hey I noticed these codes say not to share with anybody to which they respond
yes but we need to verify the account oh ok so today on crypto scam watch we're
going to have a conversation with a scammer and this is a follow-up to one
of my videos that I did looking at the ways that people will private message
you and try and scam you and this is a really good example of seeing some of
the red flags that are there as well as towards the end of this video
seeing how one of the crypto trading platforms is really common
I performed really well keeping you safe even when you're giving away information
to a scammer that you really shouldn't so let's have a look and see how this
conversation went as we follow the rabbit hole down as far as it goes so
there we go private message straight after posting on a crypto related
subreddit red flag let's also just have a look at the account that sent these
messages to us firstly the account news name is just a number and it's a grand
total of two days old red flag so if we click over the next tab we can see that
the account has also made zero public comments as well as zero public posts
another red flag here to help you get your wallet set up via private message
big red flag this is a classic I think I'm just gonna use my mobile wallet I
think to which the scam responds yes mobile phone wallet is good its model
and easy to access I think they're trying to say it's mobile but we'll
leave that there bad spelling and bad written expression is not a red flag in
and of itself but coming from someone who's claiming to represent a large
financial company or investment organization that is a huge red flag
another huge red flag here is so-called great investment opportunities that
actively seek you out do you have a website that I can learn some more
information about to which the scammer says yes but it's only for investors with one or
two BTC you can make thousands within some months it's a lack of documentation
red flag I decided to insist that I would need to see something before I
could make a decision and they said sure no worries I'll send you something
through just give me a sec funnily enough about half an hour later they
send me through this website and say here's the website it's for the
investors you can create an account and let me know when you have made that
account so I can move you on to the next step
so just for kicks I had a look at the Whois record for that website
cryptoinvestpay.com and oh wow look at that it was only registered in March this year
red flag weather website is legit or not you don't want to be one of the first
people using it to find out the hard way so here was the website and look you got
to say it looks pretty slick but if we have a look at it
we can see that fantastic bad grammar and spelling reappearing all through
this website safe and secured cryptocurrency plateform we offer global
24/5 support it's fun as well if we look a little social icons at the bottom
of the page they all just redirect to the social platform itself no page no
nothing red flag turned back no real business is going to have a
half-finished website for you to invest on especially one that claims to have
700,000 users one of the other really interesting things with this website is
when you click around on it you actually see that it doesn't have any support
information whatsoever the support page is really just a paragraph of garbage
and there's actually no documentation of any real sense anywhere on this site at
all that's clearly not intended for someone to actually learn how to use it
massive red flag so anyway I've created my account have a look at their website
and let's get back to the scammer so the scammer wants me to send my user account
that I created on this scammy website because you know why not send them the
fake email address that I used how many BTC do I address to say one so
that's good you'll receive 25% of your invest every week notice here there is
no consistency whatsoever between the scammy investment website and what this
guy is telling me huge red flag here's where it gets really good ok so where do I get my
wallet ID it will be sent to your mail once activated when are you on whatsapp
and just because I really don't want to be giving out much it's to this scammer
let's just say no they're thinking on their feet they're doing ok I like
explaining things to my clients according to their level
on the business I handle some of my client wallet by myself and return them
weekly to continue with mine I'll need your coin base log to link up with your
wallet activation asking for your login for a wallet or an exchange massive red
flag which I tell them it's the same email address on coinbase
as on crypto invest pay and I say I'm on it type it down here for me to verify to
avoid mistakes you know at this point it seems pretty obvious that this person
actually doesn't even have any back-end access to this website something that's
been set up and used by a number of scammers I'm guessing really just to try
and pull this coinbase information out of me
so lack of access to a platform that they're supposed to be supporting to me
again is another huge red flag so give them the email address and I say all
good I need the passcode so sorry you surely rise my coinbase password yes
I'm on it now be faster than the password so pressure to act quickly red
flag I thought at this point it was obvious how the scam was gonna go down
so just play with a bit and see how we go and so now this is dodgy I can't just
give you the password I can't just give you that and I love the response that
platform is for profession once your wallet is activated you can access it by
yourself it's easy and safe to use it's keen to see how persistent they'll be
here so just sort of hold my ground for little while and say nar coinbase have a
thing on the website saying not to give their password out I said well it
depends on how the platform works here I manage some of my client wallet once
it's activated you will enjoy and understand yourself telling you to
ignore warnings on the website of an exchange or wallet you are using massive
red flag again what we see here is classic scam behavior saying you can
change the password once I'm done with the activation if you want to again just
curious to see what they do I'd say I just need to move my Bitcoin out
somewhere first and I'll move it back later I thought
that freaked out at this point but they seem to be pretty happy with the saying
so stop thinking like that so I thought okay why not let's give them the
username and password for a coinbase account that I created and see what
happens so at this point I thought I'd login and coinbase to see what's going
on and it was pretty funny here there was just this massive
amount of sign-in failures first from the United States because they're
probably using a VPN on some kind and then they've turned the VPN off and we see
all of these failed logins from Nigeria seems legit now if you cast your memory back
to the beginning of this conversation this person said they were based in
California so there's this immediate difference between where they say
they're living and where coinbase and other services are reporting them being
based so that again inconsistent information that they are telling you
red flag the scammer wasn't very good at what they were doing and they couldn't
manage to get the password I sent them so I thought I'd have to hold them out
saying you know using a zero or an O in the past what I sent you it should be a
zero and at this point is where things just start getting absurd the code
actually says do not share this code with anyone so asking you to forward on
two-factor information of any kind massive red flag so I send them a bunch
of codes from coinbase this is great so at this point I think I'll look on coinbase
again and see what's happening and say hey you said you're in California
but coinbase says you are in Lagos in Nigeria yeah that's a good question I
wonder how they'll respond to that my platform is worldwide
it's like man I was worried for a second there but now it's all okay
oh okay so the scammer now has the username the password and a two-factor
code for my coinbase account but when they go to login it sends an email
address to me confirming that their new device should be trusted when I click on
that link saying yes trust this new computer I get this error here computer
authorization error the IP address you are coming from did not initiate this
request please confirm from the same connection there you go that is a great
message so I tell them it says IP error you try and same here they're getting
the error too so just when you thought it couldn't get any better they asked
for my email account my username and password for my email so they can log in and
see it for themselves insane red flag I thought I'd just see what
they do if I say hey I as these codes say not to share with
anybody to which they respond yes but we need to verify the account oh okay
at this point I'm pretty much board because this scammer has been trying to
get in for ages filling up coinbase with lots and lots and lots of login failures
and just not getting anywhere so it's just sort of draw a line say no can't
share that with you I have other private emails in there and I was just looking
around and look coinbase has a trading platform I'll
just use that but this was lots of fun cool to see your platform the scammer
has committed some time so they're not keen to let me go that easily and say
yes it's still good but let's finish this up and get you going if you want to
try coinbase it's good but I advise you to wait and see how my platform works I
bet you will be happy to use it and look this was a very entertaining afternoon
for me so I said hey thanks the entertainment it was an obvious scam and
it has been fun it'll make a good youtube video keep an eye out and I love
the response all right I cannot do business with you if you keep thinking
like this thanks for connecting anyway so we can see from this interaction if
we followed it as deep as it goes they were around 20 red flags any one of
which in a normal situation will be enough to help you to realize that
there's a huge problem that you need to stop talking to this person because
they're out to scam you and the closing thought for me really is just a huge
props to coinbase I was really impressed just at the default setup for their
accounts not adding Google Authenticator is there anything else like that that
still managed to keep a scammer out even when they had the username the password
are now being forwarded the two factor authentication tools so well done
coinbase for protecting users from themselves
I was genuinely impressed genuinely impressed thanks for watching I hope
that was helpful hit like if you think that other people
would find this video useful and hit subscribe if you'd like to be kept in
the loop about future content I make that helps people stay safe in the
crypto space and to recover if they get into trouble if you have any questions
about this video or a topic that you'd like me to cover just leave a reply