Beware: Scam Email Demanding Bitcoin

JollyGood

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Yes it was an old thread but thank you for posting and keeping it alive. Too many scam email extortion attempts are going around and we need to warn gullible and innocent people about it.

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: JollyGood on April 01, 2019, 07:38:28 PM

Filing a complaint somewhere does not make sense because this email cannot be tracked like my bitcoin address.
I do not make any mistakes.

Old thread here, but I just wanted to mention for the records: I got of course also much of those blackmailings. To give the impression of having hacked your mail account they just fake the mail header, what can easily be done by using a simple SMTP server, copying the mails as manipulated txt-files in the pickup folder, but it's gonna end up in the spam folders i.a. due to missing DMARC, SPF and DKIM records. Anyway, I got it to trace one of those scammers back and informed his ISP. Afterwards I got even more of those mails, this time with the additional note quoted above... Grin

Kemarit

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Yes, this is an ongoing campaign and very effective indeed,

Well we hope that people not fall for this, however, I do believed that there are going to be someone to still blindly think this is true and pay the ransom.

Mpamaegbu

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Once a man, twice a child!

This scammer is an amateur and it showed in the bereft of compelling appeal mail he sent to OP. I had a look at the Bitcoin address he put out ~~15pY2U8WBZBJRVxGhh8WRXsdkXQbMKD8k9~~ and discovered that it actually had BTC sent to it. However, I couldn't decipher whether the Bitcoin was from gullible victims or other transactions the scammer had. It would be really pitiable if anyone fell for such because it had "Fraud" well written over it. Going forward, I think people should avoid porn sites if they cared to avoid malware. Porn sites are easiest way of getting malware.

Lorence.xD

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Shame and dignity is a very powerful thing you can use to levy money frome someone. There have been similar types of e-mail scams like Widowed Philanthropist e-mail, Nigerian Pice (Personal favorite) and the recent COVID e-mails. Whenever I find this scam emails, I put it on RE:Scam. RE:Scam is a bot that replies for you in this types of scam emails, in amusing fashion they reply to this Bot and waste their time. Last I checked they are currently undergoing Phase 2 of the project.

JollyGood

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Quote from: bones261 on April 01, 2019, 11:06:20 PM

Quite a few it seems. Looks like this guy may have scored 1.3250915 BTC from 9 different people for this address alone. And it appears he has been using this address only since 03/26/2019.

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/15pY2U8WBZBJRVxGhh8WRXsdkXQbMKD8k9

Ah that is sad for anybody that fell for the scam.

I supposed the fact the scammer tries to fool the receiver by thinking the email was sent from his own email account (so sending from his account to his account), it would fool some people, sadly.

Lucius

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Quote from: bones261 on April 01, 2019, 11:06:20 PM

Quite a few it seems. Looks like this guy may have scored 1.3250915 BTC from 9 different people for this address alone. And it appears he has been using this address only since 03/26/2019.

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/15pY2U8WBZBJRVxGhh8WRXsdkXQbMKD8k9

This somehow casts a very ugly picture on bitocin as a means of blackmail and extortion, which of course is not true. But anyone who gets such an email and is not familiar with what bitcoin really is, can adopt a very negative opinion about the whole thing. Also this way of blackmail shows us that some people use anonymity of cryptocurrency, and in a very simple way trick naive victims to send them coins.

This address is all over the internet marked as abuse / ransomware / blackmail address, and there is no doubt that some people actually paid to this scamer, but many understand what it is all about. It would be really helpful if people learned to at least verify the addresses they receive in e-mails, then it would be very easy to see what this is really about.

coin-investor

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I received a lot of this, if it comes straight to your folder, then hit spam immediately so it will not bother other people, and will not land it in their folder only in the spam folder, I'm full of this kind of email in my spam folder people who received this kind of email should investigate and do not send right away.

BitcoinGirl.Club

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Quote from: bones261 on April 01, 2019, 11:06:20 PM

Quite a few it seems. Looks like this guy may have scored 1.3250915 BTC from 9 different people for this address alone. And it appears he has been using this address only since 03/26/2019.

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/15pY2U8WBZBJRVxGhh8WRXsdkXQbMKD8k9

That's sad to know. Some people are too naïve and they find themselves got cheated. I receive these kind of messages all the time in my email inboxes. Just ignore them. They know no shit LOL

They use the fear factor of human nature 🤣

Quote from: JollyGood on April 01, 2019, 07:38:28 PM

How many gullible people do you think this scammer might fool in to sending money to him before the email companies permanently block him?

Unfortunately no email company can block anyone. He deson't even need a valid email address to send these emails. Just write a script with php mail() function and you are good to send email to anyone without logging in any email account.

Code:

    $from = "[email protected]";
    $to = "[email protected]";
    $subject = "Checking PHP mail";
    $message = "PHP mail works just fine";
    $headers = "From:" . $from;
    mail($to,$subject,$message, $headers);
    echo "The email message was sent.";
?>

Write whatever email address you want to write for the variable $from. You don't even need to follow an email address format.

It's too easy.

We as a bitcoins user, need to educate us to save our assets in the first place.

bones261

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Quite a few it seems. Looks like this guy may have scored 1.3250915 BTC from 9 different people for this address alone. And it appears he has been using this address only since 03/26/2019.

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/15pY2U8WBZBJRVxGhh8WRXsdkXQbMKD8k9

JollyGood

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I hope nobody from this forum falls victim to a similar scam attempt.

I opened an email address earlier today, I hardly use that one but it was long overdue. I found this email in the junkbox:

-----------------------------------
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Hi!

As you may have noticed, I sent you an email from your account.
This means that I have full access to your account.

I've been watching you for a few months now.
The fact is that you were infected with malware through an adult site that you visited.

If you are not familiar with this, I will explain.
Trojan Virus gives me full access and control over a computer or other device.
This means that I can see everything on your screen, turn on the camera and microphone, but you do not know about it.

I also have access to all your contacts and all your correspondence.

Why your antivirus did not detect malware?
Answer: My malware uses the driver, I update its signatures every 4 hours so that your antivirus is silent.

I made a video showing how you satisfy yourself in the left half of the screen, and in the right half you see the video that you watched.
With one click of the mouse, I can send this video to all your emails and contacts on social networks.
I can also post access to all your e-mail correspondence and messengers that you use.

If you want to prevent this,
transfer the amount of $712 to my bitcoin address (if you do not know how to do this, write to Google: "Buy Bitcoin").

My bitcoin address (BTC Wallet) is: 15pY2U8WBZBJRVxGhh8WRXsdkXQbMKD8k9

After receiving the payment, I will delete the video and you will never hear me again.
I give you 48 hours to pay.
I have a notice reading this letter, and the timer will work when you see this letter.

Filing a complaint somewhere does not make sense because this email cannot be tracked like my bitcoin address.
I do not make any mistakes.

If I find that you have shared this message with someone else, the video will be immediately distributed.

Best regards!
-----------------------------------
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How many gullible people do you think this scammer might fool in to sending money to him before the email companies permanently block him?

Topic: Beware: Scam Email Demanding Bitcoin (Read 266 times)