Beware of Blockchain Company Crypto Scam (blockchain.com)

A blockchain company operating under the blockchain.com domain claims to have your bitcoins and wants to pay them out to you? Be careful! This is a typical cryptocurrency scam. More than 2 years after recording a telephone conversation with a scammer from... "blockchain companies", we received a quite credible-looking e-mail with another extortion attempt. Below are the details. Stay vigilant.

The blockchain company has your BTC

It starts with innocent contact. So far, we have regularly encountered the calls we receive from "blockchain companies", which she claimed under various pretexts. Usually this "a forgotten wallet that needs to be liquidated", "accounting arrangements in the company" or "intercepted cryptocurrencies that were stolen from us by a fraudster". Any fairy tale will be good here. Now, however, the contact took place via e-mail, which did not go to spam, looked very reliable (apart from the story presented in it), and all links led to refined websites. What did the content of the message look like? Below we attach the full content of the e-mail received from support@blockchain-inc.eu.

The content of the e-mail received from fraudsters.

What do scammers claim? In short: a BTC wallet set up with our personal data by an illegal company was intercepted by the British financial supervision authority FCA. Finally, it was intercepted and now the funds can be withdrawn to the end user, i.e. us. To do this, please contact the manager. Approximately 72 thousand are available for collection. USD. Sounds like a lovely New Year's gift, right?

There is no shortage of stories on the Internet about how, after a few years, someone found access to a cryptocurrency wallet on an old disk, and then it turned out that he was a millionaire. Of course, it is understandable that "finding" 70 is a tempting vision for many people. dollars in cryptocurrencies but let's get down to earth. If you don't remember that you purchased BTC 10 years ago, it means you don't have it. And if you have any doubts, do not delude yourself that the blockchain company will contact you about this matter. There are a lot of cryptocurrencies that are practically "lost" because someone lost the wallet password. And there's no way around it. But let's get back to our cheaters.

What happens next?

We hope that no one has any doubts that this is a typical cryptocurrency scam. But what is the scam itself? If someone has our funds, how can they rob us? Well, very simple. At the initial stage, you just need to awaken your dreams of receiving this money and build trust. Our personal data is verified. Usually, fraudsters ask us to send a scan of our ID - to show that it is a real procedure and at the same time steal our data. Sometimes it is also required "profile registration" or opening an additional crypto wallet. Once the victim greets the goose and thinks he will get it "own" BTC, this is the message coming about the need to pay a fee due to a commission for the transaction, payment of tax on the income obtained, or any other story that aims to extract from us the money necessary to pay out bitcoins. Suddenly, the "lucky" person faces a dilemma: say goodbye to the whole thing or risk the 10-30% to get the rest?

What happens next seems obvious.

What is the solution to the problem?

Nearly 2,5 years ago, we managed to record a conversation with fraudsters practicing this fraud model. You can listen to it at the end of the article. Seeing that practically nothing has changed during this time and the same scammers are actually contacting the same (and probably also new) people, the chances of their quick capture by the justice system are rather slim.

So what can we do? Discussions with scammers seem completely unnecessary and it is best to simply block such contact. What's next? First of all, let's raise awareness among friends and family. Let's educate, let's inform, let's warn. Let's not be tempted ourselves, let's check who we receive e-mails from, let's google it.

What if we have already fallen victim to fraud? All is not lost. There are companies that specialize in recovering funds - they have their own know-how and cooperate with banks and payment intermediaries. It is not always possible to recover funds and much depends on the details, but it seems to be the only hope after falling into the trap of cryptocurrency fraudsters.

We warn against using the services of unlicensed companies. Before opening an account, always make sure it is correct the broker has the appropriate regulations and permits at the indicated financial market supervisory institution.