What the...Help!? [My First Steemit Scammer Encounter!?]

in #steem6 years ago

Hi there Steemizens!

I think I've encountered my first scammer since I joined the network about 40 days ago. Just the other night, in the middle of my work, I got a direct steem.chat message

msg-1-help.png

After some back and forth (this guy's English was not very clear), he shared a link to his account wallet, so I could see he is quite powerful on the network. Then,

msg_3_200.PNG

To his surprise, I asked him to clarify this chivalry of his.

msg_4.PNG

He responded with a call to action

msg_5.PNG

I'm not quite sure why I kept the conversation going. This stank like a scam, besides, I need to send 1 SBD to this guy's account so he can later upvote my stuff. Seems like a lottery, with the difference that someone guarantees that you'll win. It's clearly a scam.
I tried to make him explain why the 1 SBD (I couldn't get to a straight answer), while at the same time checking his transfer history, and he's making, what seemed to me, a ton of transactions at the moment of our conversation. Somehow this made me believe he is legit, and that he'd help out sometimes. Of course, I never took the amount literally, but I've been playing around with some of those upvoting bots and thought this could work in a similar fashion, a little boost can't hurt.
Wat do I do?
Long story short, I did this

msg_6.PNG

So yeah, with about 30-days-old account and 1 SBD earned with sweat and excitement, I decided to invest it. Then, of course, this happened:

msg_7.PNG

And after a short time, this:

msg_8.PNG

And still, I wasn't fully convinced he's a scammer. The deal was upvoting posts, and I hadn't had posted anything in couple of days at that time. The first moment I could, I posted some stuff, but the support was nowhere to be seen. :)

So, while I do feel bad about my hard earned 1 SBD, the point for writing this is, to actually ask you guys a question:

What could be the reason he did this, as I really fail to see any significant benefit that he may have. But then again, I'm quite illiterate when it comes to understanding all this decentralized-crypto feature of the www. For now. Also, I'm not sure if I should - and how to - contact this person and ask for some clarifications?

Please advise the n00b.

Thanks in advance.

Sort:  

Shit too many of them

Seriously, dont trust anyone with lousy English with sweet promises

So sorry that happened, but at least there's a lesson.

Should state his name, btw, so others can watch out

A friend almost got scammed as well. Someone pretending to be xaero1, saying gonna delegate huge, but just to send him a steem/sbd first.

Careful, my friend 😐

Lesson definitely learned :) I wasn't sure whether to expose his name, so I'll do it here.
The user is @lifewordmission, but he told me to send the SBD on his other account, @blocktrades, so people can recognize it.

The problem with users on chat (especially on discord), we can make account using any username, so by pretending to be a known account with high SP, this is how they trick people

So just keep it mind, it might not be the real lifewordmission/blocktrades/whoever famous that you chatted with

What a bummer, hey

Ok, so you mean they can provide a fake name even for a SBD transfer?

Either way, better smarts next time :)

I didn't know they are already all over the place. Thanks @thekitchenfairy for the educational words! :)

That definitely looks like a scam. As to what s/he has to gain, think of this way: If s/he can scam 20 people into send him/her 1SBD, then s/he’s made off with 20 SBD s/he can cash out and jump to a new username to begin all over again.

Well yeah I get that, but his account was quite powerful, and making transactions both ways, so I thought he could be legit. Still, I'm glad I did this with only 1SBD, even though I was really proud of it! :(

I guess congrats to the guy :)

Well done @omnimacedonian! You successfully guessed the match result.

Group Phase - Serbia vs Brazil
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
Do you want to know your current ranking? Read this post

Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard!

Hello. The contest steembord inspired me to hold my charity.
I want to give three lucky football souvenirs from Russia.
Terms of the contest read here
https://steemit.com/worldcup/@yak15/attention-contest-i-send-a-gift-to-the-world-cup-2018-to-three-lucky-winners

P.S
I do not have the means for active advertising. I really want to give gifts to my new friends from steemit so I write such messages. Thank you for any help in distributing this information.

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.31
TRX 0.11
JST 0.034
BTC 66441.00
ETH 3217.31
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.22