[Warning] New way of scamming in telegram

[GxSTxV]

I want to warn everyone who uses Telegram for bounties, signature campaigns, or has joined a group with known and trusted bitcointalk users. There is a new method scammers are using to deceive people by pretending to be someone else, and it can be very dangerous and tricky. This is a new trick for most people who use Telegram and have users from bitcointalk in their contacts they can easily fall for it. Me for example if someone on my contacts asked me for a favor i will do it if i could since the people on my contact are well trusted



I will explain what we understood about this trap how it can be set to look like someone from your contacts is having a conversation with you.

This incident occurred on the @Royse777 Telegram group "Bounty Hunters," ( where most of the participants in Royse's campaigns follow the group for updates about weekly and bounty payments) . A scammer used the @emoneyabc profile in Telegram to create groups with users on the same group and looking for victims, i was added to a group of 3 people Me, @emoneyabc and another person. The messages were sent from a user called exactly as emoneyabc and has the same picture when you click on it it takes you to the group informations and users so you will find the official @emoneyabc profile. No doubt it’s the legit and original account.
Now you will be sure that you are dealing with the user you know from your contacts, now things get more exciting when that person you trust is asking you for a favor to pay one of his customers because someone or an emergency ( anyway the story will be different every time)


The most dangerous and concerning aspect in this case is that @emoneyabc never created that group, we were both added by the scammer who is using either a different version of Telegram or a bot to bypass the app's privacy settings. As we had both set our settings so that nobody could add us to a group, yet we were still added. Everything appeared normal but it was not. And hopefully nobody fell into this trap YET


Now i hope that @Royse777 and every community manager, signature and bounty manager that has a telegram group and contacts to warn his users and to be careful. And @emoneyabc is still looking for more information and maybe he give us more details here

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[wwzsocki]

This is my account @emoneyabc

This is new scam I haven't seen so far, everybody i talk to is very surprised and scared at the same time

I was added to this group despite I have privacy settings that don't allow that

additionally when i click on that profile that looks like mine, I am taken to group description and not the personal profile

Looks like this account doesn't exist, don't have profile only this is owner of this group we are in actually, hope is clear?

There is no group admin, and there are only 2 members me and that second person I assume scammer @dwong8 (his TG username), and account that looks like me is not a member of this group!

If anyone have idea how they do it, please share that we all can learn from it how to be secure in such circumstances

DON'T FALL TO THIS!!! ALWAYS CONFIRM IN DM, PM IF PERSON YOU TALK TO IS NOT AN IMPOSTER!!!

[yahoo62278]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5448698.0 This topic is already being discussed in reputation. It's nothing new though, scammers have been doing this for years now. Make sure you read a users @name carefully when dealing with users in telegram.

[wwzsocki]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5448698.0 This topic is already being discussed in reputation. It's nothing new though, scammers have been doing this for years now. Make sure you read a users @name carefully when dealing with users in telegram.

this is not the same scam but indeed similar, here this is even harder to decipher that this is not me

somehow imposter creates TG account that doesn't exists, when I click on that profile, username, comment in chat I am taken to group description page that is set up to look like my personal profile

additionally imposter add people to group despite privacy settings that don't allow that

anyways for sure is worth to mention there about this thread and maybe merge them together,

thanks for letting know

EDIT

yes is almost the same scam you are right, I just read it, he added few tricks this time, looks like this is even the same person

if you read it don't take it easily, i am using Telegram from very long time and as far this is the easiest way to be scammed because all seems to be so real for an untrained eye

[Potato Chips]

somehow imposter creates TG account that doesn't exists, when I click on that profile, username, comment in chat I am taken to group description page that is set up to look like my personal profile

This is a telegram feature. Owners/admins in group chats can choose to "remain anonymous" - go to your group settings > administrators > choose an admin > remain anonymous.

When this option is turned on, you won't be able to see them in member list unless you're also an admin. When they chat, they will retain the group's picture and name - that's why at the start we see the perp match the group's picture and name to @emoneyabc's account.

additionally imposter add people to group despite privacy settings that don't allow that

This is the strange part   but it seems like a new feature, last I check months ago, there was no "nobody" and only "my contacts" and "everyone".

[acroman08]

just curious, have you reported this to Telegram? I mean the part where you were being added to a group despite having enabled the "not allow" on privacy setting?

additionally imposter add people to group despite privacy settings that don't allow that

This is the strange part   but it seems like a new feature, last I check months ago, there was no "nobody" and only "my contacts" and "everyone".

this shouldn't be a new feature and if it is, it is a stupid one, I mean, what's the point of having a privacy setting that doesn't allow other people to add you to their group if Telegram decided to add this feature.

[aioc]

just curious, have you reported this to Telegram? I mean the part where you were being added to a group despite having enabled the "not allow" on privacy setting?

additionally imposter add people to group despite privacy settings that don't allow that

This is the strange part   but it seems like a new feature, last I check months ago, there was no "nobody" and only "my contacts" and "everyone".

this shouldn't be a new feature and if it is, it is a stupid one, I mean, what's the point of having a privacy setting that doesn't allow other people to add you to their group if Telegram decided to add this feature.

Privacy is a big concern for everyone here on the internet, social medias have these features and Telegram already has this but many of us are not aware of it, I used to be one of them until I noticed there are so many messages coming in when I logged in I just found out I am in so many groups.
Privacy and securing our account should be our main concern, scammers are roaming around they want you to make one mistake to steal your funds and your identity, and security should be your concern when you are online.

[Potato Chips]

This is the strange part   but it seems like a new feature, last I check months ago, there was no "nobody" and only "my contacts" and "everyone".

this shouldn't be a new feature and if it is, it is a stupid one, I mean, what's the point of having a privacy setting that doesn't allow other people to add you to their group if Telegram decided to add this feature.

Uh, might have worded that poorly lol. But I meant the feature where people can set who can add them in a group chat to "nobody". Because if they just recently rolled it out, there's a higher chance that it's not that stable yet - there could be bugs and whatnot.

But yeah, whatever the case, report to telegram i guess. Aside from the typical support channel, they also have this for bugs, see: https://bugs.telegram.org/

[AHOYBRAUSE]

I was also targeted by the same guy with basically the same script.

"Can you send user xyz 220$ in usdt? I will settle it in 3 hours."

After I said I can't he tried another approach telling me he would send around 250$ via Paypal and I should send 220$ in crypto and keep the rest, which I also declined. After some more words the whole chat was deleted by him.

Didn't think much of it because I was busy with something and I was actually convinced it's the real person because we spoke about that crazy scammer before. He delivered bad translation work and requested more money.

Lucky I didn't fall for it. From now on I will always confirm if the person is the real deal.