It is said that with every bull run there is always an increase in the number of scammers.
I have been in the crypto space for sometime now and what I can tell you is that there are many scammers in this space who want to fleece unsuspecting crypto noobs.
Source
I remember when I had just joined Steemit when over 10 different guys tried to scam me through discord by impersonating Steemit whales!!
Today I have not come to talk about those folks who impersonate but scammers who use your greed to their advantage!!
All humans are inherently greedy even if most if not all people will deny it.
I will not dwell into the psychology of this greed thing but show you how anyone could have fallen victim to what I went through.
I will again remind you that greed can get us into problems if we do not tame it.
I know you might be tired of me telling you in your face how greedy you are hahahaha.
**Okay let me narrate my scam story below.
**It was normal Sunday when I was chilling when I received a random message on Telegram as shown in the screenshot below.
It has to be noted that this was the time Bitcoin began rebounding to the !6800-7000 value!
As I stated above, these scammers always suffice when prices are rising.
Let me drop the first screenshot below.
This guy out of the blue wanted to give me 30% of his 1.75 BTC !!!!!
Like who TF does that??? So this was the first red flag for me.
I asked him to be sure of what he was saying and he said that he cannot transfer Bitcoin in his country so he needed me(a stranger!) to help him out!
He even sent me some screenshot explaining the ban in his country,the warning message had some errors like the misspelling of the word government! Another red flag!
He sent me some website that I should sign up on so that he can transfer the funds internally to my newly created account!
I played along and also opened the account. I sent him the address(from this new website) that he would send the 1.75 BTC to.
I played a long and followed his instructions, I did all these as I waited for my last and final red flag and I confirm it as a scam hahahaha.
One of the signs that confirmed that this is ascam was the speed with which the 1.75 BTC reached my wallet!! It was so instant from his wallet.
I remember this same day it took me over 2 hours to confirm a BTC transaction.
He now sent me an external address I should send the 1.4 BTC to so that I remain with 0.35 BTC!!!
H e now told me to withdraw to his external wallet instead of sending(transfer).
On trying to withdraw, he transaction failed to go through!!!! I knew what he was upto here hehehe.
I knew at the back of my mind that I had to put in some effort(personal BTC) to earn the 0.35 BTC!!!
You have to remember that the withdraw address is his!!
The error was that I first had to deposit money on my account to activate it and it should be 0.002 BTC and above!!
I sent him the error message and he pleaded of how he sent me his crypto hahaha.
He pleaded with so that I deposit some btc to activate the account so that I can go with the 0.35 BTC he promised.
I guarantee you that if I was greedy at this moment , I would have activated the account by depositing BTC that would go directly to the external address he gave above(if you remember)
I now began playing games with him by turning the ball against him hehehe. I told him I have not BTC and he should help himself(or us) by depositing BTC to activate my account so that I can send him his 1.4 BTC!!
The chat became tense as we were figuring out how to deposit the BTC to activate the account.
He told me he has ever used this account from Japan bla bla. I told him to use VPN and he became tough as you can see below!!!
He tried to play on greed by saying that I would save 0.4 BTC if I activated the account and he even said I can buy or borrow from a friend!!!!
H told me to transfer the BTC back which I tried to do, but the system refused because I had not activated the account.
I told him that if he really had 1.75 BTC, then 0.4 BTC to activate the account wouldnt be a problem here!!!! Can any sane person lose 1.75 because of 0.4!!
He has never replied upto to tomorrow hahahaha.
If you can clearly see the name he is using, it shows deleted.
When we were chatting he had a real name, I guess it turned to deleted after he tried to scam another person who may be reported his account to telegram as scam!!!
So folks , if I had deposited the money to this account, it would activate the account and he would tell me to click on withdraw and the money would to his bitcoin address which he had told me to save as in the dashboard!!!!!
Remember the dashboard has transfer and withdraw option! He told me to click on withdraw which would transfer the BTC to his external wallet.
I might be wrong and maybe this guy was genuine, what do you have to say about this situation I went through or have you gone through it before??
Love
Jarau Moses