So today I got this direct message in Discord from a user named Automatic telling me I was part of a crypto giveaway. Yay, great! It's worded just right to get my attention:
So, I'm thinking my way through this going "PHISHING ALERT, SCAM ALERT, BS ALERT," and I continue to read this wonderful notice to find the catch. There's no apparent signal. The only requirement is for me to register with an exchange named Zerfaxbit and punch in their winning code given to me with this message. Okay, I'll see where this goes; so far, I'm just dealing with freebie stuff and nothing sensitive is handed over.
The rules are weirdly worded, which is also giving me bad juju signals, but so far again, nothing sensitive involved.
I get into the site, register, and it look fairly legit, but I've seen joke sites before running bots to make the chat look live, so I'm not fooled by the worked that went into this. The Suspicion-Meter is still running hot here:
So, I follow the rules and punch in my code.
My "win" updates and, lo and behold, I have "won" 3.46 ETH with a USD value over $9,500. Oh really? Now it's way too good to be true. I would have believed this is the win was something nominal like $50 or $100. But seriously, $9,500 in ETH? Horsesh#t!
So, I do the next best thing any smart crypto person would so. If you really did give me 3.64 in ETH, I'm going to take it out. But I'm not going to jeopardize a good wallet. Instead, I give them my podunk Metamask wallet which I know has a whopping $2.31 in it. I know, it's a big loss if I get hacked (pshaw!).
In goes the address and I get a message, "Due to European rules, blah blah, we cannot let you withdraw until you identify yourself with a verifiable identity and (here's the kicker) after you deposit into the exchange 0.2 ETH." Double Horsesh#t!
No, win, lottery or crypto giveaway expects you to pay money to get your win. And there is no way in hell I'm handing over 0.2 ETH to get some magical, make believe 3.46 ETH, even though it sounds too good to be true. So, I keep poking around. I find they have a section for Staking. It's offering something like 14.4% for ETH staking.
Hey, sounds good to me. If can't withdraw this right away, I'll stake it and make more free ETH. So, now in 30 days, I should get some kind of staking payout on my free crypto I supposedly won. If true, its even more free money on free money. Personally, I think it's Triple Horsesh#t...
So give me your thoughts. Do you think this is a scam or legit? Do you know anything about Zerfaxbit? Did I really win the bacon a second time this year (FORTH gods, thank you again).
What's your thoughts?
UPDATE: The MFA feature works and I was able to login in again repeatedly, like a normal working account.
2ND UPDATE: Checked out the domain and found more fishiness. Turns out, at least according to ICANN, the Zerfaxbit site was first set up on May 21, 2021, based on a server in Iceland. The award notices went out on Discord only a few days after. Very suspect and fly-by-night behavior. Interesting. Still have the account with the balance staked though and supposedly earned another $20 in BTC with their referral bonuses.
