long asking for crypto because their mom has cancer and what not.
But your case is of course more interesting. Damn scammers.

[teosanru]

Never heard of an exchange asking for a refundable security deposit in coin listing but if that's a big exchange like you mentioned, I don't see any problem with that as no way they will put their name on becoming sh*t as it will ruin their reputation.

But anyways, can you disclose in public the name of the exchange? We can get a better response from the community if the name of the exchange will be mentioned. And are you sure you are dealing with their legit representative?

I have actually dumped the people I was talking too, because of suspicion of scam. The exchange was Bithumb.
I also doubt that big exchanges would charge a security deposit of 4 BTC (lot of money) and refund it later. I guess that once you have sent the 4 BTC, you will never heard about these people.

I do not have 4 BTC anyway, so the discussion was over. But I am still doubtful, I haven't seen articles or reports about these kind of practices, so if it is a sophisticated scam, it is good to report it here and let people know, to avoid some people losing all to these scammers.

This is more than suspicious. I doubt you will find anyone on this forum who had to provide a security deposit. What was the reason they mentioned? Just to get started trading over there at Bithumb? Usually they aren't scammers, maybe you didn't even talk to people from Bithumb and fell victim for phishing?

I was contacted via Discord. Then they asked me to fill a very simple listing form at @bithumbcorp.com website. Their emails were listing@bithumbcorp.com and everything sounded legit.
They said that they passed the project review (took a week).
Then they created a Telegram account to ask some questions (3 people were there)... the conversation ended up talking about a deposit of 4 BTC for legal reason in case the coin has some litigation issues. This is when I felt the scam and stopped everything.
It is not the first time that I am contacted by people claiming this kind of security deposit, so I immediately catched up the scam.

I have since investigated the emails I received and they were forged, using
"Received: from wgh24.whogohost.com (wgh24.whogohost.com [23.94.191.186])"

You need to read the headers of the email to find the forgery, so it is quite a sophisticated scam, that involves several people and running for weeks.
I am 100% certain now that it is a scam, I am web dev for +20 years and these are very well crafted scam, not your regular Nigerian guy.

I would advise all coin developers to NEVER send BTC for listing your coin. Use USDT instead and be sure that they do an invoice from inside the exchange, that you can pay from money transfered to the exchange first.
Every transaction outside the exchange is suspicious.
Every transaction in BTC cannot be blocked.
USDT has a way to block a transaction and restore the funds, not BTC.

That's my conclusion about this event.
I also was scammed by people using a kucoin domain that was using a different type of i (using ì instead in the domain name. They had re-created almost all the visual for the exchange using kucoìn.com domain. On my 4K monitor I cannot see the difference with the original domain.

So guys be careful, these scams are very sophisticated even for web veterans.

I have known exchanges ask for money for listing but a refundable deposit doesn't make sense to me at least. I think there might just be a fixed nonrefundable fee that's all. But anyways the experience you had is quite a useful piece of information, I would suggest you create a thread for it, so at least people know the ways these people try to scam you and what simple methods can you use to protect yourself from such things.

Especially this thing here:

That's my conclusion about this event.
I also was scammed by people using a kucoin domain that was using a different type of i (using ì instead in the domain name. They had re-created almost all the visual for the exchange using kucoìn.com domain. On my 4K monitor I cannot see the difference with the original domain.

This literally blew my mind, I do check for phishing now and then on all the exchanges that I use but have never seen things so minutely that I am able to distinguish between a simple 'i' and this 'ì', no human can do that in just a glance. I think it's better if one uses android or desktop apps, they are much safer I think.

[mobtc]

This is a scam. It’s safest to keep your own money on the Internet,  why don’t you go to a large exchange if you want to trade. Nowadays, many small exchanges are unreliable, it is easy to cheat your money.
I recommend you to go to exchanges like Binance. They have multiple password protection measures to ensure that your account will not be stolen or even deceived.

[Kemarit]

Good that you didn't proceed mate, because it sounds like a scam to me, 4 BTC is a huge amount and considering that it come from a supposedly top tier exchange? I highly doubt that.

I also did some investigations and found this:

https://medium.com/bithumb-official-blog/notice-notice-of-rumors-and-impersonation-and-fraud-related-to-bithumb-listing-909c543890d6

And as confirmed by them, there are no fees in listing.

Bithumb does not require a listing fee for any reason, such as security audits or deposits, and rumors of listing fees or listing costs are not true.

[Bitcoin Seller]

Hi

I am not sure if I am dealing with scammers, but I am dealing with a big exchange right now, and they are asking me to deposit cash as a security deposit, that is refundable the next months.

It sounds like a scam to me (are they going to run with this money and never list my coin)?

Is it a current practice?

I haven’t listed my token on exchanges yet, as I don’t have such a big experience to create my own coins, but I haven’t heard about asking for a deposit before. Nevertheless, if you are sure about this exchange (you said that it was big), there is no point for you to worry. This step from exchange might be quite reasonable. If your project is a scam they might pay for it to users. 

[roosbit]

Listing on most centralized exchanges is some sort of a service to you, so there is no way this can be a refundable unless otherwise. 
Op if you dealing with a big exchange try to get in touch with customer service via email or live chat if available and they will advise from there, hope you not contacting these guys through telegram or something as these are infested with impersonators and you don't want to be scammed.

[Shallow]

I might not know much about coin listing but I believe most exchanges have coin listing form or processes lined out on their website. You should be careful of Telegram though don't know if that is where your chat or research started from, because scammers keeps looking for ways to scam and they are willing to go any length for it.
My suggestion would be to, go to coinmarketcap to get the right website of the exchange and if possible their telegram or discord group is also there, nevertheless visit their website, check the Help, FAQ, Chat, Customer service or Support section, through all these section you will be able to get the right information needed for listing of a coin. Whatever process you are presented with might be what it is, because since all exchanges are different, so is their mode of operation and so on.