This year I started to get Spam in some chat discord channels and also in my email account. Reported the spamming companies on http://econsumer.gov It turns out there is at least 155.000.000 u$ reported as being lost by Scams so far only in 2020. This is no joke, 155 million dollars, only in reported scams. Look at the following report of this year with the 5 main countries where the reports come from:
The coinRIZ.com case
I received in my chat channels a message that was affected also part of my contacts:
Due to the situation with Covid-19 we decided to give an incentive help our users to start in Crypto. You just won 0.6 BTC!
Just register and use this code: XXXBLAH to claim your price.
Wow! I just won 9.500 € (In todays aprox. exchange rate) Can you imagine someone will just give you as a present, even 500€, like this randomly? Not even in your wildest dreams unless you hit the lottery Jackpot. This should raise the first alert! No serious site will promote their services with Spam in the first place. So Spam + Win a prize is obviously a scam. But still knowing this I registered, and even uploaded a valid ID with a fake address, since I want to know how far they go with their technique: And I must say, impressive work guys. Let’s have a quick overview of the features:
* They simulated 100% being a Crypto exchange site.
* They created all user flow, added support (That they will never answer)
* Added a place to “redeem” your price and all looks like taken care of
Except when you take a detailed look:
The domain is registered some days ago. The SSL certificate is not signed with a name. Big red alert, never trust a site like this!
Their address and privacy policy, somewhere in Estonia, seems fake to me. But anyways, where is the trick, now that we come to this point?
Let’s follow, so I registered, and now I want to claim my price using their so called CODES. A way to exchange crypto without paying transaction fees, let’s put the code they sent me and claim my price. Maybe for once in my life I will get something for free.
I did it. I see 0.61 BTC in my balance. And now comes the Wow moment:
We need to be very naive to think this action will unlock any possibility to recover this money. This guys are real scammers and are poison to all the internet community.
I encourage you, if you ever see this kind of actions, to report it as a fishing site so other people get a browser alert when they navigate to this site. But also to file a report in eConsumer.gov and the online authorities of your country. Because they may be some people fooled by this. Because it matters that the people behind this kind of shady businesses, specially mentioning help Covid or people in need, are heavily punished and their sites blacklisted.
There is a lot of crap in the internet. That we all know, but this activities, along with the sites that trick you disguising themselves as your bank or trusted sites are the worst of all.
Be aware of it! Never send funds or trust a site in doing business unless you research first if they are legit. And don’t be indiferent to it, flag it and report it using the tools mentioned below. Only together as a community we will fight back this madness.
Use this websites to report them:
eConsumer.gov Report an online Scam
Scamrate for coinRIZ
Report scam or fishing in FireFox / Chrome / Safari
- Select Help > Report Deceptive Site
- Paste the URL of the phishing site and submit report
- Or simply browse the Report fishing page from Google
The text I used was something for the report was similar to the one below.
URL: coinriz.com
Comments: Fake Cryptocurrency exchange. It sends Spam using chat/email channels and it’s already in anti-spam lists. After receiving an invitation, where they claim to give “for free” in order to help people after the Covid-19 crisis, they ask you to validate your account sending a deposit of 0.03 BTC (Aprox. 400u$)
Fasani Corporation 