Newbies be aware of this "exchange" type of scam.

[cafter]

Two days ago I had received a twitter notification, where i was tagged by a exchange's twitter account. (bitclaus.com is the URL of the probably Definitely a scam exchange)
where they said that I with some other users has won around 10,000 USD to trade, this is not that type of bonus where the exchanges or broker gives some free USD which are claimable as a trading fee.

This was real money, after finding out this I quickly rush to signup on the exchange (because there was only 3 winners and the account had 10k+ followers)
and after signing up, I gone to withdrawal page to withdraw the 10k USD but after filling all the blacks and clicking the withdraw button, A window pops up saying that you need to complete verification to be able to withdraw and because of AML policy.

after reading this I thought this will be a KYC type verification, but not. that verification will successfully complete when I will deposit $150 to their deposit address. after that I will be allowed to withdraw that 10k.
Then I realized that, Oh this is another new scam (first time with me) so I searched on trustpilot, google about this exchange and no results after writing exact name of the exchange and no reviews on review site.

they newly registered the domain some days ago to scam people: https://who.is/whois/bitclaus.com , and the exchange template used and theme is so real and trusty,

It's possibly or definitely a scam, I shared here because sometime the situation seems so real that we cannot resist ourselves.

Avoid sites and people who promise to give free money, avoid those sites who tell you to deposit or send money first then receive your prize/crypto/anything.
Avoid any free money from a stranger.

here are some images in order:





 

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[Findingnemo]

Thumb rule: Avoid anything that is too good to be true.

Here the exchange or casino why need to give someone rewards when they don't even have an account there this itself enough for me to conclude it is a scam but you went further and predicted before it was too late.

The template is ditto of what I used to remember years back when someone random person will contact and ask for help with the verification because the person wasn't able to complete verification due to legal status in their country and they even show you their account balance.

[Victorik]

Recently Twitter has now become the headquarters of scam, with all manner of links flying around. Just recently someone complained of how his wallet was drained after clicking a link on twitter. Not to mention the drop your wallet for so so and so token will be airdoped into your wallets shit.
It's really crazy out there. One has to be really extra careful not to fall for these scams.

[Pandu Geddon]

Those who rarely participate in airdrops or campaigns on social media might easily realize that what they get is a fraudulent scheme.
but for those who are happy with the airdrop and register a lot on social media, maybe they won't realize that they are being cheated.
Most of those who do airdrops just pick a campaign and do as much as possible. and when they get a notification of a big prize like that, maybe they feel lucky for one of the airdrops they have done.

we have to understand the situation first. because it will not be possible for anyone to give prizes from any event or campaign by asking the event winner to make a deposit first.

[DdmrDdmr]

The subjacent is not really something new, but the technique or hook used to bait people may vary a bit from one scam case to another.

This site actually looks visually appealing on the surface which, alongside some baited pretext spread through social media, may actually end-up drawing people the trap. Often we’ll find that these scam sites are derived from a proforma of some sort, being able to easily discover other sites with an almost identical layout such as these:

Code:

https[colon]//bitfinest[dot]org/
https[colon]//savetrex[dot]pro/
https[colon]//bityfix[dot]com/

They simply diversity their attempts over multiple sites, drawing people there through social media diverse hooks. If a site is shut down, rinse and repeat with a new name.

[Upgrade00]

Some scam websites like these goes to the extent of allowing you to withdraw some amount of money to convince you that they are legit. After getting a little amount of money out, you want more and would be willing to part with some of your personal money to get it.

Whatever the strategy is, the blue print is always the same. The catch sometimes may not even be money but your personal data, so be careful where you submit KYC.

[MusaMohamed]

Two days ago I had received a twitter notification, where i was tagged by a exchange's twitter account. (bitclaus.com is the URL of the probably a scam exchange)
where they said that I with some other users has won around 10,000 USD to trade, this is not that type of bonus where the exchanges or broker gives some free USD which are claimable as a trading fee.

after reading this I thought this will be a KYC type verification, but not. that verification will successfully complete when I will deposit $150 to their deposit address. after that I will be allowed to withdraw that 10k.

Giving $10k as a big gift with a condition that you will have to deposit $150 to withdraw the $10k gift.

Sounds very fishy and it can succeed to scam very greed people who ignore all basics to avoid scam.

I searched to find more examples for this scam type and found not exactly what I want but something similar.

Crypto Scam Tracker

The scam escalates scam money and if anyone falls to be a victim, lost money is very big.

Kenskr AI
kenskrksr.com

A California victim was introduced to an AI investment platform through somebody they met on the Facebook dating app. The scammer showed the victim the website for the investment platform – kenskrksr.com – as well as a white paper about the AI trading program. The scammer also introduced the victim to a Telegram discussion channel where others convinced them to invest.

During the holiday season, the platform advertised double earnings. Around the same time, the scammer told the victim she would give them an additional $10,000 if they invested on Kenskr. The victim invested a substantial amount. At this point, Kenskr froze the victim’s account and said that the victim would have to pay them $23,000 in taxes to withdraw funds from the account. The victim’s balance was so high that they sent the $23,000 to Kenskr to withdraw funds. Kenskr then asked the victim to transfer another $10,000 as a deposit that would be returned to them after the tax is paid. After the victim transferred the additional $10,000, Kenskr asked for even more money, saying it was necessary because of “higher U.S. tax deposit requirements”. Around this point, the victim realized they weren’t getting their money back from the Kenskr platform.

The victim was then contacted again by the original scammer. The scammer told the victim that she could help resolve the issue with Kenskr by lending the victim $7,000. However, the scammer told the victim that they would have to transfer $3,000 to the scammer before they would help. The victim wired that money to the scammer, but the scammer then disappeared and the website is no longer operational.

How the Ethereum Giveaway Scam Works

For example, scammers may offer to send 2 ETH for 1 ETH, 10 ETH for 5 ETH, and so on. They also create a sense of urgency by claiming this is a one-time opportunity, with a limited supply of 50,000 ETH available for the giveaway. Once the cryptocurrency is transferred to the scammer’s wallet, the victim will not receive any return on their investment, as the entire scheme is fraudulent.

[_act_]

This was real money, after finding out this I quickly rush to signup on the exchange

How were you able to sure that it was real money and not just a number? But even if it is real money, you do not need to rush to sign up on the exchange. But I think you know what to do next time. First of all, as it is from Twitter, the way you were reached, you should know that you were only targeted by scammers. But you should not bother but check for the date the domain of the exchange is registered which is not quite long. That would be enough evidence that they want to scam you without registering on the exchange.

It's possibly or definitely a scam

You know already that it is 100% scam. Then not possible buy definitely a scam.

[cafter]

How were you able to sure that it was real money and not just a number?
 

First it was in my spot balance on the exchange and that was withdrawalable when clicking but needs to send $150 USD after clicking the final withdraw button after filling all the address and other info.

You know already that it is 100% scam. Then not possible buy definitely a scam.

Lol,  Got confused because of their nice theme or exchange template used.

[acroman08]

Then I realized that, Oh this is another new scam (first time with me) so I searched on trustpilot, google about this exchange and no results after writing exact name of the exchange and no reviews on review site.

great job realizing that it is a scam and doing your research to verify your suspicions, as the saying goes "if it's too good to be true, it probably is"

one of the things I love about this forum is that forum members are being exposed to different types of scams and other members advising on how to spot them that they are now learning how to spot if something is a scam, and they also learn to do their research to verify things before proceeding any further on what they want to do.

[_act_]

How were you able to sure that it was real money and not just a number?
 

First it was in my spot balance on the exchange and that was withdrawalable when clicking but needs to send $150 USD after clicking the final withdraw button after filling all the address and other info.

On exchanges, it is not your keys. Even if it is a legit exchange, what you are seeing is not money but just a number. The ones that are real is when you have the money on your wallet and you have the keys and you will be able to know that the coins are on blockchain and not just a number that you are seeing on exchanges. It is not real coin even in legit exchanges not to talk of fake exchanges. This is what some newbies may not know until they are scammed.

[stompix]

The subjacent is not really something new, but the technique or hook used to bait people may vary a bit from one scam case to another.

Definitely not something new!
There are even more elaborate ones that follow the same scamming principle but trickier like Upgrade00 mentioned:

The scammer advertises an exchange in which you can get 1000$ for free by trading, they offer a $100 play money and a 5$ that you can actually withdraw(!) once you did enough trades with the script money, but to get the other you need to make enough volume and deposits and of course, at that point you will have no option to get any $ again. I saw this one a while ago and it was targeting only users who claimed to have thsoaudns either invested, stuck in exchanges, betting and so on, and the referral code they used was unique. I got one of those "invites" from somebody who was suspicious and it id allow me to get him the 5$ but when I tried to sign up on my own there wasn't even a page for sign-up.
These guys go only for the big fishes, so one hit can cover the $1000-$2000 they spend on others.

There are also other scams that just go after your KYC data, they don't even care about the money, probably they are either in a jurisdiction where it's risky or they haven't had any success in it and specialize just in stolen data, maybe even including the pass and email.

But yeah, the general idea, to pay $100 to get $1000 for "verification" is just dumb!

LE:
Oh wait, it's not just the prize money scam, they are also offering Ponzi like investment strategies:



LLE:
Do a google search for "Manipulating user balances: $10,000"
There are hundreds of these!!!

[mk4]

Yeaa, no half-decent exchange would demand anyone money to be able to "unlock" funds; unlocking funds(deposited money, in this case, not "free" money) are frequently unlocked through submission of AML/KYC documents.

[michellee]

Thanks for the information @OP.

If you do nothing and get an email saying you won a prize like that, you should be careful. There is no free lunch. You should know that so we can stay away from it.

There used to be exchanges that sent emails to random people. And the method is the same as what you received. People had to deposit some money. It was more than $150 at that time. I don't know how many people have been deceived but there are quite a few. And there are also those who feel it is a scam after being told to deposit some money.

Yes, such scams will continue to happen. Fraudsters will use methods they have already used. And surely someone will eat their trap so that people will be fooled. So be careful.

[SatoPrincess]

This was real money, after finding out this I quickly rush to signup on the exchange

There are no freebies in this world. It’s incredible people still fall for this scam, it is surprising that even someone with enough experience as yourself could still let greed make you believe that some exchange would randomly gift you $10k. It’s a good thing you eventually saw the red flags and bolted. But if the scammers had sent a phishing attack, it’s possible you’d have clicked the link without verifying first.

[nakamura12]

I wonder if newbies will make their own research about how to determine a scam site or when they receive suspicious links or tags like this. Nothing really beats prevention than becoming victim first before increasing the security. Scams like this still exist in the internet just to scam people. It is also known for others that sending funds first before you can get the money is totally a scam attempt if you haven't fall for it but for others, I am sure some will be interested in it and lose money. Newbies should check this thread and be thankful that you have shared this one.

[yhangmhany22]

bitclaus is pure a scam, beware.

[Mr.right85]

after reading this I thought this will be a KYC type verification, but not. that verification will successfully complete when I will deposit $150 to their deposit address. after that I will be allowed to withdraw that 10k.
Then I realized that, Oh this is another new scam (first time with me) so I searched on trustpilot, google about this exchange and no results after writing exact name of the exchange and no reviews on review site.

Same old tricks just applied in a different way.
One means I’ve been able to stay above the radar over the years has been to avoid not having to reap from where I did not sow.
Just how can an exchange you don’t patronize, you don’t follow, aren’t running some sort of campaign which you are a part of or had an on going promotion of any kind just message you in a rare chance $10k allocation meant for just 3 individuals, it’s a sure way to get reaped.
$150 might seem small when matched to $10k but, that’s where the game starts and you ain’t the only one they would be doing that to. Cheap and saturated scam schemes, your warned to know better.