Cryptocurrency Mining Rig Purchase Scam wowzas97

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Blockchain.info

Reddit user wowzas97 reports that when they went to sell their mining rig, they were tricked into installing a fake bitcoin wallet application on their smartphone. Once that was installed, they received a fake payment from the purchasers. The purchasers made off with the mining rig, and they realized after they left that the funds had never been transferred.

The country for this case study is not yet known.

About None

"I had recently finished building my cryptocurrency mining rig and had it run 24/7 to generate income. However I am a university student and to fund my masters in my country you get very little help from the government. I had made the decision to sell it on various sites for £5000. This was neither a good nor bad price; it was very middle of the road. I'm sure you are curious of specific specifications but I do not want to give out any identifying information. A man contacted me asking to the general profiling questions and asked to pick it up from my house. I was happy to as it was quite big to post and the insurance was a nightmare. He claimed to have a long drive and arrived with a 2nd man which he said he was bringing. We had previously arranged for the transaction to be sent via bitcoin and I agreed. I showed him the goods that were prepacked and they were both happy. No alarm bells were ringing and even made small talk with myself and my mother at the time. I asked for payment and they had appeared to have paid as the money appeared in my wallet. 10 minutes after they left panic ensued as I had seen the money disappear. I later realised that the money was never in the account as the transaction had not appeared on any log. I hope to learn from this mistake as this had taken a long time to build and a lot of money put in which i can now no longer use to pay my tuition.

I hope others can learn from this as well as myself to always vet people. Get their ID. Take pictures. Take as much identifying information as you can"

"From my end, I saw my wallet go from 0 to 5k. With hindsight I of course should've checked the log, but I wasn't looking for any indication I had been scammed."

"Just to clarify: my wallet was at 0, then I asked for payment. My wallet then went up to the 5k. I do not know how this happened perhaps someone else who has a better understanding could help? Perhaps cloning or an overlay was used on my phone.

When someone sends money via bitcoin it's recorded publicly on a ledger. The fact it wasn't on the blockchain shows that they never sent the money at all.

I have never seen this sort of scam and I still do not know specifically how they did it but I have some educated guesses."

"I used a wallet on the app Blockchain. Yes I physically saw the money on my phone. I understand you can not "undo" a bitcoin transaction which is why when they suggested it in the beginning I felt completely comfortable with it.

I am 100% sure the BTC never made it to my wallet. Which is why an overlay may have been on my phone to give the illusion of it being there.

I was using a Samsung phone."

"Yes, the wallet is on the website you stated blockchain.com, however they also have an app simply called Blockchain which I primarily used. I did have this wallet before I met these people however I had never used it."

"Yes, he sent £1 to 3 different wallets, one after each other and blockchain app had the fastest delivery time so we decided on using this specific wallet."

The country for this case study is not yet known.

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

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• 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 - Cryptocurrency Mining Rig Purchase Scam wowzas97

Date	Event	Description
December 27th, 2021 1:27:34 PM MST	Reddit Post	Situation was posted about on Reddit.

Technical Details

This section includes specific detailed technical analysis of any security breaches which happened. What specific software vulnerabilities contributed to the problem and how were they exploited?

Total Amount Lost

The total amount lost has been estimated at $5,000 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.