Slack is a messaging app for projects, some people would even consider it a chat room of sorts. If you've ever been on IRC you'll notice some similarities. Slack allows users to meet new people, develop bots, have fun and best of all get shit done. But slack is not all fun and games as always there are scammers out there looking to fatten their wallets with new scams. One such scam exists on slack (and possibly other chat programs that are similar) which I would like to warn you all about in the following article.
Like most web based platforms a user gets to choose a username in slack. This username can be changed at any time.
How the Scam Works:
- The scammer changes his username to someone in the slack group. Let's use my name as an example. My username is @buster on slack. The scammer changes his username to @buster. - with a period at the end. The scammer also edits his avatar to match mine. Now we have two users in the slack group with almost identical usernames. @buster. and @buster - one is a scammer the other is the real @buster.
- The scammer, with his new impersonated username and avatar sends a private message to someone on slack and begins building a rapport with them with the intentions of making the person believe that he is the real user. Most slack users will not think twice about whether or not the person is the real user and most people wont notice the period at the end of his username.
- The scammer starts to ask questions like, would you be willing to give me a bitcoin loan? How much interest would you charge me for a loan of 2 bitcoin at 1 week? The scammer has one goal in mind get the loan and disappear. Most people are skeptical about giving out loans to people they don't know. But if the scammer is impersonating a valued member of the community some people might not think twice about it. Sure here's your loan is what they might say.
- The scammer can change his username as many times as he wishes. If the scammer fails at getting a loan from one person it does not matter. It's a numbers game the more attempts the scammer tries the better shot he has to successfully scam somebody. So a failure is good practice for the scammer because he can learn from his mistakes and figure out what works.
How to Prevent the Scam:
If you allow anybody to join your slack group there's no outright way to prevent the scam. If you identify the scammers account you can disable it but nothing is stopping the scammer from signing up a new account. The only way to ensure you do not get scammed at all is to not give out any loans to anybody for any reason. If you are afraid that you might be talking to an impersonator you can check to see in slack. All you need to do is look to see if there are duplicate accounts. If there are two accounts with same usernames but one of them has a (.) period at the end you have clearly identified the scammer (the account with period at end).
There are many scams out there this is just one of them. Be wary people, Not Every Scam is as Blatant and Obvious as the Nigerian Prince Scam.
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