Bad actors are attracted to the blockchain space due to its anonymous nature; these individuals seek to scam and steal funds from investors. This time, a group of fraudsters targets the already embattled investors of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX. To target these potential victims, scammers offer the return of their lost funds.
On Friday, the troubled exchange issued an alert to prevent its community from being a victim of this scam. The new attack vector to bait FTX customers impersonates the platform. Bad actors ask for a payment as a fee to allegedly transfer funds or require an account password to trick their victims.
While addressing its community in a recent tweet, the FTX team confirmed that the exchange’s debaters and agents never ask for a fee or an account’s sensitive information. The tweet reads:
We are aware of active third-party scams and frauds seeking to take advantage of FTX customers. Please note that neither the FTX debater nor any of their agent will ask you for money, fee, payments or any passwords for your accounts in connection with the return or prospective return of customer assets.
Additionally, the team provided an inquiry email address in the alert note that the victim users can contact to check the legitimacy of a message or any recovery offer they received.
Crypto Scams Targeting FTX Customers Are On The Rise
It was not the first attempt by fraudsters to target FTX customers. Since the Sam Bakman-Fried-led exchange collapsed in November, wiping out billions of dollars, scammers got new opportunities to deceive debaters by promising them to return their funds.
Likewise, days after the FTX filed for bankruptcy in November, a fake video popped up on Twitter impersonating the exchange’s founder, Sam Bakman-Fried (SBF). Fraudsters faked SBF asking users to go to an unsafe website to “double their crypto funds.” It looked real as the bad actors used a verified account on Twitter.
Furthermore, a month after FTX’s downfall, the Oregon Division of Financial Regulation (ODF) issued a warning about a scam website offering to return the victims’ funds. When the SBF-led exchange was struggling with its financial condition, fraudsters ran this fake website and faked it to look like the U.S. Department of State ran it. But in reality, bad actors were looking to capture sensitive information from the users.
TK Keen, an administrator at the DFR, noted in a statement;
The crypto trading market is fluid and full of people trying to take advantage of you. We have said this before, but if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. We encourage everyone to do their homework and invest wisely….