Every since India started going Bitcoin-craze of sorts, local cryptocurrency companies have seen tremendous success. ZebPay recently added 50,000 new users to their platform, and their trading volume is on the rise as well. But criminals are committing identity fraud on social media, attempting to steal Bitcoins from new and existing ZebPay users.
Beware Of Fake Bitcoin Company Profiles On Twitter
In this day and age of social media communication, it sometimes becomes difficult to find the official account for a user or company. Even though verified accounts are a great indicator of who can be trusted, that is not always a possibility for Bitcoin companies. In the case of ZebPay, they found out someone is impersonating their business in the hopes of stealing Bitcoins from people.
People who glance over social media profile names would not see the difference anytime soon. Although the official @ZebPay account is the only one to trust, the fake one is called @zepbay. It is a minor difference, and bone that could have catastrophic consequences for Bitcoin users relying on this exchange.
To make matters more confusing, the fictitious account uses the same profile and logo as the legitimate company. Moreover, the criminals even copy the official Zebpay tweets to make their account seem more authentic. This tactic is not new by any means, and goes well beyond Bitcoin companies, though.
As one would expect from such an illegitimate Twitter account, they trick users into filling out a survey for which they will be awarded Bitcoin. Agreeing to participate will not result in the user receiving funds, but it will lead to them losing Bitcoin. For now, it remains unclear how this scheme works exactly, but it seems plausible the criminals either try to retrieve login information or infect user devices with malware.
Bitcoin users are high-value targets for criminals all over the world. With the price per BTC rising significantly over the past twelve months, this is not entirely unexpected. Users need to beware of these fake social media profiles, and not fill in any forms of surveys from third parties. No legitimate company would offer free bitcoins to fill in a customer survey by sending links through a social media direct message.
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