Topic: You chose to "Be Your Own Bank" don't get complacent and scammed, I did. (Read 443 times)

I have to say that this is a classic example of what it means to ‘Be your own bank’.
I put much thoughts to it after reading your post, and remembering instances where I foolishly lost my crypto. Good to see the words you used in your topic caption, and good to see this on Beginners & Help board, because If you decide to ‘Be your own bank’, you’ve taken up a huge responsibility.
It comes with a whole lot of benefits (which is very much discussed), but it’s best people learn that there’re consequences when you fail in your responsibilities as a ‘Bank’.

It is good to share the story even if you feel shame. I respect that.

What were they offering you though that made you fall for this particular scam?

When someone contacts me on pm I don't mind but 99% of the time I am expecting spam or someone wanting money in some way. I always start reading and think to myself "so where does the part where I need to give you my money come in" I keep reading and the next message or so sure enough.... They want money. People who need investors do not contact you in a pm. Think about it. Why would someone who wants to be taken seriously for this great idea of theirs want to act like a beggar on social networks? Those guys basically lurk around waiting for victims. Only a scammer will contact you so directly. (please do not be confused by people who want to contact you directly after you have spoken elsewhere, that is fine so long as you can trust the person as far as what they say but do not trust some random pm ever ignore or read for humour)

Then I also would like to just add a few other things. When you buying something no matter what it is. Investing or anything. When you give someone else your hard-earned bucks, the last person you should listen to is the person trying to get your money. Ask other people. It is illogical to trust the person selling the service item or investment since they will say whatever they need to in order to part you of your money. Ask anyone else but the seller.

I read here someone said something about exposing they scammer or giving their personal info away. It doesn't help. These people are shameless and don't care if you know who they are. Most of the time people just move on ado nothing. Which is wrong. It is your money you should do something about it.

I know you got ripped off by some random person it sounds like but I was scammed twice locally. I got my money back the first time. I started calling around and found other people he had ripped of and found out about him. Where he lived and who he lived with. We knew what car he drove and everything. So we told him we know all these things about him and he better pay me my money back because you stuffing around with the wrong person. It took a few months but I got my money back. He used every trick in the book to delay and things. He cried and everything. Put on quite a show. I didn't fall for that shit like other people do. I know a scammers mind. So yeah I got my money back and reported him. I didn't bother to check up on it since I was so angry and I gave them everything bit of info I had.

The last time I was scammed it was very strange and the person seemed legit and ever during the scam seemed legit. Even telling me they had been scammed before. I lost my temper with them and they even told me they will not lower themselves to my level. lol yeah.... A thief tells his victim this? >.< That comment just made me so angry so I got my bank to open an investigation and I will go as far as the law will allow me to lay charges against this man and his wife (in on it too)

My cases were not random ones online these people had websites and everything. The latest scammer actually took his website down when I started blasting him on social media. I made sure his brand name was destroyed. "brand name" I bet he never owned a single item on his website. I am just telling you about them so people do not lose hope. You can catch some of these guys.


Then the last thing I want to say is. None of this would happen if you use an escrow. Always escrow. When it is someone online and you don't know who they then use escrow. It might cause some implications but of they are legit they will agree. Remember a scammer will never agree to such things since a scammer wants to get in and out as quickly as possible the rinse repeat. They don't even feel anything they like machines.

Sorry about your loss. But now you know for next time you beat these suckers. Now other people hopefully will learn from us and not do what we did.

You do make good points here. Tech guy definitely doesn't describe me all to well. I would say 95% of what I've learned or sone with computers has been due to getting involved in BTC, and choosing to mine. I still have tons to learn, and am trying to find time to dedicate to getting better. That or I might start getting the "OK Boomer" from my daughter in a few years  
I actually got into lending as a way to try and make BTC work for me in it's form without selling it and then converting. So far it's been a mixed bag, and probably not something I will continue to do in the future. -This Scam not part of that consideration. I also like to spend BTC when I can for purchases that would otherwise be done through PP or something like that. With a percentage saved always, as I do want to benefit from price increases in the future. I'm not yet convinced that it's sole purpose moving forward should be a store of value, I would hope that it could be a means to large scale purchases not needing to be completed within seconds or minutes, with other coins or systems designed for quick everyday purchases - A crypto commerce ecosystem.
You aren't wrong about the risks though, as 1 bad deal on lending can result in wiping out profits from 100's of deals depending on the interest rates you work with. I added a link to your post in the OP. A similar article was how I figured out where to look for User ID's, obviously to late. I should have though to link it in, glad you thought of it. It's a must if you want to report someone on Discord for any reason so it's funny they tuck this info away in the first place.
Nice thread every bit of information out there helps.
It's funny because I had been contacted through telegram once and put the person to task to prove their identity, and it was who they said they were. In that case they were not a person I had met IRL, so that's where my guard dropped. Obviously this person wasn't someone I had met IRL, but did just enough to fool me, and had I done a few extra simple steps on my part this would have been avoided. Live and learn, help others learn at the same time.

I hope you didn't lose much, I can imagine it's not nice even when the amont wasn't high and you know it was possible to avoid because normally you don't fall for it.

Discord is also a platform where I'm not very active (I'm just following a few groups but don't use it for regular communication) and yeah, a different medium of communication isn't trivial to know all the features what's leading to mistakes.

When someone is asking for money, no matter where I'm always like that:



Especially if there is no chat history, the PM comes solely for asking for money (all accounts can be hacked) or trying to get some other sort of information. Even links should be suspected.


Right now, I've enabled PMs in Telegram (that scammers can PM me) and I get behind their stratgies to list them and educate less experienced people like Royse777 does it in their List of (un)known methods scammers user to scam users with honorable mention. I'm only sending money on Telegram et al. unless I'm 100% sure the person is trustworthy and 100% not an impersonator or hacked account.

But sharing your story here is much appreciated. +100

I have some steps to check unique user IDs to find out scammers who fake accounts of real developers. Scammers can do more complicated things to scam but those investigation steps can help.
Discord & scammers. Check user IDs and user colors of strangers send you PMs

The "real" Antpool is a Chinese based mining pool here: https://www.antpool.com/

antpoolmininginternational.com is nothing but a scam. Your money is gone. DO NOT "invest" or sent them any more money. You will not get anything back.



The address is useless to you. If you don't have the private keys you do not have access to the coins.

hello
I invested $1000 usd in a mining manager Tony Montano on the 2 Nov now i cant cash out until i pay him over $900 in fees. Most of the pages of the site are all 404 error pages and go nowhere thats a start his site is Antpoolmininginternational.com I have the wallet address but I dont know how to read the data. Is there anyone out there that can help me with this situation. Ive been staring at the bitcoin explorer for a few days on and off but my understanding is still very limited. any help will be gratefully accepted. Thanks

A very good post. Not always easy to say publicly "I fucked up"... Hopefully will serve as a warning to others and who knows... it might just save one person from being a victim!


Also, just FYI, the "Developer Mode" setting is in a slightly different location on Android and iOS versions of Discord... Android it is in "User Settings -> App Settings -> Behaviour" and on iOS it is "User Settings -> Appearance -> Advanced".

Refer here: https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/206346498-Where-can-I-find-my-User-Server-Message-ID-

That article also explains how to find "Server" and "Message" IDs. I could see the "Server ID" being useful to avoid being invited onto "fake" servers.

It surely is specifically made for gamers( to talk to each other(as how it was initially advertised as far as I remember years ago) and probably not primarily as a chatroom for people to look for people to transact with, but yea, they should definitely adapt. It really isn't new for certain platforms to not be used mainly for the specific purpose that they're made for.

Sorry for your loss.
However, there is an important lesson here.

I know most people here are tech guys, with little knowledge about traditional investments.

One very important thing to consider when dealing with bitcoin as an investment (which is what you are doing, as you are even lending it) is to really understand its potential performance in your portfolio and the risks involved.

An asset like bitcoin which may increase its 10-20% per day has enough volatility by itself. You don´t really need to lend it for 5% interest rate a year (which is almost negligible compared to nearly 300% gains, only this year). Lending also increases your risk exponentially.

If you want fixed interest rates, you should buy bonds. Exchange your bitcoin to your local fiat and get your 1-5% per year (depending to your country). Bonds are highly regulated and nobody is going to run away with your money (possible but highly unlikely).

Bitcoin lacks regulations, so anyone can runaway with your money and you can't do anything. Authorities probably can't help you, as your coins are probably in a company in another continent.

Lending is simple not worth the risk.

I made a thread some time ago on how to protect your capital and also protect yourself from scams. And the major pointer I stated was that we should, view every offer as a scam and then look for reasons to prove otherwise.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.51977684
If one starts from a position of skepticism, you would be more wary of such unsolicited messages. However I guess anyone can slip up at some point, and you'll likely not be a victim anytime soon.

You know, I was also scammed on Discord, although it began with a Steam profile message. Same social engineering shit, persuasion and finally the ultimate "Get scammed" finale.

Like you, I was very wary of those scams but still one managed to come by due to greed. At some point you might just be "blinded" and by the time you realized your folly, it's too late.

Sometimes we just have to learn things the hard way to fully understand. Just like "You never know if you don't try".

Yeah I wish I had had that moment, and early on definitely ran into a few situations like that. Usually though it was with a platform that I knew the ins and outs better, or with a non crypto payment that I understood fully what to expect.
Yeah this was some of the small checks I did do, and just a complete ball drop on my part not going further or actually PMing or posting in the channel. Live and learn and forget those Satoshis, I guess.
Yeah I've gotten good at not necessarily chasing the get rich quick schemes they are generally fairly flimsy and transparent. Where I must and will improve on is the helping hand shit I do, seemingly far to often. That is another easy way to prey on folks especially when impersonating someone.
I agree, I was less than impressed with their canned responses to the situation. It was almost like they didn't read the first email, at least the second response gave me the info I was looking for. A direct inquiry line for the authorities to follow up on. I have and will continue to make suggestions to them about their platform, like having the User ID present and permanently visible under users profiles. That simple step would have stopped this in it's tracks, and my carelessness wouldn't have been my undoing this time around.

It's funny how little Discord has adjusted to what it has become. It's no longer just a gamer chat platform but is used by almost all crypto project launches to maintain a community server. Most platforms tend to see the problems that develop and attempt to mitigate risks through simple changes, them not so much. Either way the steps I've taken moving forward will ensure this doesn't happen for me again, and hopefully anyone who reads through this. Even if the discussion dies down here, I will continue to bump this topic every now and then just to keep people on their toes. Hell maybe  even make avoiding scams one of my [Info] videos.

Really it's still a loss, in the end it's a decent excuse to unload a bag or 2 of coins I had high hopes for that seem to be stagnant. Maybe the scammer helped me out, you know, less wallets to update and projects to follow. 

You surely messed up, no doubt about that. But one more thing is for sure though, Discord should have more countermeasures to prevent things like this from happening. In my opinion, it's just not THAT easy to tell accounts apart especially if you're new to the platform.

I also know one friend of mine that got scammed a year ago(thankfully, a pretty small amount) that was also decently internet savvy. He contacted me immediately(to have a second opinion as for if he really got scammed or if he's just over-paranoid) after the person he's transacting with wasn't responding for 15 minutes as he immediately smelled something fishy. I took a look at the accounts, and it took longer than it should to see the difference between accounts.

When even decently internet savvy people are getting scammed on your platform, you definitely know that you should do more things to prevent these things from happening. Hopefully Discord does something about this.

I admire your courage to come out and speak about it. Not everyone can do it. I've had my fair share of phishing and scams. Once on Telegram and one via a website a friend of mine sent ( we both got scammed anyway). If there's one thing I've come to learn about the crypto space is that, scams do exist and they're rampant. One thing that has kept me safe for a long time is this quote that I stamped in my subconscious

---

Another thing I try to put under check is my emotions, particularly greed. If not probably controlled, greed will make you get scammed regardless of any principles or due diligence you do.

I am a regular user of Discord and your detailed explanation may save me losing my bitcoins. I wished i could helped you but i can only pray your loss get recovered by some other ways in life.

Sad to hear that !

And yes i use discord now over 4 years and everytime when i get some kind of spam pm and in the same time i see an Friend request from this user i know whats coming.
99% of them are advertising for some shitcoins or they asking for help and send coins blah blah blah because of they cant withdraw from exchanges and others .

You can click on the name with the right mouse button and a drop down menu shows up and there you have the option profile , click on it and there you have "Same server"
Click on it and it shows you the same server you use as the User you got the pm and you can see from where he is coming and server he use.

Most times i write in this server channel and report this Users to the Channel Mod or Admin so they get banned and other users know about the situation.

I don't have the same story as yours but I just want to reiterate your "Don't get complacent" point.

I almost fell to a phishing site and that was around 2017 IIRC where I got an email saying I got free tokens. I didn't suspect at first because I've subscribed to the site that they copied. I almost gave my private key but thankfully, I was distracted by someone for a few minutes. When I got back to the fake site, I was like "wtf am I doing?". I ended up reporting it and informing some people I know not to fall for such trick.

I'm glad you were able to take something away from this. Glad you haven't fallen victim and hope this helps keep that streak alive.
They would have known through the server. Not that I had any coins per say but that any member could have potentially had some. It's crypto related. On that note I do also discuss BTC and crypto with people irl. I will also continue to do so, I won't let fear prevent me from spreading information to potential new users. I just won't go letting my guard down again.
It is a good point, and not something I will be forgetting again. They really just got lucky through a combination of circumstances, but that's all it takes.
For me that is what was stupid. It's not being hard on myself I just like to state it as a fact for this situation. I appreciate the kindness though and am glad you find the tale of warning useful.

You weren't stupid. You just didn't have your defences up to the standard on this occasion and they probably got lucky with their timing as well.
Being tired from avoiding scammers all day, at one point you need to trust somebody you think you know. It is sad but scammers are lurking in all social media, stealing identities and creating scripts that are convincing enough.
I understand you completely and I agree that the only way to damage the scammers plans is to report what happened and create awareness.
Otherwise someone else will fall victim. The information you provided was useful as this might happen to anyone of us.