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This is a discussion and Solution regarding the scam of 663.843 SBD taken from my wallet Friday morning, along with 22.641 tokens and a trashed bandwidth, vote and scammed comments I was victim to. I will include the back story in this blog, but first I pose the problem.

THE PROBLEM

With a decentralized platform as Steemit, we pose the problem of hackers, scammers and schemers. If they smell money, they are on it like blood hounds. Steemians run the potential of loosing their hard earned bread and butter in this environment where there is no policing. That is the price of a purer freedom. We also have our wallets out in the public eye for everyone to view and covet. Would you have your wallet open in the public free for any thief to steel your debit or credit card number or cash?

As you may know I was hacked by good-kama and gtg.witnesses (not to be mistaken for good karma and gtg the real witness). There are many other hackers and scammers here. It all traces back to MONEY. This is a global platform and there are global hackers. These two are from Romania.

I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE SCAMED

There are many other fine people here who have been scammed small and large amounts of crypto. There are others who came close to being scammed. My friend Rick explains it well where his wife almost got scammed. He goes by @sighmanjestah and did a three series blog on it. Here is a link to his blog. https://steemit.com/phishing/@sighmanjestah/phishing-phreedom-and-prayer-part-2-phreedom. PLEASE KNOW THERE ARE COUNTLESS OTHERS WHO ARE SCAMMED DAILY. I have seen their comments on my posts and read blog trending in scam, phishing, steemitabuse, hacked and other tags.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

None of us want a governmental authority taking over Steemit. For God's sake that would destroy it's purity. However no one wants to be raped and fucked over emotionally and financially. There should be a compromise.

We could ask Steemit to regulate it.
Steemit is actually owned by someone, but the decentralized nature of it does give up a certain amount of their control. I think since it is their property that they should be able to set the rules, but I am all for the fewest number of rules to keep it simple.

This was one possible suggestion by @sighmanjestah. Not a bad idea but not a home run either.

I am part of @familyprotection run by @canadian-coconut and @markwhittam. They help families and children who have been abused by the CFS and Foster Care system. They work to help these families with money, shelter and emotional support. @family protection is supported by donation and writers who blog on this need.

WHY CAN'T STEEMIT HAVE A SUPPORT GROUP FOR VICTIMS WHO HAVE BEEN HACKED?

It could be a grass roots effort. This group could be used to help reimburse some of the financial loss suffered by victims. Another used is to go after these scammers when possible. And finally offer emotional and spiritual support. Perhaps it could be funded by donation or a small percentage of crypto by those folks who wish to voluntarily participate or generous whales willing to contribute.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS TO THE ABOVE IDEA?

Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

PROTECT YOURSELF

Never be logged in with your master key unless you absolutely need to.
Use your posting key for comments and writing post.
Use your active key for wallet transactions.
You will find them in your wallet section of your Steemit account.
Make triple sure that the web address is Steemit before you click.
If something looks spammed or phishing like, it probably is.
Ask for help if you do not know how to protect yourself.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about in the above statements do a search and get to know what they mean, or ask a friendly minnow/dolphin/whale to point you in the right direction. Don’t put this off.

MY STORY OF BEING SCAMMED

My account was compromised March 2, 2018 at about 9.15 AM . Good-kama took 22.641 of my steem tokens and gtg.witnesses took a whopping 663.843 of my SBD. I was able to save my steem power before they got to that. I also got a new master key for my account. By redirecting me to steewitt.com rather than steemitcom, they were able to take my funds. In the process they delegate all my crypto to power their bots. I believe they are trading the money on blocktrades. Sadly I have always used my master key rather than my posting key. I did not even know there was a posting key.

I would add that they spammed a number of comments and used my account. I contacted @guiltyparties on the #steemitabuse channel of steemitchat was gracious to help me out. I was able to delete most of them with the exception of four comment of which are still flagged and my reputation was compromised. I am still a 59. Finally they exceeded the bandwidth so my upVote has been trashed for seven days at least.

I contacted blocktrades where gtg.witnsses and good-kama traded my 663.843 SBD. It was traced twice from Romania, once in Switzerland and once in Amsterdam. The general belief is that it's from Romania. With a decentralized currency and platform and the global aspect, it is much harder to have justice done and find recourse to the stolen SBD. Below is the screen shot of the conversation.

THIS IS THE BREAD AND BUTTER FOR MANY PEOPLE HERE

When their hard earned money is gone they suffer. What justice or help is there for them?

SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE

For the sake of everyone on this platform I hope someone who better knows the ins and outs of Steemit comes forward and can help put something together as was mentioned above. I do not have the computer or steemit knowledge, but there must be someone out there who would champion this effort for the good of all Steemians.

A BIG THANK YOU

I want to again thank you to the many folks who have helped through prayers, emotional support, upvotes, resteem and donation during this travesty and loss. I appreciate each and everyone of you. - Blessings - Troy

Please resteem and upvote if possible. Again thanks.