Crypto Ponzi scams

By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics and access other forums reserved for members. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today by clicking here.

Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2018 11:11 am

Hi fellow baiters,

Does anyone have experience in baiting Cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes?
Can they at all be baited?

They operate in classic ponzi schemes, via MLM networks...

Baiting Guru Joined: 10 Oct 2010 Posts: 3877

hmmm, I'm not sure about that.

since a victim has to pay upfront in order to make money, it would qualify as some sort of advance fee fraud (but in a wide definition).

but I'm not sure how to bait. maybe by expressing interest in their service, and then delay stuff...

the big problems in that style of baiting.

it's MLM, that would qualify as one scammer and a horde of mules, who are victims themselves, but need to get other victims in order to earn money.

and if you receive bitcoins, etc, this would qualify as cashbaiting.

I'd stay away from them.

Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 2:40 pm

Thx RH, they are also not your 1 braincelled lad asking for WU.
From what I've seen and investigated they are actually millionaires, setting up ponzi after ponzi after ponzi...

crf Ruja Ignatova

Would be awesome to take some on, but I have the same concerns regarding "how to bait" and "how to make sure no innocent people get involved"

Will keep my hands from this for now, but if any of you have a plan please PM me I'm hyper-motivated LOL Razz

Not quite a Newb Joined: 28 May 2015 Posts: 57

What style of Ponzi is it? Does the original scammer (that is, whoever set the scheme up in the first place) personally recruit new members, or does he/she rely on early adopters to do the proselytising for him/her? If the former is the case, then perhaps you could get in touch with the head scammer and tell them that you are an influential member of the Bitcoin Talk (or similar) forums; you will promote their scheme for them and bring in plenty of new 'investors' (read: mass bait).

If the latter is the case, then things get rather greyer since, although they might turn a profit before it all collapses, the early adopters could still technically be victims/ITPs. Also, if the head scammer is the hands-off type, the scheme is probably website-only and fully-automated; either put your money in or sod off. In those cases, there's probably no meaningful contact between the scam's promoters and the scam's low-level victims/recruiters to speak of. This makes baiting very hard, though you could maybe go for a site kill in this case.

Not that I want to be 'that guy', but I thought we didn't go after HYIPs these days?

Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 4:48 pm

@KingKets PM me if you want. I am highly informed about ponzi as one of my closed friends was involved in one of ponzi schemes. So I can help somewhat.

It was really hard to get her out.

Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 8:58 pm

Moved here. This isn't something we really deal with as AFF.

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 4:06 am

If you find a fake site and have the evidence that it is involved in a scam, then post it in Fake Banks (or on the AA419 forum). Although it isn't something that Eater deals with AA419 will add the sites to their DB and report them.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 12 Mar 2018 Posts: 2

Hey, I'm new here but since I know a bit about cryptocurrencies(CCs) I wanted to chip in this to add something.

In my opinion, to this day all big crypto ponzi scams are usually new ICOs or shady CC exchanges that are hyped in some online communities to get a sizable initial investment and inflate the price of a new CC. Then the scammer crash it's own CC or leave with all the money deposited to the exchange overnight, leaving the victims empty handed. This is also kinda hard to detect because they usually are pretty professionnal for scammers, having believable projects and websites, those we usually know are scammers after the fact and might be next to impossible to bait. Real ponzis, where initial investors are remunarated with new investor's money are rare in crypto from what I know. Pyramids schemes might be a little bit easier to spot though...

The other thing that I see being problematic in baiting those kind of scams is that they probably are being run by experienced cyber-criminals. I think they usually have pretty good understanding of the technologies they are scaming with and all the internet ecosystem, making the risks involved in messing with them higher than your average "Windows Level 8 Certified Technician".

This reddit thread <Link removed. As you stated, these may or may not be scams. We require evidence they are.-bware419ers> has a good list of POTENTIAL pyramid or ponzi scams. Be very wary and investigate carefuly as they are not necessarily scams, like I said it can be very difficult to determine the real intentions of the owners of some CCs projects, especially when having a "Scambaiting" mindset.

The thing that is sure though, CCs are gaining a lot of traction and becoming more and more mainstream, so I would not be surprised if scams involving them become more obvious as the involvement needed to profit from them will go down with the increase of the potential victim pool. So keep your eyes peeled!

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 03 Apr 2018 Posts: 3

I was the victim of a scam by a guy named name removed -Padme through a website, he stole my bank details and I do not want anyone else to fall into those traps.

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 2:49 am

I've removed the name as we don't allow people to post names/numbers/emails and other identifying information without evidence of the scam. That said, as bware419ers pointed out, this isn't the sort of scam that we deal with here.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 26 Jun 2018 Posts: 36

Well, I'm usually pretty resourceful! I may be new to this community, but I have been doing this for a while. Just get me some contact information, and I will give it a crack! ;P

Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2018 5:40 pm

As I wrote previously this isn't something we deal with here. Locking.