The Newest Crypto Scam in Town. Maybe Not

I have always considered myself too smart to be conned, especially on the internet. But it happened recently. I lost $105, and it took almost half a day to figure out what had actually happened.

When the dust settled and everything was clear, I felt really slow-witted. But to be fair to me, this was a well-thought-out con game with critical details covered well. Indeed, I can claim that anybody who doesn’t know of the con game can easily fall victim.

This is how it all started.

I was on the job marketplace Upwork trying to find a new writing gig. It is important to point out that this particular con game can be executed in different environments with different types of targets. Not just writers looking for gigs on Upwork.

While browsing on Upwork, I saw a job post. It was just a standard job post. It was someone looking for a crypto content writer. I put in my application because this is exactly what I do.

Within hours, the potential client, by the name ‘Stan Walker,’ which should have given him away, wrote back. He presented himself as a recruiter for Script Network. I had never heard of Script Network before, but based on the information Stan Walker shared and what I gathered later, they are building a 24/7 television on the blockchain.

He shared links to Script Network’s official website and social media pages. On X (Twitter), they have close to 170k followers with a verified badge, Instagram over 40k, and Discord over 80k. These are significant numbers for a blockchain project I had never heard of before, and they put me at ease.

In his initial message, he also asked me to check their website and look at specific sections, in particular, to learn how I can help write and publish news articles. I did inquire about the pay, and he offered $6000 a month with about 15 news articles expected. That sounded like a good deal.

When I arrived at the site, I decided to first look at the white paper. That is usually where I start my serious interaction with a new client. A white paper usually gives me the backdrop I need to understand the enterprise.

An answer for every concern

There was a little problem, though. The site prompted me to first link my Metamask wallet. This wasn’t odd, though, as many platforms on peer-to-peer networks, especially those designed with native tokens, require this before you can interact with the protocol.

But because I didn’t expect it, as I just wanted to explore the website, I asked Stan Walker about this. He told me all I needed to do was link my wallet to get access. This was just to prove that I was a human, not a robot. I did not see any harm in this.

But after I finished linking the wallet, I realized I still could not access the material I wanted to see. Stan Walker had a handy explanation for it. My wallet must have processed at least 100 transactions or have a balance worth over $100. It made sense because this was a wallet I had just created to explore the website.

I deposited ETH worth $110 from another wallet and tried to link again. This is where I should have sensed it was a con game, but I missed it.

The dialogue box prompted me to verify the access from my wallet. I clicked confirm. Of course, you know what that means; I had inadvertently sent $105. I became suspicious, but not enough.

I went back to Stan Walker and asked him why money was deducted while he had promised me that it was just for proving I was human and not a bot. He told me not to worry because the money would be refunded in two hours.

I said, ‘Okay.’ But still, I didn’t have access to the material I wanted to check on the website. He told me that was being fixed.

At that point, I decided to check again to see if I was dealing with a legit project. I again looked at the social media pages. Everything looked like what you would expect from a legit project. That includes the interaction with the community and other stakeholders. My curiosity, suspicion, and worries were lulled again.

Two hours passed, and I still didn’t have access, and the system had not refunded my money. I reached out to Stan Walker to find out what was going on. He told me there was a problem. He said the system had failed to log me in because my wallet address was newly generated. I needed to use an ‘older’ wallet address. I told him no problem, I would get a wallet that I had used several years back. He promised to manually refund my money.

I recovered a wallet I had generated in 2018. But just to be sure I was dealing with an honest individual, I requested him to refund the money so I could load the address, as I had never used it to send or receive funds.

It was at this point that things started to unravel.

He told me there was no problem and I should share my Bitcoin address. I asked why Bitcoin and not ETH. He said their system automatically converted the ETH it received into Bitcoin. I said, ‘Okay, let me send you a Bitcoin wallet address.’

Everything becomes apparent

I sent a Bitcoin address. A moment later, he told me the payment couldn’t go through because my wallet address needed to ‘be activated.’ That was a first one for me. I have used Bitcoin since 2014 but have never heard of the need to ‘activate’ a wallet address before it can accept Bitcoin. Anyways I sent a different one.

We had the same problem even though this latter one had close to $3000 worth of Bitcoin. I mentioned this fact to him, and now he attempted to be a little more creative and steal the $3000 worth of Bitcoin from me.

He told me to make the refund easier, I should share my wallet seed phrase with him. Now any little doubt that might have been there that I was not being conned evaporated.

However, many questions were popping into my head. At the top of the list is how this guy can con me through an official website of a project that, in every aspect, seems so legit.

At that point, I outrightly told him he was conning me. He denied it and feigned being insulted by me thinking of him as a con. He told me that to prove me wrong, he would refund me from his own pocket.

Of course, he wasn’t going to refund. He ghosted me and then blocked me.

Now I went back and tried to understand how everything turned out and how this guy could do something no one had done to me online.

At first, I thought he had hacked the Script Network system. And then I thought maybe the entire Script Network project was set up to con people. But going back to their social media engagement, that seemed far from the case.

Finally, it hit me that I should check whether the social media pages and the ‘official website’ Stan Walker directed me to were owned by the same people.

Voila! Everything became apparent. I followed the link from Twitter and arrived at a different website, primarily identical to the one Stan had directed me to. The URL was different, and the actual official website of Script Network didn’t prompt visitors to link their Metamask wallets. It was a normal website with all content easily accessible.

In the end, like with other con games, it turned out to have a few traps placed where I couldn’t see them. The sharing of the actual social media pages of a legit, seemingly popular project alongside a cloned website that prompted linking to a Metamask is where the actual blindsiding happened.

Turns out I am not invincible when it comes to scams on the Internet. Hopefully, not very many people are as gullible as I was.