Anatomy of a Cryptocurrency Scam Operation

This is...not realistic on any level. I've been professionally investigating cryptocurrency scams/thefts/fraud since 2017.

This is at least twice as convoluted a process as is necessary to separate people from millions and millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies if the site stays up for a week. People don't bother spinning up stuff like this when the easy stuff works just fine.

This scam is successful because it is predicated on the same appeal that ventures like lotteries, sweepstakes, slot machines, or giveaways have (albeit accentuated with a seemingly guaranteed win, that these other ventures don't have): the belief that you can just luck into a giant treasure chest of money by expanding minimal effort.

Broadly, this is a modern version of what's known as an advance-fee fraud, which has been around for hundreds of years - paying a small amount upfront (hence the 'advance fee') under pretense of receiving a much larger amount later.

One thing I feel like I have learned from Reddit/ TikTok is the average person is terrible with money. Some VCs argue we should lower the bar to investing to democrative it. I am all for democracy, but maybe we would be better served if the average person didn't try to be a tycoon.

I suggest you the following exercise to see it with your own eyes: enter a Telegram channel on a top 100 cryptocurrency, say that you are trying to recover your wallet and...

Suddenly a lot of scammer will contact you in less than 5' with techniques that you cannot imagine are real. For example, telegram handles with the same name as the channel admin but using unicode characters to make tou think it is the same account.

If it was not a scam, you are ok to steal someone's savings. Maybe those type of scams are instant karma?

Best crypto scam I see right now is the (MEV) bot scam. There are a bunch of promoted videos like below. Just download some code, connect it to your ETH wallet and you'll make 20-50-100% profits daily. I reported some over a month ago but still up. Has nearly half a million views.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK6U9P9pt6A

lots of scams are able to continue by getting the victim to do things they wouldn't report to the police, or even to their relatives out of embarrassment

although I think it is an interesting idea that scammers intentionally make typos and absurdities, just to weed out discerning people in favor of easier victims, I think there is a larger market for meticulous more legitimate looking scams as well

this one fits somewhere in between

I recently watched John Oliver's video[1] about the "pig butchering" scam. It's a brutal scheme where scammers invest months in building fake relationships, gain a ton of trust, and then rob all of their money.

Even though I'm pretty tech-savvy, I'm not sure I could totally avoid falling for this. These scammers don't ask for money directly; they casually mention how they're making big bucks through crypto trading on some app. Naturally, you get curious about the app, but you're still cautious. Then you see it's got a ton of good reviews on the app store, so your trust increases a little.

You install the app, and it looks legit - like it was made by a solid dev team. It offers some limited-time crypto deals where you can't withdraw for a while. The victim invests a little, watches the crypto value climb, and sees their "money" grow on paper. So they put in more. When they finally try to cash out, they realize they can't. They panic and turn to their "romantic partner" for help. That's when the scammers and the fake app squeeze out the last bit of cash, claiming it's for taxes or fees, and they need to put some money. And the victim loses everything.

It's not unreasonable for the victim to think the relationship is real if they've spent months chatting and calling, sharing really personal stuff. Plus, the app seems totally legit, both from the store reviews and how it looks and works. I really hope these scams will disappear soon.

[1] https://youtu.be/pLPpl2ISKTg?si=15RzmtRGMpptF-Dv&t=539

smart enough to do all that, but not smart enough to spot the scam? LOL!

First ingredient is the scumbag itself

Go file an email complaint to ( support (@) deftrecoup (.) com ) to know your chances of getting back your loss to any scam. Get your finances and sanity restored. PS. This is not an advert, they helped me on a different case but they are credible.