Topic: Be Aware of those Dodgy Exchanges Support telegram account. (Read 236 times)

I am in most exchanges support channels in Telegram and I can 100% say that exchanges support or employee will never PM you first ever, it is the first and basic rule you should learn whether it was exchanges or ICO project whenever you receive a private message from someone claiming to be from the team you should always close the message and counter it with a message in the public group.

The fact that these scammers are still doing this only means that they are still finding victims by doing so which is really sad.

Not just on telegram. I've also seen spoofed exchange emails, discord scams, skype scams etc. that are of the same nature.

I guess you're right, people are impatient and they panic when they see an issue with their exchange account so they try to seek for immediate help, and sometimes that ends up hurting them as they encounter scammers.

Be extremely cautious if anyone proactively approaches you on any live chat platform, claiming to be the rep or support of an exchange. Also be aware of anyone that is "having issues" with an exchange, and require your assistance. Don't be greedy, as most bonuses that are listed are scams as well. But most of all - the rule of thumb is that never send any funds to an exchange outside of their normal deposit protocol. It makes no sense for support to have to ask for your funds to a different address to that of your normal deposit address.

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Good guide, btw.

You can avoid unwanted spam PM or adding you as friends even if you have common server by doing the following easy steps:

1.   Go to User Settings

View image

2.   Click Privacy & Safety
3.   Check Keep me safe (Scan direct messages from everyone)
4.   Disable Allow direct messages from server members.
5.   Disable Everyone and Friends of Friends who can add you as a friend.

View image

Disable Allow direct messages from server members.
When someone from common server Direct Message you, Clyde Bot will message him/her.
Sample


Disable Everyone and Friends of Friends who can add you as a friend.
When someone add you.
Sample

This is good to know, especially that I’m active in Telegram as well.

Anyways, it’s not just in Telegram but everywhere. You could see it in different platforms where you could PM someone easily. In social media, Twitter for example. There are a lot of bots that PM’s you and somehow lures you into something that would benefit them. The most recent encounter to something close to that is in Discord. They could PM you as long as you have a common server there.

Remember to be always be vigilant.

Yeah, impersonators are a very big problem there and I'm always surprised how many users fall for them when I read in the main chats about their complaints of being scammed "by an admin"  

The advantages of Telegram are the disadvantages at the same time. As always, scammers try to make their business and unfortunately the structure of Telegram and uneducated (yes, we can also call it dumb) users is very favorable for them. Using Telegram requires some common sense of how to detect scammers and stuff like this. Never send money to anyone there, if everyone follows this rule it's easy to be safe from them.

For everyday use I like the function of groups with up to 100,000 users and I always missed that feature in WhatsApp where the limit is 256 users or similar. Additional, and the best part you have an unique @username and other people won't see your phone number. When you contact someone via WhatsApp he'll always see your phone number.

Security measures are important to adjust at first, the scammers and shitcoin groups won't have any chance after it:

1. Go to settings / privacy and security:

- disable last seen time (if you don't want it to be visible)
- disable calls, select only my contacts (if you trust your contacts), I've never tried if you can really call random people, but I would recommend it to stay away from doing that  
- disable who can add you to groups (only my contacts if you trust them)

2. Go to settings / data and storage:

- disable auto download media because otherwise you'll get downloaded every shitty GIF or MEME or even something dangerous you don't want to have on your device at all.


Finally, there are still some positive aspects besides scammers, shitcoin groups and pump and dump groups if you know how to use Telegram. And you can edit your messages to correct shitty typos up to 7 days after you send them.  

Always make sure the person you are talking to on telegram has the admin tag next to his name. If he doesn't he is not part of the team. Also don't get fooled by the username, adding support member, agent, admin is very easy, you should only be on the lookout for the admin tag. 

@theyoungmillionaire if you click on the username of that person you talked to and check if you have any groups in common, you will probably notice that you don't. This is because those telegram scammers just roam around different telegram groups without actually joining them and contact members who need help, trading advice or who just joined a new group.

This is what it should look like clicking on an admin of one of the groups in my telegram. We have one group in common, the group where he is an admin.
If you have no group in common, there is absolutely no reason why a staff member or admin would contact you for anything. Even if you ask for help, YOU are the one who needs to make first contact.



@Jet Cash Telegram isn't that bad. But if you are looking to start a serious discussion there, forget about it. It is mostly bounty and ICO stuff, and 'when moon' type of talk, pictures of rockets and cute girls.
But all the reputable exchanges and projects also have dedicated telegram groups as well. You could try out those. The official telegram admins can be of assistance when in need for immediate help, especially when it is about deposits, withdrawals and issues with exchanges.
 

I difinitely agree to theyoungmillionaire on seeking support, when contacting them via email it really did take a lot time before your email get a ticket queue before your email get response from the support team while using telegram which is more faster than email itself and you may able to interact with the real support team live via telegram. It's also the reason that the scammers will impersonate popular people or reputable site as one of the member offering fake profit or programs and use the team's info to make it look like real member of the site that many of us thinks that the activity or event happening in telegram are all "SCAM REPORT".

During the ICO rush, it was rather usual to see ploys such as the one you describe. The ICO official telegram groups themselves would have key support look-alikes (such as admins) coming to the scene just around the ICO rush would take place, and redirect as much traffic to a fake ETH address through simply posting the new ETH address amidst the general conversation flow. Others would kindly offer a one on one private conversation to "assist" an investor in the process of participating.

I recall on a certain occasion that the actual real Telegram account of the Admin was hacked during the ICO, and the official pinned ETH participation address was changed for the dismay of quite a few who lost their investment in a blink of an eye.

Faceless conversations are often shameless …

Telegram used to be so good back in the day before it airdrop craze and Pump and Dump groups came in. One very interesting feature was anonymity
which has seen been revoked after the telegram team succumbed to pressure from governments.

Support of most projects/exchanges is much easier and quicker to access through telegram compared to the email or ticket system, I guess that why most people get in there in the first place.
Also, so many projects/exchanges do not have forums so most members of a common community create groups to connect... Scammers then just come along.

Also with the listings and some sort of "team" that claims they can make certain project be popular. Will do digging later on if have time and will post some here. There are some project owners too who helds ICO fall on this trap.

I see Telegram really can't handle properly these kind of schemes. Surely they already received lots of reports about this. People can just changed their usernames whenever they like. No such thing as ban numbers (or am I wrong here?). People really needs to always used their common sense or else they will be fuck*d up.


+1

Usual traits of a scammers is being an aggressive one.

That's definitely true. Is it worth risking though? Err probably not, unless you're 100% sure you're talking to a legitimate exchange support agent. Personally, I'd definitely stick with on-site support especially when I'm really not in a rush or if the problem isn't urgent, regardless how slow it is. Security > speed all day everyday.

You have to give them your phone number to use it, and for that reason I've always tried to stay away from it. I have used it for a couple of specific trades under a burner number, and from what I could tell, the crypto-related channels are either bounty campaign spammers spamming other bounty campaign spammers, or some nonsense pump-and-dump or "trading signals" scam. All the "official" or "support" channels for various exchanges and services are filled with people like in OP's example, pretending to be affiliated or a member of staff to lure unsuspecting newbies into a scam.

I've never read anything I would call useful or interesting in my brief ventures on Telegram. I don't think you are missing much.

I've got my own private chat rooms, and messaging is pretty instant. I've got many Gigs of storage, much more than I need. I can understand that they will need lots of storage, so that they can store the minutiae of my life. But what are the advantages to me if I spend time reading and posting there.

Real admins or support teams never pm you first,how can they do so, when you've not told them what the problem you need rectified is.
So once you receive the pm first,its a scam, and obvious one at that,infact any random person would just messages you on telegram is a scammer and should be reported as spam and be blocked
It's really not so difficult to spot scammers and by now people should rarely be falling for their cheap scams

Aside from scams, it has these security and privacy encryption technique - secret chat functions, large data storage, fast messaging services, and so far no advertisement.

Above is my first time, I don’t have much group in telegram nor friends. I only join if I have transactions or need something on a specific group, I leave or stay - determined by purpose.

Well, last time I checked, I’m still hero.

Deffo. However, on-site support or email takes ages (long ticket queue) for you to solve problems and telegram is the fastest communication with support team, if you’re talking to a right person.

People should definitely take note of this, also I really don't think Telegram is a good place to look for support in the first place. On-site support should be first priority, and email support second.

P.S. damn the method of scamming by the scammer is the worst and one of the most obvious. LOL. I've seen more convincing methods than asking about a 50 ETH bonus LOL.

OMG, Haven't know that exchanges support are being fake now. I'm happy that ain't got any message like that, I'm not aware of these scammers activity until now.  But still, got bad experienced with Gate.io exchange which I have reported but got dump in the trash can without any actions by the exchange.
Hero? The Hero??? BTT can see a glimpse of you @theyoung seems like you're indeed someone young.

Thank you for such information there is chronic shitty activity on Telegram now.

When you actually go through most telegram groups, you get to see so many warning signs from founders  and admins of different projects of how they will not PM you asking for a deposit of any money.
A person who falls for such shallow scam attempts is to blame.

Happens to me so many times, as soon as you join a certain telegram community of let's say EOS or NEO, you will be welcomed by a bunch of scammers in your PM pretending to be support while presenting to you some weird deals.

I still haven't got round to looking at telegram - is there any advantage in using it? All I ever see are scam reports.

This just happened to me on telegram.

Exchange support asking for deposit to earn bonus. This is to inform all to be vigilant, specially those exchanges support account on telegram.

Upon knowing such dodgy scheme, I immediately message Kajetan Mackowiak (Coindeal.com Founder) to confirm if the said account is one of their employee.

Scammers used fake exchange support telegram account as they know that people trust them on handling issues with regards to exchanges. Without awareness, exchange users can easily be manipulated by fake exchange support account. Instructing them to do something is easy, users want their problems to be solved immediately, so, they will do anything as instructed.

Be aware – I am vigilant.