Bee Token ICO Phishing

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Bee Token

According to their ICO, the Bee Token was set to revolutionize the home sharing market dominated by AirBNB. Their "bank-level" security couldn't save their users from having all data compromised. Many users received fake ICO launch emails, and ended up giving their funds to attackers. After telling their users not to trust any site aside from beetoken.com, the beetoken.com site was taken down and merged with coinformant.com. There is no evidence that any lost funds were recovered.

This exchange or platform is based in United States, or the incident targeted people primarily in United States.

About Bee Token

Bee Token is described as “building a middleman free, peer-to-peer network of hosts and guests on the decentralized web”. "It was essentially positioned to be the decentralized AirBNB of the Crypto space." "We are a seasoned team of former employees from Google, Facebook, Uber, and Civic reimagining the sharing economy. Together, we are building Beenest and the Bee Protocols on the Ethereum blockchain."

"Bee Token is the cryptocurrency of Beenest, a decentralized home-sharing and house rental network much like Airbnb. It is a real-world example of applying blockchain technology to an industry, which, in this case, is short-term housing and hospitality. Beenest held an ICO (presale of its Bee tokens) in January to raise enough crowdfunded capital to launch the project. Presale ICOs are usually done to test the waters to see if the project has garnered enough interest, and investors are incentivized with discounted offers."

"Beenest is a home sharing platform for hosts to list their homes and for guests to find accommodations. Beenest rewards users with network incentives, commission-free transactions, and security unrivaled in the home sharing industry." "The Bee Protocols are a set of Ethereum smart contracts providing developers the tools to rapidly launch new decentralized applications. By utilizing industry proven Bee Protocols, developers can expect faster development cycles, reduced integration costs, and an existing user base." "The Bee Token is the cryptocurrency that fuels the Beenest platform and the Bee Protocols." "Bank-level security through Blockchain technology."

"Cryptocurrency startup Bee Token confirmed that scammers conned its investors out of at least $928,000 worth of ethereum when it ran its initial coin offering (ICO). The fraudsters who phished the investors posed as the Bee Token team, urging them to quickly capitalize on the ICO to gain a significantly higher return on investment. The scheme involved the phishers sending would-be buyers an Ethereum address or a QR code that redirects them to the address. The earliest transaction occurred on January 31, nearly the same time Bee Token ran its ICO."

"[S]cammers managed to get hold of the emails of potential investors and send out a perfectly timed invitation specifying an e-wallet for the transfer of Ether tokens. This wallet pocketed 123.3275 Ether (about $84,162.37). The scammers also created several phishing sites masquerading as the official platform."

"The Bee Token team has been made aware of phishing sites that have copied the Bee Token website in an attempt to deceive users into sending them their money. Please DO NOT trust any website other than https://www.beetoken.com/ . REPEAT: DO NOT trust any website other than https://www.beetoken.com/"

"Users on Reddit have claimed being banned in Telegram when asking simple questions dating back as far as 2018."

"In July 2020, Beetoken.com has joined Coinformant.com. This decision has been made after the website owners wanted to consolidate hosting. Beetoken.com was set up to display information about the ICO that vanished into thin air. We’ve displayed all the information we could find below on this page."

This exchange or platform is based in United States, or the incident targeted people primarily in United States.

The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.

Include:

• Known history of when and how the service was started.
• What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
• What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
• Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
• Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
• How were people recruited to participate?
• Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.

Don't Include:

• Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
• Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.

There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.

The Reality

This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:

• When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
• Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
• How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
• Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.

What Happened

The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.

Key Event Timeline - Bee Token ICO Phishing

Date	Event	Description
February 5th, 2018	Main Event	Expand this into a brief description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.

Total Amount Lost

The total amount lost has been estimated at $928,000 USD.

How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?

Immediate Reactions

How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?

Ultimate Outcome

What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?

Total Amount Recovered

There do not appear to have been any funds recovered in this case.

What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?

Ongoing Developments

What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?

Individual Prevention Policies

No specific policies for individual prevention have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as an individual, check our Prevention Policies for Individuals guide.

Platform Prevention Policies

Policies for platforms to take to prevent this situation have not yet been selected in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as a financial service, check our Prevention Policies for Platforms guide.

Regulatory Prevention Policies

No specific regulatory policies have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of regulatory policies that can prevent loss, check our Prevention Policies for Regulators guide.