scammers with their everyday strategies

[Edith1994]

I was going  through my Facebook when a message pop up on my messenger  then when I go through the message, it's was all about a platform where I can grow my ETH , and invest as well ,  so I followed up  pretending as if I was interested on the so call platform, so I can detect the pattern of  which he want to use in  scamming. then he continued by  showing me the stages of the platform, some prove of payments,and  even called me on my video call through Facebook messenger ,on the video call asking me how much I want to invest, which I gave a reply, telling him with sincerity that I want to invest $5000 worth of ETH , on his mind he was so happy thinking he has made it or arrived at his game , then he asking me  if I have metamask wallet which I said yes and he also ask if I have backup my seed phrase on my  wallet , I replied no , he said Good, and  I also told  him I use metamask for all my trading too, then  he asked me to switch ON a particular network in my wallet and he told me steps to take on backing up the seed phrase, after all this steps , he told me that I wasn't doing exactly what he asked of me , I was so shocked, I asked how he knew I wasn't doing exactly what he asked of me , so he replied with a pigin English saying in quote, "you just they waste my time here since abi" and abusive words, then he blocked me. I was so edger to know how he knew I wasn't doing exact what he asked of me, so I contacted  a friend and explained everything that  happened, he replied saying I'm a lucky person, if I did the exact things that scammer told me all my coins  in my wallet would have been vanished.

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[Rruchi man]

Thank you OP for bringing this to the notice of the forum so other members can now be aware that this is a new method to swindle you of your coins. Newbies in crypto most especially should take note. Scammers are constantly devising new methods, hence you must constantly be on guard. Seek professional advice on issues of investment to avoid being scammed.

[The Cryptovator]

Though this isn't something new, but thanks for sharing with us. You and other users should take a lesson from here. Still, a lot of people do not understand the value of the seed phrase. Everything would be lost within sec. The policy that would save you is don't be greedy. A lot of greedy offers would receive through social media, you need just ignore all of them. Even you shouldn't click on any links to avoid malware attacks. Especially don't fall into beautiful girls trap.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

You seem to have a magnet for scammers, judging by the cases you’ve told over your few posts so far, even if on this occasion you claim to be in control, wanting to see how the scam attempt played through.

I don’t quite get exactly what he was asking you to do and knew that you were not doing, and it’s somewhat worrying that you state that you were shocked that the scammer knew you were not playing it through. I suppose you obviously did not install any software during the conversation, nor previously, that could have lead the scammer to be able to browse your computer/screen. Give it a thought, as it may be something to consider after what you’ve said so far.

[Coyster]

OP your story sounds pretty ambiguous to say the least, but asides that, mind you that it is somewhat wrong to pick random video calls from individuals you do not know personally, let alone someone you knew from the beginning is a scammer, by doing so you have exposed your face/identity (remember that anonymity is essential in the network). Even if you were trying to fish out the particular modus operandi of the scammer, there are other ways to go about it without actually putting your own self at risk.

[Pmalek]

Did you at any time visit the website of the alleged platform that the scammer told you about or did you update your MetaMask when talking to him?
I also came across a new type of scam attempt. Got a message from someone saying "hi Robert, what's the weather like in Sydney"? Obviously I am not Robert and I don't live in Sydney. The goal is probably to get me talking and possibly interested in some investments. If I replied with "I am not Robert, you are talking with the wrong person", she would say (and yes, it's a profile picture of some Asian hottie) "sorry, my bad. I am an investment broker trying to get hold of my friend. I have a great offer for him where he can triple his money in just 10 days". I go, "Oh really, tell me more"! And that's how it starts.

I saw a funny FB comment the other day somewhere where a guy wrote: "If some hot girl contacts you with investment advice over the Internet, block him!"

[_BlackStar]

-snip-

Uniquely, this story has too many punctuation ^[,] and it makes me confused to understand it properly. LOL

Various attempts at scam related to investment have been carried out both online and offline. I don't have much experience with online scam attempts as so far I'm not very active on social media but I have experience with offline structured fraud attempts although in the end I had to say no to that person ^{[my friend]} so I could prevent losses. It is a ponzi investment that is easily recognizable even though the method and name are different.

I saw a funny FB comment the other day somewhere where a guy wrote: "If some hot girl contacts you with investment advice over the Internet, block him!"

I would probably consider that suggestion to prevent losses. If his investment is profitable then I believe he will not offer anyone else to invest unless he has a mission to complete for his personal gain like raferal or others.

[Taskford]

Normal thing happening on facebook these dahs and if someone tried to tell you that they can grow your ETH and Bitcoin claiming that they are expert trader then market scam because they don't need to spam anywhere just to tell everyone that they can multiply your money and scammers only do that for their own benefits so if there's a newbie reading that better erase the thought on believing them since most likely they will get scam if they try to believe them.

[sheenshane]

It's common everywhere in social media and I know myself and I'm oriented about crypto investment so I usually ignored them or I didn't reply to them.
In Facebook, Twitter, and the house of scammers in Telegram it is very common that they send you and PM first.  Good thing OP that you are already aware of a possible scam and you avoided it quickly.

As I always said, we should always have extra vigilant in every strange people over the internet, especially those random people who pop up our inbox sending a message to us and offering something about financial matters, all of them aren't trusted.

[PrivacyG]

I also came across a new type of scam attempt. Got a message from someone saying "hi Robert, what's the weather like in Sydney"? Obviously I am not Robert and I don't live in Sydney. The goal is probably to get me talking and possibly interested in some investments. If I replied with "I am not Robert, you are talking with the wrong person", she would say (and yes, it's a profile picture of some Asian hottie) "sorry, my bad. I am an investment broker trying to get hold of my friend. I have a great offer for him where he can triple his money in just 10 days". I go, "Oh really, tell me more"! And that's how it starts.

I saw a funny FB comment the other day somewhere where a guy wrote: "If some hot girl contacts you with investment advice over the Internet, block him!"

It is not the first time I hear of this story.  It does seem to be a new kind of scam that is very popular at the moment.  They use a 'hot girl' profile picture and they chat with you as a method of attraction.  It used to be a Stock Market investment scam and now they are looking for Cryptocurrency victims as well.  And they do seem to find victims, just look 'asian girl exchange scam' up and you will find a lot of results.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[bittraffic]

Can anybody update us here on which particular network this scammer wants OP to switch ON?

There are several already to switch on and if this network is used by other scammers by sending an alt/token to lure some of us, users will be victims. Some people are excited to log in when they get some airdrop and it's an easy target for these scammers. It will be a good idea to learn these networks.

[tranthidung]

Scammers repeat their scam methods to find new victims. You are safe if you are aware of some facts

• Admins never DM you first
• Admins never ask for money
• Admins never ask for private key or mnemonic seed
• Any offer from strangers which is too good to be true is scam

It is not too difficult to know and most of people get scammed because they are either too naively or too greedy.

[acroman08]

how exactly did the scammer know that you weren't doing what you were supposed to do? did you download a screen share app of some kind or you were stalling for too long that the scammer took notice of it?

Can anybody update us here on which particular network this scammer wants OP to switch ON?

I am curious about this too. OP should clarify what particular network was asked by the scammer to be switched on.

[Pmalek]

Can anybody update us here on which particular network this scammer wants OP to switch ON?

I don't think it's that important. The network itself is not bad, it's not evil, and they all have their purposes. Mainnet is used by default, but the scammer might have requested that OP switches to a test environment, such as Ropsten or Rinkeby. Even if no network change was required, it's easy and cheap to create a worthless fake token on the mainnet and scam people with it. 

[passwordnow]

Do you know that person personally? I think that's another poser that has been using a dummy account to scam people. They're almost everywhere, in most facebook pages commenting and as well as messaging random people.
You did it right that you know the trick and you never fell for it. But there are some questions on my mind, how did that scammer know you're in crypto? You messaged him first or you're posting crypto stuff on your Facebook profile?

[Coin_trader]

he told me that I wasn't doing exactly what he asked of me , I was so shocked, I asked how he knew I wasn't doing exactly what he asked of me , so he replied with a pigin English saying in quote, "you just they waste my time here since abi" and abusive words, then he blocked me. I was so edger to know how he knew I wasn't doing exact what he asked of me, so I contacted  a friend and explained everything that  happened, he replied saying I'm a lucky person, if I did the exact things that scammer told me all my coins  in my wallet would have been vanished.

He can tell it base on the time he wait for your recovery seedphrase to appear on his phishing website. These hacker is assuming that you are fooling him around because a real newbie without knowledge on scam that showing interest on this scheme will probably fill up already on the link he provides for investment. There's a lot of this scammer on facebook especially on comment section they usually reply there phishing link on any comment that related to crypto.

[Edith1994]

Did you at any time visit the website of the alleged platform that the scammer told you about or did you update your MetaMask when talking to him?

I didn't do anything he ask of me I don't even have metamask wallet, I just pretended as if I was doing exactly what he asked me to.

[Pmalek]

You did it right that you know the trick and you never fell for it. But there are some questions on my mind, how did that scammer know you're in crypto? You messaged him first or you're posting crypto stuff on your Facebook profile?

Such information can easily be obtained from user profiles. Unless everything is hidden and locked from the general public, you can see what interests someone has, what groups he follows, what he likes, etc. You can also get a lot of information by looking at group members or the comments of people who post in crypto-related groups. It's safe to assume that if I am a member of several popular crypto groups on Facebook and I write in those groups, I am also interested in cryptocurrencies.

[qwertyup23]

I was going  through my Facebook when a message pop up on my messenger  then when I go through the message, it's was all about a platform where I can grow my ETH , and invest as well ,  so I followed up  pretending as if I was interested on the so call platform, so I can detect the pattern of  which he want to use in  scamming.

Anything that involves money offered from an unknown person is somewhat alarming. Even it was from the legit site, it can't be possible to have that kind, OP. I think we should need to be more vigilant about what pop-ups on our phone, PC/laptop. We should have to read it carefully and think even twice before giving a reply or ignoring it.
We can't get scammed if we don't. Even we don't have to pretend that we know their plan, that was clear enough what is their intention.

I highly agree with you. If there is an unknown person who contacted with you stating that they are an investing firm and required you to invest a minimum amount of money, then it is highly likely that such is a scam. No matter how pleasing the rates they may offer, you could never really trust anyone on the internet until you have verified all their documents supporting their project/investments.

OP, good thing you were able to avoid this kind of scam on Facebook. Normally, lots of newbies tend to be persuaded by scammers who offer significantly high rates in hopes of attracting them.

[Bitcoinbride]

OP your story sounds pretty ambiguous to say the least,

Exactly, do scammers really make video calls and expose their real identities or this is just another story that was not well fabricated. Maybe the face you saw on the call was another person's face, but I doubt that a scammer will use their face for a task like this and risk exposure to the authorities.