Beware: Scammers on Steemit.chat
There has been many attempts to convince people to send their valuebale Steem and Steem Backed Dollars (SBD) in exchange for a series of large upvotes (or "up my vote"). Many people were approached by a buildawhale impersonator. Beware of any such pay for upvotes, especially the ones where they request you send the money (crypto) to another address other than the account it self.
This is similar to how scammers will call and threaten you about owed money to the IRS or many other organizations. This is what the IRS says in regard to this:
REMEMBER: The IRS doesn't initiate contact with taxpayers by email, text messages or social media channels to request personal or financial information. In addition, IRS does not threaten taxpayers with lawsuits, imprisonment or other enforcement action. Recognizing these telltale signs of a phishing or tax scam could save you from becoming a victim.
This is similar to buildawhale and many other large account holders. It is unlikely that they will ever contact you on steemit.chat or discord, especially not asking for a transfer of money and NEVER to bittrex or polo or any other third party.
So this is where my adventure begins. I was approached by a peaceandlove account on Steemit.chat. I knew already that this was a scam account from the beginning.
I tried to play dumb and write as incorrectly as the subject to make them think that I was a good victim and that I couldn't be playing them. But of course I was.
Using bad grammar and spelling I tried to convince him that I just couldn't use bittrix. I made it clear that it wasn't an option. He was clueless. All he wanted was to make a few bucks.
"If you do not want to send to my bittrex, I will not up your vote." Playing hard to get ehh? Dont want to up my vote ehh?
Since I am not going to send any money, I might as well just keep saying I wont send to bittrix and see if he will offer another option. Maybe, just maybe he will bite.
MUAHAHA..He bit. Account name @panopticalvia it is. Let the investigation begin. This is actually an almost inactive account held by a perpetual scammer, only powering down at this point. The account was created over a year ago with the Steem account creation process so no other leads there. Nothing new and most likely the same person pretending to be many account holders on steemit.chat selling "up my votes."
After making this scam know in a chat that I participate in I found out that another person that I know was just approached by this scammer. Thanks to @gandalf for banning this account so that he cannot use this particular steemit name to take advantage of others. He banned another scam account at the same time.
up my voted plz... Hahahhaha. Thanks for alerting us.
Classic isnt it? New hashtag is #upmyvote
Yea... classic scammer language. I wonder why they always have bad English though. :D #folowupmyvote
Maybe because they want us to think they are not smart enough to scam us???
Haha hi @elizacheng. Maybe....
Halo @zord189! Maybe next time you interview one or two... and ask them why the bad English... Then we will know for sure... :D
Hahhaaha, if i come across anyone like this. I would la.
OK.
So you would like to be 'up my voted'? Thanks for this nice moment of fun. Unfortunately, many users are not aware of this scam and are hit...
Thanks for the heads-up! Bless you!
Thanks for the info! I hate scammers! Upvoted and resteemed :-)
Nice work @nicnas. The number of scammers on steemit is ridiculous.
good catch @nicnas .... thanks for sharing this info out
so can you send me 10 sbd via western union then i upvote this post?
I took off at " I like to be up my voted"
LMAO
I think he thought he had me at that point. I adapted to his bad English and won. ONE for the good guys. But it was very funny though. Thanks for checking it out.
sure! :D am still laughing... |pleaze my vote for my up floor like there thank you love for all beautiful weather? X_D lol
time to stay aware :)
The follow me, follow you exchange in the comments is fuckin priceless.