Random token in your wallet with value? It may be a gas fee scam trap

[Mia Chloe]

~snip

I can remember a long while ago there was a casino I did a wallet connection with and I used trust wallet back then obviously because It was temporary. I used it for a while then until I can remember there was a time I received a couple tokens I've never heard of I no longer have connection to the wallet anymore though.

Nevertheless what I'm trying to say is reading this your post now it seems a lot like this is exactly what they wanted to pull but I doubt it would have been successful as I barely had anything there or even used it.

[DYING_S0UL]

If anyone isn't aware of how to check the tax of a token, then usually they will fall into that scam.

They say you never stop learning, so yeah this thing is entirely new to me. I don't recall hearing about such scamming technique, nor do I know about this 100% TAX rule. Would you be able to provide me some links about this tax thing? I tried google searching, but it ain't coming up on my search (I'm im using the wrong keywords). 100% TAX? That even possible? This feels ridiculous as hell. Moreover, how can we figure out whether a token has 100% tax? Are there any tools/extensions of sort?

[Patikno]

I heard about a new type of scam, at least new to me. I am not sure if you are already familiar with this type of scam; I haven't noticed something similar on the forum. So I think it should share with the community in advance to avoid such scams.

First of all, a scammer will deploy a mintable token with a maximum 100% tax, including transfer tax in the main chain. Like if you transfer tokens in Binance Smart Chain, then you have to pay the $25 equivalent in BNB as transfer fees. This means when you are going to sell, that transfer tax will be applied. However, the scammer will organise a token sale somewhere in a decentralised launchpad. Then they will accumulate all the tokens from the launchpad. If someone bought during that time, never mind.

I have heard about this scam several times, and as far as I know, the creators of these shitcoins are using smart contracts to enforce these unreasonable taxes. Furthermore, I still hear about several honeypot scams involving shitcoins, and some people still complain about them. Even though these cases are commonplace, it is strange that there are still victims. So, I think beginners should pay closer attention to this discussion to avoid becoming the next victim. Don't be easily tempted by unknown shitcoins in your wallet, verify it first, check the smart contract, and make sure it is true.

I have a few hundred dollars in my wallet, but it is all scams, if I rush to exchange/swap it (without checking the sc, and its authenticity), and then I will lose money. The point is, don't be greedy.

If anyone isn't aware of how to check the tax of a token, then usually they will fall into that scam. So be aware if you receive something like these tokens that show a lot of value. You have to think first: why have you received that token when you haven't done anything? Consider it a red flag when you receive tokens that show value on the chain. Check the tax; it's not hard, and you may check on the appropriate explorer. Otherwise, you should learn.

I have created a thread about checking smart contracts, and some of them also support checking sc (smart contract) on other networks. So, I hope you will visit it to check it out, and I hope you find it helpful.

Reference :  bitcointalk.org - Several Platforms to Make It Easier to Check SmartContracts

[CryptSafe]

I was a victim of this back in 2022 or 2020; I can't recall correctly. What they did back then was just that there was no a transfer tax added to the token, but there was a high slippage set on PancakeSwap, where you need to have a specific amount of fee before you can swap. I first spent the fee gathering the token into 1 wallet, then I tried to swap it into BNB or the next pair, and I was told it could not go through. I had to increase the slippage up to 30% or more, and my fee of more than $5 was deducted the first time, and the transaction after a few minutes showed as unsuccessful. I had to try it a few more times until I ran out of gas. Only then did I remember to run a search and notice a few people were complaining on Reddit and Twitter, now known as X.

I had a similar experience a few years ago, where I tried swapping on a DEX and the transaction kept failing, but fees were deducted on the tries I made. I lost $12 for that swap. After experiencing it concurrently, I had to check and see what people were saying about the token and the DEX, only for me to realize that it was a scam coin and was programmed to function in such a manner while deducting fees that are not refundable.

[avp2306]

That's dusting and still popular attack nowadays, people need to be more careful dealing with this attempt because their wallet might get compromised by said attack.

If they want to know more about it there's site discuss about this topic.

For ETH https://99bitcoins.com/news/altcoins/ethereum-dust-attacks-fusaka and this is for Bitcoin dusting https://bitcoinmagazine.com/glossary/bitcoin-dust

Also this is good to read and learn more about this attack https://www.tools4crypto.com/scams/dusting-attack

Crypto became more popular and expect lots of scammers will continue to use that to stole the funds of people.

[sokani]

The scam is not new to me. I have read about it, and what prompted me to look it up was the day I opened my MyEtherWallet and saw an unknown token with an outrageous value. I felt something was not right, and when I did some research, I got to know it's a scam. The tokens are a honeypot, and you could lose your funds when you try to transfer or swap them.

[taufik123]

If it's a junk token that you may have been involved with the token project in the past and suddenly the price goes up,
then it's possible that it could be sold, but provided that the project is still alive or in development.

But if you find a random token in a wallet that comes from nowhere, don't try to sell it, it's a trap to start draining your wallet,
if you agree where the wallet should be connected, all your balance will be drained.
A lot of scams like this happen, it's a trap and don't easily trust any token that has never been involved in the project.

[Powerjumboo]

All these posts are very awareness-raising and everyone who has posted here has written very important things. When we open our wallets, we see that there are many worthless tokens, which have no value and there is no place to sell them anywhere. Those who do not understand the matter, newbies can get a lot of joy from seeing such tokens and can happily enter there and fall into the trap of fraud, but of course we should be aware and be careful not to transfer such tokens if we see them. I avoid everything, which is why I have not fallen into the trap of fraud. Everyone should be aware, if you are aware, no one can trap you in fraud.

[Porfirii]

-snip-

If anyone isn't aware of how to check the tax of a token, then usually they will fall into that scam. So be aware if you receive something like these tokens that show a lot of value. You have to think first: why have you received that token when you haven't done anything? Consider it a red flag when you receive tokens that show value on the chain. Check the tax; it's not hard, and you may check on the appropriate explorer. Otherwise, you should learn.

End of the day, you lost your transfer tax and gas fees as well. Though amount small but scammer targets millions addresses.

Thank you for the advice Cryptovator. Although I have received shitty tokens plenty of times before in some of my wallets, and therefore I don't think this is the case you described with them, the fact that the value of the tokens you mention is high would be tempting for anyone who hasn't heard about this scam.

You are right that for the victim it is no more than a few dollars lost, but the important thing is that someone with bad intentions and initiative ends with a lot of money, that might be used to enable even bigger scams.

[Chinesebaby]

After the sale they will target some address where they have decent funds. Then it will add big liquidity on the Dex and enable trading. Then they will send tokens into targeted addresses, and they will trade them as well to generate volume. So when the token receiver sees he received a decent amount of tokens that are worth some dollars, then he might check where trading is and try to sell. During the sale he might notice the transfer fees, but he would think it's worth like $20K, never mind about the $25 equivalent BNB. After the sale he will get nothing since the scammer implemented a 100% tax.

If anyone isn't aware of how to check the tax of a token, then usually they will fall into that scam. So be aware if you receive something like these tokens that show a lot of value. You have to think first: why have you received that token when you haven't done anything? Consider it a red flag when you receive tokens that show value on the chain. Check the tax; it's not hard, and you may check on the appropriate explorer. Otherwise, you should learn.

End of the day, you lost your transfer tax and gas fees as well. Though amount small but scammer targets millions addresses.

Thanks for sharing this insightful scamming trick to our wonderful bitcointalk community, because to be honest, this is my first time of hearing about this scamming method you just explained above. And in a nutshell, this is also another reason why newbies need to prioritize investing in Bitcoin only and avoiding all this newly launched tokens that coins with so many risk, and it's also very volatile. And sometimes, it's obvious that greedy people are the most likely to fall victim to this exact scam you just mention above when they will just login their wallet and sees $20k without knowing it's actually not a real money.

[tabas]

I usually have those dust tokens that are in my old wallets and I care less on them. But it's sad that there are users who are an easy target for these scammers. They know that when they made their victims greedy that's already a sign that they've won them.

And in a nutshell, this is also another reason why newbies need to prioritize investing in Bitcoin only and avoiding all this newly launched tokens that coins with so many risk, and it's also very volatile. And sometimes, it's obvious that greedy people are the most likely to fall victim to this exact scam you just mention above when they will just login their wallet and sees $20k without knowing it's actually not a real money.

Newbies should really invest in Bitcoin and it is a must. Because of them hearing success stories on various altcoins, they become the easiest targets whenever there see and think that there's a free money on their wallet sent to them by a generous stranger.

[OcTradism]

I usually have those dust tokens that are in my old wallets and I care less on them. But it's sad that there are users who are an easy target for these scammers. They know that when they made their victims greedy that's already a sign that they've won them.

They're not dust tokens but they're actually scam tokens and you must avoid interacting with such tokens. Otherwise, through interactions with scam tokens and scam smart contracts, you will give access to your wallet for scammers and they will steal your coins.

Assuming you consider such tokens are "dust", it's already not worth to interact with them, but I'd like to emphasize again, they're scam tokens so that you will see more and bigger reasons to avoid touching, interacting with these tokens.

Check and avoid those honeypot tokens.
https://honeypot.is/

[tech30338]

If you see token that are in your wallet which in your knowledge never have any transaction on them, i highly recommend to never touch or just ignore them, or maybe just hide them so that in the future you don't accidentally make a transaction because you may see that it has value, i have this before in my wallet and never do any transaction to swap or sell, because this might give or help the scammer hacker gain access.
In the future never just connect your wallet to any application, because this might be the scammers hackers to send a fake token that might be accidentally trigger something.

[jcojci]

I don't heard about this and new for me. Well, it is strange if we gets new token without doing anything so we should investigate and search for more to finds out. But I just worry with those greedy people who will think that they get a free token that can worth hundred or thousand value and think to sell at the exchanges. They might get scam by this and lost their money without taking too long and my wallet don't show many tokens and the value is less now.

[tabas]

I usually have those dust tokens that are in my old wallets and I care less on them. But it's sad that there are users who are an easy target for these scammers. They know that when they made their victims greedy that's already a sign that they've won them.

They're not dust tokens but they're actually scam tokens and you must avoid interacting with such tokens. Otherwise, through interactions with scam tokens and scam smart contracts, you will give access to your wallet for scammers and they will steal your coins.

Assuming you consider such tokens are "dust", it's already not worth to interact with them, but I'd like to emphasize again, they're scam tokens so that you will see more and bigger reasons to avoid touching, interacting with these tokens.

Check and avoid those honeypot tokens.
https://honeypot.is/

That's right, they're not worth it to put up and there are some of them would even put some notes and websites on their tag if someone checks them on the network. I think all of us have seen and dealt with them but it's useless to go on with them when the amount isn't that much and even it's big, that's not worth it the risk that they possess and it's best to avoid them when we know that we've never joined an airdrop and there's no announcement that there's some tokens have been given away.

[avp2306]

I don't heard about this and new for me. Well, it is strange if we gets new token without doing anything so we should investigate and search for more to finds out. But I just worry with those greedy people who will think that they get a free token that can worth hundred or thousand value and think to sell at the exchanges. They might get scam by this and lost their money without taking too long and my wallet don't show many tokens and the value is less now.

Actually you can see lots of new tokens which has been sent to you if you check your wallet thru blockchain explore. So if you find something suspicious or unknown tokens which already in your wallet, much better not to touch it to avoid any inconvenience.

Much better not to interact on something you don't know and stay alert. Also safest action to do is to learn this type of attack and know how you can avoid it.

Knowledge is our weapon here that's why its good to be updated on those malwares and dust attack so we can learn how to protect our assets.

[knowngunman]

If anyone isn't aware of how to check the tax of a token, then usually they will fall into that scam. So be aware if you receive something like these tokens that show a lot of value. You have to think first: why have you received that token when you haven't done anything? Consider it a red flag when you receive tokens that show value on the chain. Check the tax; it's not hard, and you may check on the appropriate explorer. Otherwise, you should learn.

Greed will never allow people to mind their business. It has been discussed here severally that it is always risky for someone to interact with any unknown token they discovered in their wallet irrespective of its value. Unfortunately, people don't seem to listen to or act based on what we discuss here. Once they notice the strange token has a reasonable value, they'll attempt to take advantage not realising that scammers are dangerously smarter.

Look, let be honest with ourselves, there's no free money coming into your wallet just like that. It's either a mistake or deliberate attempt to scam you. Whatever the case maybe, stay vigilant and never rush to make hasty decisions. It's mostly a trap.

[dansus021]

I do know this and this kind of scam is actually still be implented till this date if you have transferred USDT/USDC or other kind of stablecoin to an exchange you most likely will sent some fake token by the scammer. Fail TX on eth or any other chain will cost you fee like a lot because their code itself like looping or something like that. The Free Token Windfall is one of the oldest traps in the book.

Their smart contract code is a one-way street. The code allows you to receive the token, but the moment you hit Sell on PancakeSwap or Uniswap, the contract executes a 100% tax, giving you 0 ETH back and pocketing your gas money. Never try to swap a token you didn't organically earn or buy.