Guys i want to share my scam story - where i was scammed and lost almost 7 ETHs - with you for 2 purposes. One is to warn others not to fall into there youtube giveaway scams and the second reason is if there is any way to stop these scammers and burn the lost ETHs (or even if its possible to get my ETHs back?).
The situation was this:On 27th of December 2019 i was opening my Browser and Youtube. And YT recommend me a current ongoing live video about Ethereum on their main page. It was titled something with Ethereum giveaway whatever...
The channel was named "Ethereum" and showed the original logo, so it seemed its the official channel. It had some videos from the past also listed so it looked legit.
So that live video i was watching showed a summit in nice quality, where we could see Vitalik Buterin on a summit and it was portrait as if it was a live event. I was listening a few moments to it and then i saw in the description something about a holiday givewaway by Ethereum Foundation to further accelerate the use of their coins in the crypto ecosystem.
They were offering like random increase to deposited ETHs. So for instance if one was to transfer 3 ETHs, you could get IIRC up to 9 ETHs back.
It was staggered and the more you deposit to their address, the more you could get. The max ETHs they would send out was like a 1000 or so? And they said it was coming back from the same adress you deposit it to.
At first it sounded fishy, but new to the crypto ecosystem i heard about real giveaways in the past, in form of airdrops or bunnyhunts and so forth. So it wasnt that fishy and sounded legit to me a bit at least.
My thoughts were like: Ok Ethereum was above 1000 dollars in 2017 and now they are down to 130 some because of the burst bubble and some of the ICOs on their platform going to zero, so they really want their coins to be used more. Kind of a PR action.
The live chat was also filled with lots and lots of postive messages about people receiving like 30 ETHs or some that supposedly deposited way more than 3 ETHs got back up to 100ETHs. There was one official support employee in the chat who moderated it and provided "support".
Thinking about that today, i was for a moment a bit sceptical reading that many of the positive messages were actually coming from russian kyrillic YT users names.
The transfer:Well so i transfered the first 3 ETHs, which was actually only 2.99 ETHs because of the fees and in the live chat they told me i had to transfer more because their random bot in the background is not triggering below 3 ETHs and the support staff guy assured me that it will be added up, once more than the minimum of 3 ETHs are received in their wallet.
So i did and transfered another 0.49 ETHs and i was so overly impressed that i thought well ok i'll send them all that i have and made directly after it another transfer with my remaining 3.29ETHs. These were all the EThs i ever had.
I waited and waited and also others were writing in the chat about why i takes so long... So is started the blockchain explorer and saw that they only had like 20 ETHs in the adress... This was the minute when all the alarm bells rang. I immediately asked this in the chat why there is only like 20 ETHs and so on. I was even posting my Transaction hashes and this was the point when the only thing they were posting was like "Im sorry we are currently busy and will get back to you in a few moments".
Suddenly the chat closed and the live video was over. Thats it.
The reason i waited so long is because im actually a rather good herated person. I know the eastern europe and russing wages and the way they live over there... So i thought maybe its a young random guy now having 20-30ETHs and be able to make a living for him and his family you know...I was also terrible sick and was unemployed for 5 years in the past so i know how tough life can be. It was my hard earned cash from my job and actually thoese ETHs were the first crypto coins i bought in my life.
But Using the blockchainexplorer and seeing now what ammount they collected i think that this is a professionally organized scam group behind it and we should do something about it. Who is liable in such a case?
Here is all the Data:Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpSnN_WtZ-602vWKKhS48mgYoutube Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65CCPhsWMwwScammers receiving address:
https://etherscan.io/address/0xc9746c60b47aebbf13ba8e45144e4c2ddb3f0cbaScammer transferred it later to here
(currently 332 ETHs on it!):
https://etherscan.io/address/0xb70f65c1faa2f1160d006b585ebf564781e8dae6Scammers also transferred it later here
(currently 498 ETHs on it!):
https://etherscan.io/address/0x9838eb7bdbaedfb5a28d67be763eadd61cb3e428Here are my Transfers:DateCoin Amount TransactionFee Address TXID Status |
2019-12-27 12:48:30 ETH 3.29 0 0xc9746C60B47AEbBf13Ba8E45144e4c2Ddb3F0CBA 0xaa31f7c69a6a079096b14aebf50f769dbc95427fe00307b62ed16c838997f8c6 Completed |
2019-12-27 12:41:15 ETH 0.49 0 0xc9746C60B47AEbBf13Ba8E45144e4c2Ddb3F0CBA 0xf3408936a49660ca9a0ac5b57fc20025a557ea6d05caea4a9cf4702f6e0e4d34 Completed |
2019-12-27 12:32:19 ETH 2.99 0 0xc9746C60B47AEbBf13Ba8E45144e4c2Ddb3F0CBA 0xfb5c2be9bfd55253b9066f3ae4cd8122f6b2b162e63672874438f55da2e0b1ae Completed |
Here is my Binance screenshot about my transfers:
imgur.com/a/3IqBNVbFinally if you reading this and you are maybe a employe from Ethereum, or if you have a lot ETHs and you feels you may want to contribute to recover my loss, i have my ETH adress available in any case.:
0xc1C5985042425aEfB8F018683a0C23859AD11e73
Thanks alot people. I really appreciate all your input. Sorry for my english, its not my native language.