Smart contract scams on YouTube

[_act_]

This can work on other special other places like social media.

The attacker used aged account to post videos. The video can be AI generate to reduce cost but not all are AI generated. The attacker use the comment section to promote the scam. Anyone that falls for it and send money to the smart contract address provided by the scammer are scammed this way.

An example is the one on this link:
https://www.sentinelone.com/labs/smart-contract-scams-ethereum-drainers-pose-as-trading-bots-to-steal-crypto/?utm_medium=paid-search&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=amer-us-brand&utm_term=sentinelone

The scammer use trading bot advertisement to scam their victims over $900 thousand.

Be careful of what you see online. I always know that something related to bots are used to to scam recently. The trading bots are advertised to scam their victims.

[DPHOR]

This is one thing that usually happens when people are so much desperate over something and shouldn't be that having fast finger of doing things online especially those things that do relate to payment and transactions.
Besides how can I so much trust someone on YouTube or any social Media platforms to send them money for me to have something bigger in return, this is why they are being trapped because they are doing their research before pushing further and from my experience over here I wouldn't be that dumb to rush into things that relates with finances.

[BABY SHOES]

This scam, with losses exceeding $900 million, is a massive fraud.

How could they possibly believe that sending funds to a smart contract would yield profits? This is likely identical to a Ponzi scheme, but disguised with YouTube videos to make it seem legitimate.

There are now many scams... if an offer promises unrealistic profits, it is definitely a scam. Because there is no such thing as a 2x return.

[Coyster]

How could they possibly believe that sending funds to a smart contract would yield profits? This is likely identical to a Ponzi scheme, but disguised with YouTube videos to make it seem legitimate.

The scammers are advertising a cryptocurrency arbitrage trading bot, so you can understand why people would fall for it, they are prolly looking for bots that would trade automatically for them. The scammers also use very old Youtube accounts and control the comment section, deleting negative comments and posting many positives for themselves.

Be careful of what you see online.

Absolutely. People don't verify, before they launch things like this on their device, and they just go on to send funds to scammers. If you are looking to trading bots, i don't think a random Youtube video is the right place to find one.

[The Cryptovator]

The attacker used aged account to post videos. The video can be AI generate to reduce cost but not all are AI generated. The attacker use the comment section to promote the scam. Anyone that falls for it and send money to the smart contract address provided by the scammer are scammed this way.

The scammer use trading bot advertisement to scam their victims over $900 million.

Be careful of what you see online. I always know that something related to bots are used to to scam recently. The trading bots are advertised to scam their victims.

I am really afraid when I need to use a bot where I need to submit my wallet credentials or any other sensitive information. Because I am not experienced in coding and don't know how the bot was built, actually. So the simple solution is to ignore such bots and promotional schemes as well. Sometimes scammers use hacked accounts to scam this way; we are witnesses to how the scam happened on the hacked Twitter account. The problem would be the AI creating realistic videos that would convince newbies to trust the scam.

However, we just need to be simple and not be greedy. You can see most people are encouraged to earn quick money in a short time. So they trusted the scammers bot and eventually lost their funds. We must need to understand reality and research ourselves. I have never used any trading bots in my life, and I will not. Whether it's trusted or not, I am just not interested at all. Thanks for the warning; I hope new people can take a lesson from this story.

[albon]

$900,000 is an extremely large amount, which shows that this scam strategy has become very effective. Scammers have been able to steal from thousands of innocent victims using it.. I have known about this tactic for a long time, yet I didn’t realize that some people would actually trust these YouTube channels out of their greed for automatic profits.

These people should avoid the promise of quick and easy money , as it's usually a trap and what makes this tactic even more convincing is the presence of fake positive comments.

Everyone should avoid using trading bots or trying to deploy one on Remix, or even depositing money into them like the 0.5 ETH mentioned, because scammers will be able to completely drain the wallet.

[BlackBoss_]

This can work on other special other places like social media.

The attacker used aged account to post videos.

They use old accounts that are not necessarily to be their own accounts but most likely bought accounts or hacked ones. Scams from YouTube related to cryptocurrency are not scarce and they used to do scams with x2 giveaways like send 1 ETH to their address, senders will received 2 ETH.

Be careful of what you see online. I always know that something related to bots are used to to scam recently. The trading bots are advertised to scam their victims.

Be careful.
Be cautious.
Be ready for doing your due diligent research and verify information you see with enough double checks.

Be disciplined and doing these steps can help you minimize risk of falling to scam attempts.

[LogitechMouse]

---
The scammer use trading bot advertisement to scam their victims over $900 million.

Be careful of what you see online. I always know that something related to bots are used to to scam recently. The trading bots are advertised to scam their victims.

I open YouTube at around 5-10 times a day, and every time I open it, the first video that pops out on my screen is an advertisement with regards to trading bot, a trading strategy, or somebody who won a significant amount of money just to scam these ignorant and newbie investors and aspiring traders out there.

It's a bit unfortunate, that on a yearly basis, around a billion dollars are going to these scammers just because of these stupid advertisements online. I always say that "If it's too good to be true, it's not true at all." Learning really is very expensive nowadays. You need to spend a thousand dollars more or less in order to learn how not to get scammed. It's even more expensive than a trading course or any course from a LEGIT mentor or gurus.

To all newbies out there, always beware of what you're seeing online. Scammers are evolving, so we need to as well if you don't want to be like one of those people out there that got scammed by these stupid online predators.

[tbct_mt2]

It is not the same but again Youtube channels are used for scam. Scams are not too hard to know and avoid especially with development of AIs, it makes searching and learning more easily than ever before for people.

Only people who don't mind to search and learn with AI or traditional search engines can be easily scammed by this method on Youtube.

Collection of comprehensive guides on identify and avoid scam projects.
Youtube scam channels. Please spend your time to report them and take them down.

[Su-asa]

Thank's to you for sharing with us this new strategy that scammers are actually using to scam people with little knowledge of how scammers operate. However with the help of an AI, different scams strategies are coming up and with how AI have becoming advanced it's even hard to detect an AI generated contents. So you did well to share these with us. How they gets those old accounts wonders me, do they actually buy it or hack them. If they buy those accounts, it basically shows that the owner of those old accounts is supporting the scam.

[Oshosondy]

I open YouTube at around 5-10 times a day, and every time I open it, the first video that pops out on my screen is an advertisement with regards to trading bot, a trading strategy, or somebody who won a significant amount of money just to scam these ignorant and newbie investors and aspiring traders out there.

You can use Brave browser if you are using laptop for it. It will block all the ads.

Maybe other apps can do that but I was only using Brave browser for it. I later noticed that ads blockers on most other browsers are off by default, I later enable it on most browsers and it worked. The recent one I tried it is Opera mini and it worked and also on other browsers but I do not know if it will work for YouTube because I am using YouTube Premium since some years back and it blocks the ads and give higher quality videos.

[Hatchy]

Be careful of what you see online. I always know that something related to bots are used to to scam recently. The trading bots are advertised to scam their victims.

It's no longer a new thing that people get scammed through social medias. Places like telegram, twitter and YouTube are one of the most targeted for criminals to get their potential victims. The trading bot scam isn't new as well. And this is quite possible due to how many people want to rush into trading the financial market but don't want to spend time and resources into learning how to trade.

They only want to rely on a bot and make free money so eventually they might end up getting a scammer to Preach lies to their ears about a bot that can print thousands of dollars without doing anything..
They would tell them that such bots copy the trades of professional trades in the industry and replicate it making them free money.. it's mostly scam so everyone should avoid it..

[jackpotmaster]

The fault lies in those that fall to these scams and not in those that do them. How fucking stupid do you have to be to risk your money with a random trading bot you saw on an advertisement? This level of incompetence and naivety just confirms that you are unable to responsibility hold your money and you should not even hold your own crypto. The point is proven by the fact that such people lose money.

The scammer use trading bot advertisement to scam their victims over $900 million.

The article says $900k and not $900 million which would be insane. $900k is more reasonable for such theft.

[un_rank]

The article says $900k and not millions and with how these scams are commonly run not all of that will be stolen funds. Scammers may send funds to the smart contract to convince people to also do the same, this gives the impression that others trust the trading bot and can help convince a victim to send their funds too.

YouTube is not a scamfest. I will expect anyone into crypto will not trust random comment sections, but scammers keep finding ways to take money from people.

- Jay -

[DYING_S0UL]

The attacker used aged account to post videos. The video can be AI generate to reduce cost but not all are AI generated. The attacker use the comment section to promote the scam. Anyone that falls for it and send money to the smart contract address provided by the scammer are scammed this way.

The trading bots are advertised to scam their victims.

How does this scam takes place actually? And why would someone send anything in the first place? Sorry but I don't understand the process. Will you kindly elaborate a little! I get that the smart contract is designed to drain the funds but one have to first send the funds right? Or is it through the malicious trading bot you mentioned? Or is it that they are promoting like, "if u send a certain amount in to this smart contract address, it'll give you a certain percentage of profits"!!!

[Patikno]

This can work on other special other places like social media.

The attacker used aged account to post videos. The video can be AI generate to reduce cost but not all are AI generated. The attacker use the comment section to promote the scam. Anyone that falls for it and send money to the smart contract address provided by the scammer are scammed this way.

An example is the one on this link:
https://www.sentinelone.com/labs/smart-contract-scams-ethereum-drainers-pose-as-trading-bots-to-steal-crypto/?utm_medium=paid-search&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=amer-us-brand&utm_term=sentinelone

The scammer use trading bot advertisement to scam their victims over $900 million.

Be careful of what you see online. I always know that something related to bots are used to to scam recently. The trading bots are advertised to scam their victims.

Sorry, I think you meant $900k, or is that different from the source you cited?

Yes, surely we have to be careful about what we see online. I often watch YouTube channels discussing crypto, and when they get a lot of views, scammers often exploit the comments section to promote their scams. Not only that, but I have also seen some suspicious promotions on other platforms, like Telegram and Facebook. However, the bottom line is that we must remain vigilant about any information we see or receive, always be skeptical, don't be easily tempted or lured by anything that looks "Too Good to be True," and most importantly, avoid anything suspicious and it could be better not to try anything about it, this warning is important especially for beginner in crypto.

[_act_]

Sorry, I think you meant $900k, or is that different from the source you cited?

It has been corrected. Thanks for the correction.

[Nwada001]

When I saw the insane amount mentioned, I was thinking it's a combined scam of different types that have been on YouTube over the years, but reading through the article, OP, you have made the mistake of giving an extra number, which moved it from the hundreds of thousands into hundreds of millions.

One similar scam that once trended on YouTube and X was hacking the account of an influencer and bringing up a wallet address, which sometimes can also come in the form of a smart contract, to which the victims are convinced to send a certain amount and receive double, if not more, in the same token or a totally different token.

The greedy ones looking for quick cash are always the highest customers of these scammers.

[Alphakilo]

How could they possibly believe that sending funds to a smart contract would yield profits? This is likely identical to a Ponzi scheme, but disguised with YouTube videos to make it seem legitimate.

Quite incredible isn't it?

There is free information literally everywhere but people are becoming too lazy and too attention short-spanned to spend at least 5 minutes researching to get knowledge. And if it is not about some quick way to get rich people will hardly watch your YouTube video. And scammers who are the masters of psychological tricks, know this and are exploiting it effectively.

And this is working because people are getting scammed to the tune of $900k US. And this is even more because this is just the one that is reported that we know of. There are others that have gone unreported that could even be more than this.

[Coyster]

How does this scam takes place actually? And why would someone send anything in the first place? Sorry but I don't understand the process. Will you kindly elaborate a little! I get that the smart contract is designed to drain the funds but one have to first send the funds right? Or is it through the malicious trading bot you mentioned? Or is it that they are promoting like, "if u send a certain amount in to this smart contract address, it'll give you a certain percentage of profits"!!!

All the information regarding the scam is available in the link that the OP shared. The scammers advertise a trading bot using an old Youtube account, this would make victims trust the details of the video, which explains to them everything about the smart contract scam that they have to launch. When a victim follows the instruction, launches the smart contract and funds it, the money is routed to the obfuscated scammers wallet address hidden in the smart contract. Voila, money gone, scammer richer!

And this is working because people are getting scammed to the tune of $900k US. And this is even more because this is just the one that is reported that we know of. There are others that have gone unreported that could even be more than this.

There have also been a lot of unique addresses uncovered in this scam. So it is obviously not even perpetrated by one scammer, but a lot of them operating separately.