Scammer with a conscience?

[Captain Corporate]

An agreement not to pursue legal action voluntarily can mean a lot.

The attackers funds after the return are able to be sold so they can getrid of them without having to worry about potential seizures or facing investigations.

Well, an investigation might still follow but after having gotten rid of the funds it's to no avail. Their legal recourse is also better after having made an agreement.

That's mostly fear than having conscience, because we all know that scammers are no longer keeping that. Otherwise, they will lose their job and their main source of income.

But I don't think this is the best thing to do. Scamming does not stop because there are too good people that easily melt their emotions and pity the scammer, that shouldn't be. It does not discourage them, it only motivated them to get smarter and wiser in their next moves.

Scammers have no job. They just wait for an opportunity where they can thug someone and run away with it. A lot of scammers are now active since decades and are yet not caught. Only a handful of these who wind up making silly mistakes are caught so this is till a motivating factor for them which keeps scammers quite active in almost every industry. These scammers are just getting smarter and now with AI, they can achieve unexpected things.

There should be examples created so scammers can actually fear something. Their mentality is very straight, wake up, scam someone and have a good night's sleep. These scammers do not even care about people any more and can still sleep for 8-10 hours.

[jossiel]

Returning the stolen funds especially in the light you've shared shows conscience. Educated the victim, as well as raised awareness of such schemes. The height of it for me was returning the stolen funds. $68 million is a lot of money and returning it whether in part or in whole means a lot.

Possible that he had educated the victim and kept some % of the fund for his action.

But thinking if they had conscience, if he did have that I think he has never done the hack by then.

Both actions might be out of their decisions and emotions but, actions done later after this will still differ and it's up to the victim if he'd do something bout it or forget about it and move on.

[Alphakilo]

Returning the stolen funds especially in the light you've shared shows conscience. Educated the victim, as well as raised awareness of such schemes. The height of it for me was returning the stolen funds. $68 million is a lot of money and returning it whether in part or in whole means a lot.

Possible that he had educated the victim and kept some % of the fund for his action.

But thinking if they had conscience, if he did have that I think he has never done the hack by then.

Both actions might be out of their decisions and emotions but, actions done later after this will still differ and it's up to the victim if he'd do something bout it or forget about it and move on.

Am sure fear instigated such reaction because it would have been quite difficult to launder such an amount especially if the hacker was acting alone.
It definitely has nothing to do with conscience because he would have not become a hacker in the first place if this was the case.
The risk was just much hence he acted in a thoughtful manner.

[jossiel]

Returning the stolen funds especially in the light you've shared shows conscience. Educated the victim, as well as raised awareness of such schemes. The height of it for me was returning the stolen funds. $68 million is a lot of money and returning it whether in part or in whole means a lot.

Possible that he had educated the victim and kept some % of the fund for his action.

But thinking if they had conscience, if he did have that I think he has never done the hack by then.

Both actions might be out of their decisions and emotions but, actions done later after this will still differ and it's up to the victim if he'd do something bout it or forget about it and move on.

Am sure fear instigated such reaction because it would have been quite difficult to launder such an amount especially if the hacker was acting alone.
It definitely has nothing to do with conscience because he would have not become a hacker in the first place if this was the case.
The risk was just much hence he acted in a thoughtful manner.

Yes, it's out of question about the conscience.

Because the intention is obvious there and whatever is the next action of it won't change the fact that he had targeted the victim, took his funds.

Although it's never too late to play as a hero by returning the funds but that isn't changing the fact about the probable cause.

[atookz]

The owner got lucky (I would say) since he didn't lose everything to the scam although. Do you think the scammer had a conscience or was he scared?

Well, I suppose it's half and half or may be none at all. It didn't look like he was feeling bad and sending it back, there was a negotiation process in play and as far as what I read, a security firm (Match Systems) and an exchange (Cryptex) were involved. Later, the guy had been exposed through digital evidence, device fingerprint or something like that, And Match Systems' CEO said. If that's the case, then it makes more sense to me that he was identified and couldn’t easily cash out than that he suddenly felt bad.

The bizarre thing about it is that he sent back the entire 22,960 ETH even though the victim was said to have offered a 10% bounty. It's not a typical deal, anyway. Pressure probably, and some human side, but I can't be certain of that.

I find more useful though, how the victim lost it in the first place. He sent a small test transaction, and the attacker copied this from a look-alike address, and he ended up copying the wrong one. Checking only the first and last couple of characters wasn’t enough, imo. He would have been fine if he hadn’t copied from the transaction history and had saved verified addresses instead.

[Taskford]

Returning the stolen funds especially in the light you've shared shows conscience. Educated the victim, as well as raised awareness of such schemes. The height of it for me was returning the stolen funds. $68 million is a lot of money and returning it whether in part or in whole means a lot.

Possible that he had educated the victim and kept some % of the fund for his action.

But thinking if they had conscience, if he did have that I think he has never done the hack by then.

Both actions might be out of their decisions and emotions but, actions done later after this will still differ and it's up to the victim if he'd do something bout it or forget about it and move on.

Am sure fear instigated such reaction because it would have been quite difficult to launder such an amount especially if the hacker was acting alone.
It definitely has nothing to do with conscience because he would have not become a hacker in the first place if this was the case.
The risk was just much hence he acted in a thoughtful manner.

I also believe that angle, because if the scammer keep all the funds. For sure he will be tracked, but for sending majority of the funds and keep low percentage could make the victim decide to move on.

Scammers has no conscience, so probably that action made is not about scammer show mercy. But rather a strategy, so he can easily move the remaining funds easily.

The bad actor here still wins, since eventually he still get huge money from his victim.

[Comeacross]

I could not believe what I was reading, so I had to confirm it, and found this:
https://amlcrypto.io/blog/the_hacker_returned_almost_all_the_funds_to_the_user

I am surprised that the hacker took 15% and returned the rest(edit: he did not took that 15%) because these hackers are not good people. They are not usually like this. Maybe this specific one is an honest hacker. Or when they exchanged messages on Telegram, the whale who lost funds might have threatened the hacker, or might have cried and begged him to return the money, saying, "Please have mercy and return my money."

Well, hackers are not the same as scammers. Scammers purposely scam to steal but some hackers do hacking just to let you know that your security system is weak and this is not even the first time stolen funds are being returned. So, yes we have honest hackers and some of them even get job with companies that hire them to help check their system and help discover flaws. Some of them do participate in bug bounties genuinely and earn from it. Although, I'm not saying all hackers are saint but most of them do it to make money legitimately. From the link you posted, I saw a threat from the victim and maybe it's the reason he didn't hesitate to return them.

[Felicity_Tide]

~snip

The owner got lucky (I would say) since he didn't lose everything to the scam although. Do you think the scammer had a conscience or was he scared?

And what if it's neither of the options?. Op, I don't think there's an accurate answer to this considering the fact that none of us was working with the scammer, so there's no way we could have known whether he willingly sent it, or he was just being scared. Perhaps, if there had been more information/interaction between the scammer and the victim, then it would have been easier to draw a conclusion.

But my guess is that the scammer probably just had a change of heart which is quite a rare thing in the crypto space afaik. But mind you,. there's also another possibility that the attacker might just be trying it out_{(maybe for the very first)}, and wasn't necessary prepared for what comes after the attack_{(which sounds likely not to be true)}.

[Yeesha]

A while back in 2024, someone lost $68 million worth of crypto after sending funds to a scammer using an address poisoning attack. The victim sent an onchain message asking for the money back, and the scammer replied:

"please leave your telegram, i will contact you."

the scammer eventually returned nearly all the stolen funds. I initially thought the scammer only kept 15% of his funds as a bounty for the person being stupid but a user here Mrbluntzy clarified that

The on-chain report I see stated that the hacker returned 22,960 ETH and it was worth about $65.7m - $67.1m, which represents about 96% of the total money that was stolen. Based on what was even reported, the difference in the money the hacker returned was because he converted the WBTC that he stole to ETH and Ethereum price has already fallen relative to the value of the WBTC he stole.

The owner got lucky (I would say) since he didn't lose everything to the scam although. Do you think the scammer had a conscience or was he scared?

I don't think the reason why he returned the money is because he is afraid, if he is afraid he wouldn't have done that from the first place, but after he has succeeded in his mission, do you think he will return the money because he is afraid? I'm going to answer this question with a capital NO. I can give you full assurance that no matter how aggressive or strict you are, your threats will never scare a hacker, because they always have everything covered, so you will just be making an effortless / empty threats. It is either the victim plead the hacker and luckily he was able wake up the humanity in him. And again the hacker has conscious, so that's why he returned the money.

[Mrbluntzy]

Am sure fear instigated such reaction because it would have been quite difficult to launder such an amount especially if the hacker was acting alone.

I visited other reports about this case and from what some of the report said, seem like the hacker was already identified through some digital evidence related to his device information, if that's actually true, then it's possible that he was scared. Normally, he would have just disappeared after stealing the money but replying to the blockchain message is something that most of those bad ass scammers will not do. Has he not return it, they would have probably track him down and he will end up serving some prison terms.

[Byebyebtc]

I can't say why the hacker sent the funds back, it was either fear, practicality, or conscience!

BTW, what if this is all plotted to evade taxation? Can they evade tax this way? I am not an expert, just a thought!

From what I read I feel its as a result of fear, probably he has a lot more to loose who knows,

The victim was being so authoritive towards the harker even giving him a deadline to return the funds, I know in situations like this the victim will want to threaten, but this one was another level, the harker must have been in thoughts similar to this that will make him send back 90%
The victim also said he will not be able to clean the funds that it will be tracked, so some how it does make sense that it's as a result of fear.

[serjent05]

Sounds like a scripted scam to me just to create a sensational online story.  True scammers will never return what they had scam, and if this is not a scripted scam it is highly possible that the scammer were traced and were informed being monitored and out of fear of being jailed reach out to the victim and return the funds.

Btw, everyone has a conscience, even the baddest person has one.  It is that most of these people are wicked and do not make their decisions according to moral standards.

[Japinat]

Sounds like a scripted scam to me just to create a sensational online story.  True scammers will never return what they had scam, and if this is not a scripted scam it is highly possible that the scammer were traced and were informed being monitored and out of fear of being jailed reach out to the victim and return the funds.

Btw, everyone has a conscience, even the baddest person has one.  It is that most of these people are wicked and do not make their decisions according to moral standards.

Scripted or not, but true scammers always stick to their mission, and that is to steal the funds that they have been eyeing for long. Otherwise, if they will only return what they have scammed, they are only putting their own selves at a higher risk, to be identified and later on could be put in jail. So if I were the scammer, I would not do something and risk myself after. I'm starting to believe that this one is scripted.

Yes, all humans have their own conscience. Even scammers have that, but they don't prioritize that. If they do, they won't succeed on their job and earn a living.

[Aliciaworld]

Possible that he had educated the victim and kept some % of the fund for his action.

But thinking if they had conscience, if he did have that I think he has never done the hack by then.

Both actions might be out of their decisions and emotions but, actions done later after this will still differ and it's up to the victim if he'd do something bout it or forget about it and move on.

Do you think it is possible for a victim to contact the scammer who just made away with their funds like this victim did and possibly reach a kind of compromise with them? Do you think it is safe to do so? Would you advice a victim against it?

From a security or emotional standpoint, do you think they have more to lose?

[Bitcoin_people]

The owner got lucky (I would say) since he didn't lose everything to the scam although. Do you think the scammer had a conscience or was he scared?

People who are part of a fraudster gang are never afraid, but they try to cheat people in such a way that they become bankrupt. Fraudsters have no conscience, but they basically cheat with the intention of cheating people. However, the person who was cheated in 2024 lost everything, but later he might have sent a message and received feedback from the fraudster. The fraudster was not afraid, but his conscience might have prevented him a lot, and at the last moment he might have returned all the money to that person. We often see that our conscience prevents us a lot before doing a bad deed, just like that fraudster might have prevented his conscience later and did not fix the act, as a result of which he returned the money later. However, the fraudsters who exist today never cheat with this kind of mentality, but they cheat people to make them bankrupt and improve their position, so we have to be careful.