David recently got back into online dating wondering if there’s something he’d missed out on last time. And he certainly got more than he bargained for.
In this video, David shares how he got roped into starting a Coinbase Wallet and was sent to a suspicious looking website to activate an Ethereum mining pool. Here’s what happened and what we can all learn from it.
Video Highlights:
- 00:00 – What it feels like to be scammed…
- 00:08 – The “dumb tax” David has paid
- 00:38 – The story leading up to this point
- 01:27 – What to look out for
- 02:31 – The turning point
- 03:27 – Get out of it while you can
- 04:02 – Scammers are getting smarter
- 04:20 – Lessons learned
Transcription:
Getting scammed and losing money can make you feel angry, frustrated, and humiliated. But oftentimes admitting it is the hardest part.
Dumb Tax
Hey, it’s David Andrew Wiebe. And yes, I recently lost a little bit of money to crypto investing. In the grand scheme of dumb tax that I’ve paid, whether it’s bad investing decisions, or bad business decisions, I would say four to 500 bucks is not a big deal. It’s not an amount to sneeze at either, but it’s not an amount so big I’m going to be worried about not being able to pay my rent.
As I said many times before in investing, you only want to play with money you’re okay with losing, especially if you’re in aggressive investing.
The Backstory
Now, here’s the situation. A couple months ago, I started getting back into online dating. I thought to myself, “Hey, maybe I missed out on something the last time around.” I didn’t exactly have a great experience with online dating, but I thought why not? “Let’s give it one more try and see if it has anything to offer.”
And so, before I knew it, I was talking with multiple young ladies online. One of them introduced herself and seemed normal at first, and then suddenly seemed to get really excited about talking about crypto investments. I found this a little bit peculiar myself and questioned her on it.
But she said no, “it’s just something I’m interested in.” But you know, looking back, that initial skepticism was a good thing. Because ultimately, I could have lost a lot more money. And in fact, there’s reports of people online saying they put their life savings into an investment of a similar nature and lost it all.
The Mining Pool Scam
So, here’s what it is. This is basically what you want to look out for. If someone you don’t know invites you to download the Coinbase Wallet, right away, that’s a red flag.
Now after you have your wallet set up, they’re going to send you a referral code or affiliate code, which is not really a strange thing in and of itself but the moment you activate that link is pretty much the moment you lost everything.
The next red flag is they’re going to tell you to go and invest in USDT or Tether. Now Tether is a stablecoin. There’s nothing wrong with it in and of itself. But it is a telltale sign they’re getting you involved in a mining pool. And how that mining pool works is basically every six hours it’s going to mine some Ethereum for you based on the amount of Tether you have in your Coinbase Wallet.
The person that I was talking to was emotionally manipulative and kept pushing me to put more money in there. We’d never met in person. We never had a phone conversation. And yet she called me a fool for not putting more of my money into the investment, which is another red flag. If someone is overly aggressive and really pushing you to put your money into it, chances are they’re doing it for themselves, not for you.
How David Caught onto the Scam
And it’s funny, you know. One night I was thinking to myself, “gee, you know, this Ethereum mining thing, it really seems to be working. It’s cool. I am earning one to 1.6% every six hours. So maybe I’ll put a little bit more money into there.”
And then my better senses kicked in and I started doing a little bit of research and looking around on YouTube. And the first two videos I found on the topic were “Coinbase Wallet mining pool scam,”
which is exactly what I’m sharing with you here today.
I went and checked my Coinbase Wallet just to make sure the money was still there and see if I could cash out before anything went down – before the wallet was completely cleared out. I managed to transfer over all my other coins out of the Coinbase Wallet because I figured if they have access to one thing, you just don’t know.
And last, but certainly not least, I started transferring over my Tether, at which point the transaction failed, it bounced. And then it was deposited into another wallet of unknown origin.
And so there you go, if you have a bunch of money in Tether right now in your Coinbase Wallet, and you’ve signed up for this mining pool through somebody else’s link, chances are they already have total control over your Tether.
The one thing I would have tried if I had the presence of mind to do it was to exchange my Tether for some other coin. But chances are that wouldn’t have worked either. And so, I’m sorry to say if someone on WhatsApp or even Messenger approached you and said “hey, get the Coinbase Wallet and follow this link.” Chances are they already have complete control of that Tether. And you should not put any more money into it period.
Will Coinbase be Addressing This?
Scammers are getting smarter out there, but I think this is something Coinbase should start looking into. They should at least have a cautionary note before paying a gas fee to be part of a mining pool.
But honestly, I think they should have a full-on warning saying “hey, if you sign up for this, your crypto is going to be transferred to some other wallet.”
Lessons Learned
So, what can we learn from this? Well number one, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. These people are going to come poking around, pushing your emotional buttons saying “Well what has your coach done for you? What have others done for you? What did your boss do for you lately?”
And they’re going to be like, “Invest with me. I have a 100% success rate.” Nobody out there has a 100% success rate. You’ve always got to be skeptical of that.
Another thing we need to remember is that this doesn’t mean crypto investing is all bad. I just watched a couple of Noah Kagan videos today and he was talking about how he’s making plenty of passive income in crypto investing. It’s totally possible.
Closing Thoughts
As cool as Web3 is – please be careful out there. Don’t play with money you’re not willing to lose.
Thanks for watching. Don’t forget to like, comment, share, follow, subscribe, whatever it is you do on this platform. All right?
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