How I fell for a Bitcoin scam

 

This paid video-viewing site was just a one-page website, no about us, privacy statement, nor contact us page(s). Just a profile page, video-viewing section, top payouts, a FAQ page with plenty of errors and the support page was looking like a WhatsApp group. I saw all these but no. Nothing can stop me from cashing out

 

Two nights ago, the twitter accounts of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barrack Obama, Uber, Apple and some others were hacked. The hacker claimed to want to give back to society, asking people to send bitcoins to a blockchain account and get double of what they sent. All these hacked twitter accounts asked that the bitcoins be sent to a particular bitcoin address. They all had the same message format.

As at the time this was discovered to be fraud, 5,314 people already sent thousands of bitcoins to this blockchain account. With the hacker making no less than $7.8m worth of bitcoin. In a few minutes! That’s like 2.7 billion in naira. Trust me, This guy is made for life. Tracking him is almost impossible. But I hope it is possible.

This is no doubt, the biggest Twitter hack of all times!

Please don’t ask me why I feel this hacker is a guy. Because I’m not about to play any gender games here. So, please, read silently and keep your gender opinions on this matter to your self. Thank you.

Recently, internet fraud has been on the rise with plenty of people falling victim to it.

“According to the FBI’s 2017 Internet Crime Report, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received about 300,000 complaints. Victims lost over $1.4 billion in online fraud in 2017. According to a study conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and McAfee, cybercrime costs the global economy as much as $600 billion, which translates into 0.8% of total global GDP. Online fraud appears in many forms. It ranges from email spam to online scams. Internet fraud can occur even if partly based on the use of Internet services and is mostly or completely based on the use of the Internet.”

Wikipedia

The above report was for 2017. Only. I don’t know the statistics for the past 3 years but I’m dead sure it’s not gonna look good on paper, at all. Because people fall for these schemes on a daily…

How I fell for a bitcoin scam

I’m not in any cybercrime prevention team. But I will do well to tell you my story and If you can’t learn from my experience, then, I’d gladly lend you a cold hug and a bent shoulder to cry on if you fall victim to this. Or maybe not. Depends on my mood. I still hope you don’t though.

Because no one gave me a shoulder to cry on when I fell for this BTC scam. Truth is, I had to lie to save my face because the blames would hurt me more than the scam itself. Thankfully, I didn’t lose up to a million. It wasn’t even up to #10,000. So I just shut up, swallowed the loss and dusted my shoulder pads. I can’t lose money and also lose my pride as an amateur techie.

Enough of the preamble, I’d just dive right into my story

So here goes,

Sometime in June, I woke up to a WhatsApp message from a friend, let’s call him ‘Big Head’ – In case you’re reading this, “I can’t stress my tiny head to give you a good name after you sent me the text that made me get scammed.” So, Big Head it is.

It was around 3 am or so. He told me there was this paid video-viewing site (https://uepvideon.pw/) that his friend just found and he has cashed out big time. I texted him immediately to know how legit the deal was and he confirmed it was real. I have heard about paid video-viewing sites before but they were not always open to Nigerians. Probably because of IP address limitations, or just because my IP address reeks of fraud and terrorism.

But these new darlings are so generous and open-armed, they allow Nigerians to participate in this gold mining and even pay as soon as you click on ‘withdrawal’. Awesome deal. Interesting.

I dived into the deal immediately. “What is there in videos that I cannot watch? Plus I even get paid in dollars to watch them. Dollars? Am I a joke to these people?” By 8 am, I already watched videos worth 29 dollars. This was too good to be true. I posted my referral link on my school group page and got about four down-liners.

Then, continued working on my dollars. Money must be made. I created an account for my sister and kept pushing the ministry. Our dollars were increasing by the second. Amazing.

I had blog posts to write, articles to edit, online courses to attend to, a portfolio to build, but I pushed them aside for later. Besides, the elders say that a bird at hand is worth two in the bush, right? I’d still come back to this thing the elders said. For now, let me continue my story.

Just so you know, these scammers have similar modus operandi. See how they work:

They present mouth-watering offers that are too good to be true.

My earnings gave me a special kind of joy and fulfilment. Imagined making this on a weekly? I drafted a list in my head. I had been eyeing this fringe weave on Naijabeauty’s IG page. Part of my earnings was going to get me that hair.

I already took mental pictures of me slaying and killing the hair, and of course, blinding y’all’s eyes with it. Then, I’d send some to my parents and siblings and hear them call me ‘Adannaya’. Been a long time they called me that. I promised my cousins #5000 each. And probably get an apartment for myself. Probably.

Then settle down to watch videos and keep cashing out. What’s my name again? You can call me Hushvideo. I don’t mind.

One must be thinking I robbed a bank by now.

I forgot to tell you guys that the domain names kept changing at every login. That was the first time I got alarmed.

I called Big Head again. He assured me that his friend had cashed out and there was no cause for alarm. He was actively watching videos too.

They create websites to make you think they’re real.

I mean, I own a website, but this website looked so poorly built. It was a one-page website, no about us, privacy statement, nor contact us page(s). Just a profile page, video-viewing section, top payouts, a FAQ page with plenty of errors and the support page was looking like a WhatsApp group. I saw all these but no, nothing can stop me from cashing out. I checked out the site on Scamfoo.com  to know if it was flagged as a scam website, it wasn’t. All the assurance I needed was there, plus I know someone that knows someone that has cashed out. Lovely.

I told my other friend about this deal, I’ll call him ‘Wisdom’. “In case you’re reading this, this is a confession.” So, Wisdom told me that it was a scam and I shouldn’t fall for it.

Wisdom must be a killjoy. So, what will now happen to all my dreams? The weave, the ‘Adannaya’ my mum would call me while she dances after seeing the alert, the “thank you baby” from my cousins, the apartment I’d be getting for myself? The baby girl life?

I ditched his advice,

Well, not all, and continued wasting my data on this site. I refused to tell my other friends because I didn’t want anyone to discourage me. In my head, I was staying far away from bad energy.

As Wisdom advised, I tried to cash out 50 dollars from my sister’s account and there came the condition. “I must make up to 100 dollars before cashing out.”

I had earned more than 100 dollars but I didn’t want to touch it yet, I planned pushing it up to 500 or even 1000 dollars before withdrawing. So, I continued pushing my sister’s account to get to the minimum withdrawal limit. Thankfully, My referrals were also working to boost my dollars. One even told her mum about it, and her mum told her friends too. “All things are working for my good, It’s intentional, come on say it…”

I pushed my sister’s to 100 dollars and clicked on ‘withdrawal’ again. Another condition- “I hadn’t referred up to 30 people, company’s policy, blah, blah, blah. I must have up to 30 referrals or, pay a little token of bitcoin to buy referrals.”

There came the voice of reasoning, “can’t these people just take out this ‘token’ from my earnings? why stress me with buying referrals again?”  You know what they say about the devil’s gift?  Sisterly still didn’t care.

“Maybe they just want to see my commitment, maybe this, maybe that.” “People are cashing out, I’ll do anything to cash out too.” I thought to myself.

But there must be something I could do, right?

There must be a way around this 30 referrals thingie. “They wouldn’t know if I create multiple referrals for my self.” Aha! That is it! Do they think they’re smart? They just met Brainiella.

I engaged all the desktops in the house, about three of them, to create referral accounts, using Incognito mode to hide my activities. I even checked out sites that could help me use multiple VPNs. Upcoming Yahoo Mama.

1,2,3… 18, new referrals in 20 minutes. Say my name! In the next hour, my account would receive a loud thud and the alert would be resounding. I could picture myself dancing and jumping over the couch.

Damn! Money is sweet oo.

I called Big Head again. This time, to reason with him on the way forward. I needed this money and I already had major plans for it. He confessed to creating multiple accounts to get his referrals to 30 too. And he still couldn’t withdraw because the referral accounts were not actively watching videos. So he has to wait for 30-40 days or, send bitcoins to buy referrals from the open market. Not again!

We concluded we would buy referrals. I have this good friend. A bitcoin Lord. I called him and told him what’s up. He agreed to sell at a discounted rate for us, because of me. Heavens must be in support of this deal. 

They manipulate you into committing a token.

After two days of going back and forth with the bitcoin purchase, I felt Big Head was a coward and only the brave ones take the risk. I am brave enough, I can do this. So, I clicked on ‘buy referrals’ and was given a wallet to send the bitcoin to. I didn’t even have the amount I needed in my account so I borrowed. Yeah, you heard me. I borrowed to buy those bitcoins.

Bitcoin Lord sent the bitcoins to the wallet and sent me the link to track it and know when the miners have confirmed the coins. A few moments later, it was confirmed and I rushed to my profile to confirm that I had sent the bitcoins. That was when my journey to agony began.

Then, you realise you’ve been chasing shadows.

I clicked on the ‘process payment’ countless times, I kept getting “there is no receipt of payment for the referrals.” “Wait! What? So, who did I pay to? The miners have confirmed the bitcoin, why is there no receipt yet? You had better ‘receipt‘ it fast and send me my dollars.

I must have been in a joker in my first life. Who has the time to reply to my stupid questions?

Bitcoin is the new ‘Anonymous’, Just so you know. It’s almost impossible to track a bitcoin scammer. If not ‘outrightly Impossible’.

After trying to process payment to no avail, I went on to the support group to ask questions on how to confirm payment. There were messages from 3 days before that had not been replied to. “This Admin should be fired. That’s very poor customer service.” Well, I still dropped my inquiry and patiently waited to get a reply. For where?

All I saw were testimonies from people who had received their monies and bought Iphones, paid house rents, bought cars, even had to quit their jobs. Maybe there’s still hope for the hopeless.

The next day, there was still no reply. I knew there and then that I had been scammed. “No, I won’t take this. People have to know that these guys are scammers.” So, I typed a long-ass note cursing them and their forefathers. Clicked on ‘submit’ and waited for my revenge. They blocked me from posting more comments. Saying that my first comment has not been replied. “But, I don’t need your ‘morafokin’ replies, beeches. I have replied myself and you guys are scammers!”

I was already boiling inside. My money. My hard-borrowed money. I forgot what the elders said; A bird at hand is worth two in the bush. In this case, I even borrowed the bird and still threw it away. Foolish girl. Who will I tell my story?

I fell sick immediately. Chest pain from nowhere, fever, chill. I was weak, inside and out. Honestly, I took drugs for this scam inflicted disease.

This story is already long enough…

I’m even ashamed of myself right now. Because, I knew all these games. I have never fallen for a scam scheme before. But, why now that I am wiser, smarter and well versed in things that happen on the internet? Okay, maybe I became a dummy overnight. But I have a lot of friends in IT, even Dede Wisdom is an IT guru. I still did not listen.

No matter how much I want to give excuses for falling for this. I know deep down that I was influenced by sheer greed to hammer overnight. So, I blocked the voice of reasoning and let my want for that money becloud my judgement.

And these scammers know all these. They present offers that are too good to be true, prey on your weakness and manipulate you into committing something to gain a lot more. Lies!

There are a host of other scam schemes that pose as real businesses to lure unsuspecting buyers. I’m sure you know all that.

Moral lessons?

Use your tongue to count your teeth. My mum would always say that. Flee from “pay 1 kobo to make 10 million.”  E no dey work! Except someone gives you money out of charity. No one can double your money without you doubling your efforts and hard work. Avoid money-making promises that look like they fell right from heaven. Na dem!

I’m not about to become a motivational speaker. This post is already too long and I think I have said enough.

Finally!

Do you have a similar experience? Have you been scammed before, or you know someone that knows someone who has been scammed before? Please feel free to share your story with us. We’d love to hear.

Thanks so much for reading. Please don’t forget to share with friends and foes alike. Stay Wise and Stay Safe out there. Have a lovely weekend. Cheers!