Looks like a phishing attack! Should we avoid them?

[hugeblack]

It is a scam and it is best for you to report any links you find in private (unless you trust the account holder). These links may contain viruses or, at the very least, will lead to revealing your identity.
I think it was not sent to you randomly, but rather part of a social attack, so be careful about sharing your data and always ask about any service, especially those that seem too good to be true.

0.005 is approximately equal to more than $132, which is a large amount to get for free.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

Technically, the account wasn’t really phishing through the link he sent in the PM, but rather scamming. At least that is the impression I got reading through the Untrusted Feedback on his profile:

He/she is promoting scam exchange where is giving free 0.005btc that can't be withdraw but asking people to send 0.002btc or it's equivalent first.
Don't trade or do business with this person.
Scam exchange link: <url>

I believe that the above Trust entry was written in relation to a thread he created at the time on the forum with the same content:
https://ninjastic.space/topic/5461045

Theoretically, the account could have been banned in view of rule number 29:

29. Sending unsolicited PMs, including but not limited to advertising and flood, is not allowed.

I figure it will depend though on people actually reporting having received this type of unsolicited PM, and the amount of recurrence (a one off likely won’t get him banned, but if he sent the same PM to quite a few there should be grounds for a ban of some sort).

As mentioned, spending some sats on acquiring a Copper Membership is no measure of trustworthiness, though perhaps it is something that people see as "meaning something" until they know better.

[isaac_clarke22]

~

Well regardless if it was a phishing attack or not, you should never trust any links send by someone in any forms of communication. Back in the days that I was trying to do airdrops, some random email came through coming from the dev team of the airdrop reached out to me saying that I can now claim my tokens in their site. Turns out it was an attempt to get my PKs stolen.

Others input isn't only exclusive to this forun, OP. Stay safe out there!

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

Just as the first person said, you should report this kind of PM, as it's unsolicited. I think while I was a member rank, I received this kind of PM twice, and I only ignored those users because their PM was pointless. OP, in the crypto space, a lot of things are happening. Scammers and hackers are working 24/7 just to develop a new strategy to hack investors assets, and with all their ploit, it would not even be difficult for them to pay some small amount just to make sure they get what they want. To obtain a copper account, it does not require you to pay a significant amount of bitcoin, so it's easy for a scammer or hacker to just pay that little amount in order to obtain a copper account. Everybody should trade cautiously.

[Broadanbig]

I had to check the site myself to see to the outcome how it  would be. It seems that what members replies here suspected it to be is truth. How can they be sending  unsolicited messages to people just to get at them. This is against the forum policy so there I will join other members here to advise you to report that message and account to moderator to keep track of the activities of that account holder so as to forestall any further occurrences which would emanate to members been hacked.

Looking at the content of the message,one would easily tell the nature of this message and where it is point towards..it would only take a smart trader to decipher their gimmicks and do away with them. This is scam and as such should be deleted immediately without any further delay.

[Renampun]

I received this message a while ago, but came to know about it recently, I am not a crypto expert, but I do have some idea that this is some sort of phishing attack. But honestly, at first, I thought it was not, because the member has a copper account means he must have paid some amount to register the account. I came to know about copper membership from here ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5198278.msg52972617#msg52972617 ). I thought he had paid some amount so he must be generic because he has spent money so why would he try to attack others using the same account? While can get banned after doing it?

I have learned a lot about this forum, and also learned a lot about crypto from it too. But I think we should all avoid these types of messages. But I thought I should have shared it here for confirmation purposes and to warn others about these types of scams. I hope I am not posting something that is already been discussed. TY

Thank you OP for sharing it in this thread, I'm sure the scammer account only sent private messages to small accounts because I never got the message, whatever it is, as long as the message isn't sent by a trusted member then don't ever believe that message, keep your account password confidential because it is very valuable.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…> as long as the message isn't sent by a trusted member then don't ever believe that message <…>

And even so, one needs to be sharp on his wits. It wouldn’t be the first time that a high-ranked account has been hacked on the forum, and used to try to scam people, or even gone rouge.

The link sent around in the image shown in the OP, and the site it subsequently took one to, would likely make one suspect, disregarding the actual account that sent the PM. Nevertheless, some people might be captivated by receiving a PM from certain accounts (high-ranked/Trusted/Reputable) and go for it blindfolded.

[bananaunana]

Thanks to all for responding to this query, I am glad I made the right choice of not clicking the link and I have reported the message to the admins, and let's see if the person gets banned or warned.

Do you have news here? Did moderators issue a ban or warning?
Because for such fraud, action needs to be taken to prevent more suspicious link cases.

[SamReomo]

Yes, it's a scamming attack and you have done a great job by reporting it to the moderators. That user will soon get banned because sending such messages with such links often leads to a permanent ban. This scammer was so clever that he bought cooper membership in order to scam other members. I hope that you reports will soon come to fruition and the scammer will get banned from this forum.