Spammers Push Bitcoin-Themed Reload Scams
You’ve probably heard about the debacle at Mt. Gox, a Bitcoin exchange. Reuters, meanwhile, is reporting that a Bitcoin bank known as Flexcoin is shutting down after it lost $600,000 to a hacker attack.
Elsewhere there are stories about the tragic death of 28-year-old Autumn Radtke, CEO of First Meta Pte Ltd, a Bitcoin exchange.
Uncertainly about the future of Bitcoin and exchangers appears to be driving reload scams. These may be positioned as ways to recover Bitcoin losses incurred through Mt. Gox.
Something styled “BitcoinInvestmentFund” at a .net has appeared online. One of the links on the site, which appears have been registered in January 2014, leads to a forum in which this claim is made (italics added/verbatim):
Make millions EgoPay PerfectMoney Bitcoin SolidTrustPay in paying hyips fastest Real Investment
The PP Blog reported yesterday about a scam known as “Mutual Wealth” that allegedly was gathering cash though EgoPay, PerfectMoney and SolidTrustPay, which often are facilitators for fraud schemes.
Nothing is sacred in HYIP Ponzi Land. In a disturbing tale of disconnect, some promoters of TelexFree, an MLM “program” under investigation in North America, South America, Africa and the subject of warnings in Europe, more or less tried to cherry-pick recruits by posting in media accounts in Brazil about the suicide deaths of two TelexFree promoters.
Tacky doesn’t begin to describe it.
At 12:10 a.m. today, the PP Blog received a spam from someone (or something) tying to post in the Comments thread below this story about thousands of people being sued as a result of the Zeek Rewards scam. The would-be poster used the would-be user ID of “Hyip Egopay” and sought to plant a link to the purported Bitcoin recovery venture at the .net.
Within the would-be post was an assertion about “Investment Insurance.” It also issued this appeal: “Cover Your Lost [sic] on MTGOX.”
The would-be post appeared to solicit sums of between $300 and $250,000 — and the purported payouts were in the thousands of percent per hour.
Among the claims on the actual .net site is this: “Bitcoin Investment Fund is short term, high yield private loan program, backed up Our Newest system of Forex trading.”
Words fail me . . .
I was greatly deflated when I learned that “Mt.Gox” was an acronym for “Magic the Gathering Online Exchange”
New levels of nerdlitude have been reached.