Stories

Cryptocurrency, Horror Story

Beware of Bittrex ads on Facebook

I’m not really a stranger to cryptocurrencies or anything. I have been trading and using bitcoins for over two years now. I’ve purchased a lot of stuff on the darknet, sat on exchanges and speculated, sent gift cards, sold video game loot and all kinds of stuff for crypto.

It was late one day, it was about 4 in the morning and I was up late finishing some work for my classes. I saw a Bittrex ad on Facebook, I have used Bittrex before and decided to just take a look at my account. My mind usually wanders around in the morning. I opened the ad, logged in, entered all of my info and checked out my balance. I had a little less than one bitcoin, nice. When I woke up the next day to check my balance again, I noticed that all of my shit was gone.

I didn’t have two factor authentications on.

Browsing the forums, I saw that someone else got skimped by a Bittrex Facebook ad. Apparently, it was a phishing scam, and the i in bittrex was replaced with a L, to make bLttrex. Luckily now the phishing site has been reclaimed by the actual bittrex.com now.

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Cryptocurrency, Horror Story

I think I got ripped off twice by the same guy

I’m new to all of this bitcoin business. I wanted to get 4 coins ASAP. So a few of my friends recommended that I go give LocalBitcoins a try. I found a seller and forwarded him my money. A few hours later I get a message notifying me that my coins have been released. I sent everything through a money gram. A few hours go by and my wallet is still empty. I blow him up with messages but he ignores me until the next day when he finally responds with a brief.

You sure you never got them?

NO!!! So the guy does his little “investigation” as to where the bitcoins are, he says that the transaction never went through to my wallet. Coerces me that if I buy some more coins then he can simply add the missing amount to the order.

I paypaled him over a thousand dollars and that was my mistake… for falling for it… twice.

In the end, he only sent me one bitcoin instead of all four. I felt royally screwed. I have no clue what to do because LocalBitcoins have any control over fraudulent PayPal transactions. In addition to this, we took all of our communication off grid. I’m trying to get my money back from PayPal but the chances are slim. Maybe I can get it all back if I just tell them that I got hacked or something…

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Cryptocurrency, Horror Story

Got straight up knocked out and mugged for my bitcoins

I have done a ton of trades over LocalBitcoins, the quantity of money hasn’t been totally huge but I have been able to make some money over there as a side gig.

 I was contacted by this girl who wanted to buy some bitcoins from me.

We agreed on an amount and the place, they picked a coffee shop, which was fine, I like to do trades when there are a lot of people around for protection and what not. We agreed to meet in a few days. I get a message from the girl saying that she won’t be able to meet that day, however, her boyfriend can meet with me in the coffee shop but only later in the evening, like 9 P.M. That was fine with me so we scheduled it. This chick had a few reviews, and she was pretty alright.

Never suspected a girl lol.

I get to the coffee shop with my little brother who wanted to come with me. We meet, and everything is going well, the guy is alright. I start going through the process of transferring the bitcoins to his account.

Everything is going okay. He hands me an envelope, I count the money, and use some of it to buy coffee for me and my little bro, just to make sure it isn’t fake. I thought I was smart. The guy asks where we parked, coincidentally he parked in the same place so were walking together to the parking lot. It’s late, almost 10 P.M and there aren’t a lot of people around. I wasn’t worried, the guy seemed nice and social.

At one point the guy says “oh shit”, and turns around, I turn around to look too. That’s when he clocks me right in the face and rips the envelope out of my pocket and goes running. Pretty lame since my brother got to see all of that.

Currently filing a police report and hitting up LocalBitcoins.

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Cryptocurrency, Horror Story

Fell for the most basic mail scam on Craigslist

I was trying to buy some computer parts with bitcoins. I found a guy on Craigslist selling exactly what I needed. I really wanted to build a gaming rig. Luckily, I also had some bitcoins on hand. The seller agreed to accept them and provided me with his wallet. We set up a little escrow thing. He then forwarded me the tracking numbers and all of the receipts pertaining to my delivery. Ok I thought this is fine, nothing to worry about. I was just excited about the fact that I found what I needed and got to use my coins that were gathering dust. A few days go by and there I was standing outside waiting to receive my package. Mailman comes up, hands me my big box with a smile. I immediately noticed that it was way too light. I ran into the kitchen and sliced it open.

Lo and behold instead of my much-needed parts I find two garbage USBs in the shape of a minicooper and batman.

Amazing, at least it wasn’t that much. You pay for crap and you get screwed. Never using Craigslist again, or better yet, never making any deals on Craigslist again with bitcoins. I wonder if there’s any way I can get my money back through the Postal Service or something…

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Cryptocurrency, Horror Story

Pwned trading $3000 in bitcoins for the virtual Steam game items

I’m an avid gamer, and I like to collect customizable items for some of the games that I pay like CS Go, DOTA 2 etc. I found a guy who had a ton of stuff on his account that I really, really wanted to have. However, I didn’t want to pay any of the VAC fees associated with the Steam platform. We agreed to do the trade BTC for Items. We contacted each other on Skype, I send him $3200 worth of BTC and while he had the Steam window up with the trade ready, all I had to do was hit accept and complete trade.

As soon as I told him that I sent him the money, he closed the trade screen immediately before I had the chance to click accept. And blocked me everywhere; Skype and Steam.

I tried to get my money back by contacting Steam, however, they said they can’t do anything and that I might actually be in trouble for doing the trade out of Steam in the first place and trying to avoid the percent charges… I feel really foolish and don’t really want to play games anymore.

 

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Cryptocurrency, Horror Story

Scammer tries to frame me as THE scammer on Wells Fargo

I put up an ad on LocalBitcoins, stating that I would accept bank deposits through Wells Fargo or Western union. Some guy with bad English reached out to me, he offered to pay well over the cost, and wanted to do it through Surepay. I spoke with Wells to make sure that once I get the money that it can’t be taken away. The customer service agent assured me that after 12-24 hours the money cannot be taken away through a reversal.

I let the guy on LocalBitcoins know that I would only send him my BTC after I got a full deposit onto my account, assurance and what not. He agreed and I loaded my coins into escrow. He showed me a confirmation picture and all I had to do was wait for the processing.

A few hours later and I get a ton of emails from my bank telling me that my account settings have been altered. I immediately thought that he may have attached some sort of virus to the picture confirmation of the transaction that he sent me previously. I rush to log in and look at my bank account, and guess what!

My password doesn’t work and my account was locked.

I called my bank and they accused me of being a scammer due to a report that I was trying to steal someone’s money through Surepay. What the hell??? I immediately contacted LocalBitcoins to let them know of the situation and that I had BTC in escrow. Never deal with Wells Fargo again, as well as any other odd payment methods, screw that.

 

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Cryptocurrency, Horror Story

Bitcoins stolen. Tricked with a dying laptop

I found a local ad on Craigslist, some guy who was selling close to two thousand bucks, which was a great deal for me because I didn’t want to lose any money on exchange services. I’m a cheapskate lol. We agreed to meet at a restaurant and the trader to send me some money from his computer to make sure that the transaction works, I used a wallet on my phone. It took a long time so we decide to eat and talk. He seemed pretty trustworthy, and knows a lot more about crypto technologies than I do. We finally get approved for the coin he recently sent. He starts to send over the rest of the BTC, and I whip out my money.

Unfortunately, the dude’s laptop dies, but he said that he sent the transaction.

The restaurant soon closes and we decided to move to a coffee shop nearby. It took forever for the transaction to be processed, but I guess it was already registered on the Blockchain and we just needed a few more confirmations. I got really tired and decide to call it a night. He agreed and provided me with his phone number and driver’s license. I’m home, too tired to check the transactions and went to bed.

I woke up the next morning from a nightmare, decided to check my wallet… Nothing, nothing is there.

I contacted my wallet provider and they said that there’s no information pertaining to the transaction and nothing on the Blockchain as well. I called the guy, he doesn’t answer. I filed a police report and they ran the license information, but didn’t get any returns.

A fake license, who knows if anything he said was even real and I have absolutely no way of getting my cash or coins back. I’m going to try, but I probably won’t be successful.

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Cryptocurrency, Horror Story

Lost over two grand through a lousy PayPal escrow service on CryptoThrift

I was a seller on a site called CryptoThrift. It’s like eBay, but it offered a BTC to PayPal escrow service and charges a little extra for the conversion process.

I was careful. I checked on the feedback and reviews for both the site and what it’s like being as a seller.  I did one small transaction successfully first, then I waited for a few weeks before I kept at it. I continued to do a lot of transactions, selling through this platform and everything was cool.

However, a few months pass and I get several emails from PayPal notifying me that a few transactions were unauthorized and that money will automatically be withdrawn from my account.

I’m guessing that some of the people performed a chargeback. I tried talking to PayPal and they told me that they couldn’t do anything about it because they don’t support digital currencies yet, despite me providing them with a ton of solid proof. I know there is a ton of stories about PayPal, eBay, cryptotrades not going to well in the end, but I just thought that everything was good since I went on for a few months without any hard issues. I guess scammers are getting smarter now. I just don’t understand why popular systems like PayPal don’t have a sophisticated enough fraud prevention service.

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Cryptocurrency, Horror Story

Lost a little bit on a crypto-converting website.

I’m not very computer literate, and I use PayPal a lot. I found this one website through an ad that could convert crypto to PayPal. I don’t know why, but I decided to do it, signed up, connected my wallet, and without thinking too much I tried to convert 0.2 btc into cash.

Got an email confirmation from the service, telling me that the conversion would be done in 30 minutes.

I waited for about two hours, nothing, no btc, no PayPal money, nobody to contact and nobody to help me resolve my issue. Please don’t be as stupid as me!

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