How Blockchain Badges from Unstoppable Domains Saved me from a Scam!

It’s 1:45 am…and just as you were finally loosening the grip on that mobile device to catch some much-needed rest, when that pinging sound alerting you to activity on your phone was just too tempting to not check your DMs on Twitter. That’s happened to us all!

 A similar thing happened to me a few days ago, except it was from a scammer…and the DM on Twitter read,

“Hi there. I am an early investor in Unstoppable Domains and I have received a lot of credits for my early investment. I am not really interested in buying more domains as I am quite happy with my portfolio. I would much prefer to turn those credits into crypto. I can give you a 50%-60% discount on any domain you want. I have $40k in credits so it has to be within that limit. I have been following your tweets and you seem to buy often, and good ones at that. Let me know if you are interested.”

Suffice to say that the message was met with my standard skeptically raised eyebrow. You see, human beings can -at times- be the most deceptive people to engage with when the sole motivation behind that engagement is to scam you. Don’t believe me? To ‘verify’ that claim, all one needs to do, is to check the unending records exhibiting the ridiculous amounts of people that have been scammed and the even more, the ludicrous amounts of money that lost to cybercrime. What’s worse, is that majority of them are never caught.

What if all of that could change in terms of identity fraud? That’s where blockchain technology comes into play, because of its imperviousness to alteration. So, when someone says, “put it on the blockchain.” All they are doing is motivating you to protect yourself and your assets from scammers.

Pulling the Rug from under the Rugger

Pre-blockchain, verification for this kind of claim would have been almost impossible. Sure, someone can provide an image of their account, or of the “credits” they claim to own, etc. but other than that, there was no tangible approach to authenticate those claims.

It is no secret that I am a whale investor in Unstoppable Domains, and that comes with some insightful perks. For instance, I know that if someone owns a domain from UD, then they have a web3 profile. I also know -a great regret on my part by the way for being late- that those early investors received credits. Being late to the party, I didn’t get any so if the person has that many credits then he/she should have a badge to prove that they have been in the space with Unstoppable for over a year. I know this because the “1 year club” badge is my next target for November 2022. Additionally, credits will have an expiration date, so, equipped with all of this information, I was ready to engage albeit hopeful that it was a sincere person on the other side.

The scammer did the normal things well though. He was swift in sending me images of the credits, and of an email that he received confirming those credits. Normally, those are strong indicators and the scammer did well to tell me that he is willing to provide me proof that he is the real deal, and even though he was open to answering my questions and supporting them with images, etc. verification would be impossible from my end. That’s when it struck me that we were now in web3, and the solution was simple as a corollary of the blockchain badges from Unstoppable Domains.

With my Unstoppable mentality in place…my question to the scammer was simple. Could he provide me with his Unstoppable Domain profile? And this is amazing because with the UD profile via your NFT domain, all of your credentials on the blockchain are verifiable. Suddenly, my scammer was unsure of himself and responded, “Uh I haven’t really been in touch with space myself as I have been busy with work so I don’t think my profile is activated. I just bought the domains as an investment. However, If you zoom on the email pic, you will see my twitter handle and my email address are the same. So I am who I say I am.”

So, to give him the benefit of the doubt. I submitted my profile link and hoped that it could jog his memory. Unstoppable Domains makes this process very simple and accessible. I sent him the link, https://ud.me/ethernetexplorer.crypto requesting him to do the same. All he had to do now was type his name instead of mine. So http://ud.me/yourname . Simple!

Lo and behold, I have not received a reply from the scammer since. Why not? Because if he did indeed own an Unstoppable Domain, even then he would still need to provide his badge stating that he was a holder for over a year. Too many variables working against him I suppose.

This was not my first encounter with the wonderful real-life utility of Unstoppable Badges. Previously, a domain investor was posing as a UDwhale wanting to gain access to our discussions. Similarly, the claimant was unable to produce their badge resulting in his inability to verify his credentials to the claim.

Unstoppable Domains is making verifiable credentials a breeze. As the tech develops, we will see our diplomas, NFT collections, medical records, rewards, gaming trophies etc. visible on the blockchain ensuring the eventual demise of deceptive folk and by extension, fraudulent activity.

It is, therefore, rather significant that UD holders of NFT domains update their profiles and collect their badges. The more people who rely on their blockchain behaviour as a yardstick for measuring truth, the fewer scammers and impersonators we will see.

I have personally invested in numerous domains relating to credentials and identity for web3.

I’m Unstoppable….Are you?