Bottom Line Up Front

If you receive a random DM from someone you don’t know, congratulating you on winning a giveaway you never entered, from a crypto exchange you’ve never heard of, it’s a scam. If you follow their prompts, create an account on the exchange and enter the given promo code, it will appear as though the funds you “won” are in your account. However, you can’t withdraw or trade them until you “verify your wallet”  by depositing a decent amount of BTC. This will, unsurprisingly, result in a loss of funds.

Overview

Unsolicited DMs on Discord, Telegram, and Twitter are a common occurrence if you do not have your privacy settings adjusted to disallow them. I like to leave mine open, however, to catch gems like this. A random account reached out to me with good news: I had won a giveaway from their new exchange!

Apparently, I won about $18k worth of Bitcoin, and all I had to do was make an account on their new exchange, and enter the promo code I was sent. Well, why not, right? It’s hard to turn down free money. So, (behind a VPN and with a sandboxed browser) I clicked through to their exchange to begin the process of claiming my winnings.

Things started off like you’d expect, with the site asking for an email and password to create my account. Security measures were minimal, as they had no problem with my email being a@a.com, and password being 12345:

After that, I just had to enter the promo code I was sent for winning their giveaway, and I was in the money:

But, when I tried to transfer the BTC I had won off the exchange, I was hit with this:

Ahh, there it is: the ask.

In order to withdraw or trade the BTC I had “won” on their exchange, I have to first verify my wallet by making a minimum deposit worth a few hundred dollars. Unsurprisingly, if I had done so, the promised funds would not have been unlocked, and the amount I transferred would have been lost.

Generally speaking, scammers only have three goals, the most important of which is tricking you into sending them money. For all the window dressing around this particular scam, the ultimate premise is simple: send us money, and we’ll send you more in return. Usually, this type of scam is more blunt:

But sometimes, scammers take the time and effort to dress things up a bit more. But, that doesn’t make things any more legit.

The Takeaway

If you get a DM, reply, or notification saying you won a giveaway that you never entered, it’s probably a scam.

If you ever, under any circumstances are asked to send money in order to receive money, it’s a scam.

Any time you receive an unsolicited DM or reply with seemingly good news, proceed with extreme caution, because chances are nothing good will come of it.

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