Thread by @fluffypony

PSA: clever new scam happening on Telegram, here's how it works. Scammer approaches victim (call them A) with an offer to sell some large amount of crypto at a good price - not unbelievably good, but good enough that you can make a bit by flipping it immediately. 1/

Scammer then approaches a friend of A, call them B, asking them to escrow the trade. Scammer then sets up a Telegram group with A and a fake B account, with no username / number visible but with B's username *as the bio* (which would fool most people that don't look closely). 2/

They then set up a *second* Telegram group with B, and a fake A account with the same bio trick. Then they mirror the conversation between the two rooms. A & B can even chat directly without realising that their conversation is being relayed between fake accounts. 3/

Finally, when B provides the escrow address, the fake B changes it to an address they control and relays it to the other group. You can prevent getting scammed by this by: 4/

- Clicking through to the profile of the person in the group and messaging them; if it's someone you've spoken to before your chat history should be there
- Phoning the other person to validate the address before sending anything
5/

- Using out-of-band comms to confirm details for any high-value financial transaction
- Or simply not escrowing any transactions, even if it's for a friend
6/

Remember that scammers do research before running a targeted scam, so don't get caught just because the person appears to know some stuff about you or a colleague.
end/

Also I haven't made a threaded Tweet in a while, so just pretend I put the forward-slash before the Tweet number in the thread and not after🤦🏻‍♂️