I am not in the habit of cluster-bombing Hive with a bunch of posts on one day. So forgive me for posting again today, but I think the message is important. I just finished posting an art post earlier when I went over to Discord to share it on some channels, when a message popped up by someone whom I have no channels in common.
It definitely looked like spam to me - I should have screenshot the thing because after I closed the window and now checked later, that "user" disappeared.
Image by WorldSpectrum from Pixabay
So now, lets get to the Nitty-Gritty:
Here is the message as I copied it:
:gem:The CryptoLAU winter GIVEAWAY!:gem:
:fireworks:Congratulations!!!:fireworks:
You have been randomly selected among users of Crypto Discord Channels, such as Grin / Crypto Investors / Energi / Lion crypto and many others... In the Giveaway! CryptoLAU - Professional digital asset trading platform. We and our partners decided to make a big giveaway and help people in such a difficult time. We give cryptocurrency from 0.15 to 1 BTC to random users.
:snowman:You WON 0.4192 BTC:snowman:
:snowflake:Your promocode: :snowflake:
E25DC6EF4728FFFF
:small_orange_diamond:How to start using the site:grey_question:
:small_orange_diamond:Register an account on the site : https://cryptolau.com/
:small_orange_diamond:Go on Page "Codes"
:small_orange_diamond:Activate promotional code
:small_orange_diamond:Receive BTC on your account
:small_orange_diamond:Verify your account
:small_orange_diamond:Go to the "Balance" tab and click "Withdraw", enter the address of your external cryptocurrency wallet BTC (or other coin) and the amount.
:pencil2:If you have any questions, contact us in online support:
https://cryptolau.com/en/support
So here is my follow up - first a screenshot from the CryptoLau site:
So I check things out, after all, this sounds much like the scam shit that gets filtered out as spam in my emails. Didn't take long to find lots of relevant stuff on Google.
One of them:
https://scamwatcher.org/cryptolau-review/
Here is the screenshot from their conclusion:
Some of the text on the ScamWatcher site:
Is cryptolau Legit?
cryptolau is an unregulated Investment Company. Problem with unregulated Investment Companies is that they are not reliable and abuse the regulations. Make sure to stay away from this Investment Company as they are anonymous and that they can disappear any time without notice.
To make sure you are dealing with a regulated and known Investment Company, you should be able to find easily who is the CEO of this investment firm, who is running it etc. Lack of information is a big red flag since you don’t know who will be dealing with YOUR MONEY. This is the reason why cryptolau is a dangerous Investment Company to deal with.
Are Funds Safe with cryptolau?
With such lack of information and cryptolau being unregulated, funds are not safe. Security of funds is a huge problem with unregulated Investment Companies. A red flag that we noticed is cryptolau is withholding vital information to users.
cryptolau could go bankrupt from one day to another since there are no banking information about this Investment Company.
The Contact information you find on the cryptoLAU website is telling:
CONTACTS
cryptoLAU Financial Company OÜ Sepise tn 1 Lasnamäe linnaosa, Tallinn Harju maakond 11415. Register code: 14637422
This is the info from Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/xoWQUio8n9XDkdW19
Edit
I should add that this "give-away" is a typical scam, as it is also discussed on Reddit - I quote:
is CryptoLAU a scam?
i am in a few investing and crypto server more to talk about this stuff. a few days ago dm me saying i was randomly chosen from a few servers for a giveaway for 0.5 to 1.5 bitcoin giveaway. Gave me a reward code to use on the site and i got like 0.5652 BTC but to extract to another wallet asks me to dposit 0.005 BTC or 250 USD. is it a scam bcs iv know scams but this one is pretty confusing.
The answer:
Yes. This is a scam. Needing to pay to get money that you've "won?" It's a classic !advancefee scam. Just walk away. There is no giveaway.
LET'S BE CAREFUL OUT THERE
Visit my website
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PRINTS OF MY ARTWORK AVAILABLE HERE:
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should you not be on the blockchain, or have no upvote power,
or this post is already older than 7 days, you can always just buy me a coffee.
UPDATE May 4th 2021:
Again on Discord, but this time I took a screenshot - the scammer managed to gain membership in Minted!
More on Reddit - a update from a Mod.:
Hi Shield_Lyger, AutoModerator has been summoned to explain the advance-fee scam. The advance-fee scam arises from many different situations:\ investment opportunities, money transfers, job scams, online purchases of any type and any legality, etc., but the bottom line is always the same, you will pay the scammer and receive nothing. It can be as simple as the scammer asking you to pay them upfront for an item they have listed, or as complex as a drug scam that involves an initial scam site, a scam shipping site, and fake government agents. Sometimes the scammers will simply take your first payment and dissappear, but sometimes they will take your initial payment and then make excuses that lead to you making additional payments. If you are involved in an advance-fee scam, you should attempt to dispute/chargeback any payments sent to the scammer, you should ignore the scammer, and you should ignore them if they attempt to contact you again. Thanks to redditor AceyAceyAcey for this script.
Seems those scammers are all over the place - I just seen a post by @vikisecrets about a scam message on YouTube: Crypto Scammers on YouTube and Social Media