BEWARE! Bitcoin Giveaway Scams.

[_B_]

I feel like I need to post this everywhere possible because it's quite an issue and unsuspecting people may fall for it. And the losses are quite huge because we are dealing with Bitcoin here...
So, I've seen some of these for the last few weeks but decided to make this after I got one on YouTube again. These type of scams are mainly on YouTube in the form of livestream.
They usually impersonate someone famous/well-known such as Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos through a video of them in an old conference or interview being played in the livestream to give the false idea of them speaking in real-time and relating to the "giveaway". It is usually titled "Bitcoin giveaway or Bitcoin exchange". These livestreams usually make it to the front of people's YouTube page because bots are used to increase subscriber counts and views to create false authenticity. YouTube does take them down after a while but it's still too long...
To lure victims further, there may also be a message talking about the "deep economic crisis" in particular due to Coronavirus at this period of time or something along the lines of an how everything is currently unstable and that cryptocurrency is much safer.
It will then offer a "back-bonus system" where you send Bitcoin and they send you back double what you put in and some bonus. Here is an example:

THESE ARE ALL SCAMS! These types of giveaways will probably never happen in real life and falling for these scams are very costly due to the fact it's Bitcoin and it's values are quite high.
Unfortunately, these are around a lot but hopefully by reading this you will ignore these videos and resist the temptation to engage. People have fallen for this and words can't describe losing upto thousands to a scam like this :/

 

[Driguez9]

Thank you so much for bringing this to people's notice. Exposing them will help save many folks' hard-earned money.

 

[_B_]

I would like to add on that something quite extraordinary also occurred today on Twitter in relation to this scam. Many famous people’s accounts were hacked and had the bitcoin scam messages attached to it too. And this is definitely caused people to fall for it. Here’s an example I found:

 

[ewpratt]

There is an old adage: "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

 

[LEADTECH]

Thank you for this information. This will help everyone to be more careful.

 

[Mildredtabitha]

Thank you for notifying us about that.

 

[sliara]

Thanks for posting this, I was never really interested in the whole bitcoin thing, so I will never fall for these type of scams, especially if it requires me to send money or my email address.

 

[Alexandoy]

As the saying goes, there is no free lunch so anything that is too good to be true is most likely a scam. This is a pretty nice public service for warning the public about the scam. Bitcoin is very popular and so it is only obvious that it is now being used to attract people to their evil scheme. I hope everyone is forewarned and would be safe from that scam.

 

[ewpratt]

I do currently actively trade in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. There are plenty of legitimate opportunities out there, but many, many more scams.

 

[Hova]

I do currently actively trade in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. There are plenty of legitimate opportunities out there, but many, many more scams.

Do you have any legit suggestions?