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Hello all, just to warn the community here that I've received suspicious Flippa offers recently.
I've played around one of them to learn more about the structure of the scam. Replied to the offer and took screnshots during the negociation that followed to document the process.
I had in mind that I may write a small step-by-step for all to learn how to detect scams.
Here is what happened.
1. Offer (suspicious!)
Context:
MusiqueClassique .com is listed as Make offer > $1,000 on Flippa
(means "Classical Music" in french).
I've received many lowball offers during the years so I've put a 4 figures min offer to stop these.
Here is the message I received.
Why is it suspicious?
2. Negociation (very suspicious!!)
He comes back with "I'm ready to offer $5,700 but payment has to be in Bit-coin because I am from china and international payment is difficult".
(Because if the buyer sends BTC directly to the seller, once it is in the seller's wallet, nothing can force him to honour the sale and transfer the domain).
My reply "I'm happy to accept your offer as it is very reasonnable. Flippa doesn't allow BTC payment I think, what do you suggest?"
Let's see where that takes us...
3. Follow me down the rabbit hole (highly very beaucoup très suspicious!!!!)
He offers we follow up on Telegram, gives me the @Amidamary1900 contact which leads to a "Han Chao" profile. Why not!
If he agrees to that, then it's Christmas! I'm ready to transfer the domain and we can conclude that transaction the same day. But of course, he has his own Escrow solution in mind.
4. The BTC-Escrow so suspicious that it's not even fun anymore.
Now we are at the heart of the scam.
What's gonna happen is
How do I know? I've done some due dilligence.
"cryptodaxex.xyz" gives only 8 or so results! Well, for an Escrow service, you need TRUST and recognition. 8 results is bad...
One of the google results leads to an article about the death of cryptodaxex 3 years ago
Looking at the whois of cryptodaxex.xyz and TrustedsReviews.xyz is even funnier...
Both sites are only a few days old. The scammers managed to rank the review site on Google in a few days and started rolling out scam sites that have "reviews"...
With all that data, I decide to have a bit fun and ask my buyer a few questions...
Of course, got no replies after that.
That was fun for me, but remember that scam happens and that you need a secure payment solution... And that YOU need to make sure it is really secure!
Best of luck in this wild world...
PS. can't find the conversation in my flippa account anymore, I guess Flippa did detect and suppress the fake account.
I've played around one of them to learn more about the structure of the scam. Replied to the offer and took screnshots during the negociation that followed to document the process.
I had in mind that I may write a small step-by-step for all to learn how to detect scams.
Here is what happened.
1. Offer (suspicious!)
Context:
MusiqueClassique .com is listed as Make offer > $1,000 on Flippa
(means "Classical Music" in french).
I've received many lowball offers during the years so I've put a 4 figures min offer to stop these.
Here is the message I received.
- Comes from a brand new user (Flippa account created a few days before message). 0 transactions yet.
- "Kan JUn" seems like an Asian name, the domain is a 2 french words one MusiqueClassique .com and is quite niche. Agreed a French user could want it and create a fake account to hide his ID, but I think he would chose a French name or pseudo.
2. Negociation (very suspicious!!)
He comes back with "I'm ready to offer $5,700 but payment has to be in Bit-coin because I am from china and international payment is difficult".
- He confirms that he is from China and interested in this french niche domain. OK, it could happen, but seriously... I love this domain because I'm a musician and I still dream of developping it into a nice website someday, but I'm not sure it's a sound investment for someone willing to pay thousands of dollars in a discreet way from China...
- No negociation, already offering a sum > half BIN. Whereas my min offer is $1,000.
- We will have to move out of the platform as Flippa doesn't offer BTC payment.
(Because if the buyer sends BTC directly to the seller, once it is in the seller's wallet, nothing can force him to honour the sale and transfer the domain).
My reply "I'm happy to accept your offer as it is very reasonnable. Flippa doesn't allow BTC payment I think, what do you suggest?"
Let's see where that takes us...
3. Follow me down the rabbit hole (highly very beaucoup très suspicious!!!!)
He offers we follow up on Telegram, gives me the @Amidamary1900 contact which leads to a "Han Chao" profile. Why not!
- Telegram means anonymous / non traceable if you take the right precautions
- We are now "out of platform", so there no third party to turn to if anything bad happens.
Now we are at the heart of the scam.
What's gonna happen is
- I agree,
- I create an account on the website http://cryptodaxex.xyz,
- wait for "Kan JUn", now "Han", to send his 0,55 BTC or so (BTC on the rise today!).
- I will soon enough receive an email stating that "the funds are secured and I can now transfer the domain safely".
- Once the domain transfered out of my registrar I'll ask for the BTC to be transfer to my wallet. Which will never happen because... http://cryptodaxex.xyz is a scam!!
How do I know? I've done some due dilligence.
"cryptodaxex.xyz" gives only 8 or so results! Well, for an Escrow service, you need TRUST and recognition. 8 results is bad...
One of the google results leads to an article about the death of cryptodaxex 3 years ago
Another leads to TrustedsReviews.xyz which gives a few reviews of cryptodaxex, the oldest one being 3 days old! (By "Justin Sun", which is hilarious to those knowing a bit about crypto!)
Looking at the whois of cryptodaxex.xyz and TrustedsReviews.xyz is even funnier...
Both sites are only a few days old. The scammers managed to rank the review site on Google in a few days and started rolling out scam sites that have "reviews"...
With all that data, I decide to have a bit fun and ask my buyer a few questions...
Of course, got no replies after that.
That was fun for me, but remember that scam happens and that you need a secure payment solution... And that YOU need to make sure it is really secure!
Best of luck in this wild world...
PS. can't find the conversation in my flippa account anymore, I guess Flippa did detect and suppress the fake account.
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