It's now more than one month that I fight against phishing. Fortunately, I am not the only one to lead this fight.
I work closely with the @steemcleaner team: @anyx, @patrice, @guiltyparties, @pjau. They are doing an amazing job in fighting scammers and abusers. You can check their @steemcleaners' channels on Discord or steem.chat
There are many others fighters an helpers like @naturicia, @bullionstackers, @simplymike, who try to warn and educate users on how to protect against scam attempts and what to do when your account get hacked.
They are people that regularly notify us when they discover new attacks like @ace108, @my451r, @happyfree, …
Please apologize for not mentioning everybody here … This does not prevent me to be very grateful for this collective effort to protect Steemit’s community and users.
Smear campaign going on
However, it seems that, as a result of my prevention work, I have personally become someone particularly annoying for these little thugs. Therefore, they started a smear campaign against me to damage my reputation.
How? By making believe that I participate in or that I am the author of their dirty work.
They started a first disinformation campaign 17 days ago to spready FUD (Fear Doubt Uncertainty) among users.
3 Days ago, they included my name in their phishing links
One step further
Today, they moved one step further by including my name on their phishing website.
They are spreading comment like this:
Or this
These links on the comment all lead to the now well known “autosteemer” phishing website.
NOTE: the domain name displayed may be different from the above screenshot
I already described this scam in full details in these posts:
Phishing site reported - autosteemer(dot)com
Phishing site reported - autosteemer(dot)club
Phishing site reported - autosteem(dot)info
What’s new is that they now included my name in the footer of their website:
Seeing this, my reaction was: "Isn't writing all uppercase considered shouting?" ;)
Don't spit in the wind
This way of practicing is really pathetic. This is to consider Steemit users for idiots.
Do you think a thief is really stupid enough to leave his name everywhere or has he set traps to rip off his victims? Do you think that Steemit users are foolish enough to believe that?
Here my answer:
"Dear hated scammer(s),
Your defamation attempts are useless.
In doing so, you show how little regard you have for others, the stupidity of your actions and your low level of intelligence.
In doing so, you only strengthen my determination to protect people and to fight your actions.
Find another playground than Steemit, because I will never leave you alone!"
My statement in now forever in the blockchain!
I really appreciate your work, sometimes they get two comments, one from you and one from steemcleaners, but better two than none.
And I would also mention @pjau when it is about helping them with recovering the account, editing the comments and get the flag removed. He is the one who does most of it in the Discord. ^^
Greets Naturicia
Dear @naturicia, I should have mentioned you (updated the post) as I know you're also doing a huge amount of work on the Discord channel. Please apologize.
Thanks for your ongoing work against the phishing scams. I almost can’t believe how far they are taking this...
Resteemed, and I will write another warning post this week. The more people are aware, the less will fall victim and maybe they’ find another target (I know that statement is on the very positive side, but we can only hope it comes that far.
Thank you @simplymike. You're are doing an amazing work and I'm glad to know you are in the "big team" of scam fighters.
Thanks. That’s quite a compliment, coming from you ;0)
It’s a shame a ‘team of scamfighters’ should exist. All that time and energy could be spent on posirive things...
My friend you're doing a great job ...The scammers ruin it for the real people on here that actually care about the program and what it stands for! Let us stand together in unity against them and fight to make this a great place. awesome post!
By the way i just voted you as a witness.
Thank you for your support, @jordanlove. Really appreciated!
Thank you very much for your dedication to protecting minnows in the great steemit community. Receive, my total support.
Thank you for your total support , @amigoponc. Warm at heart!
I think that in addition to defamation, their goal is to deceive the steemit user who knows your reputation @arcange, when the steemit user sees it from @arcange, fraudsters expect the direct steemit user to believe that the account / site is genuine.
I don't know it it was scammer(s) goal but you made the point.
Anyway, any user who trust and follow me should now know such site is a phishing site, since I do not (and never will) offer such "promo" services as it is something I do not support!
You know you are over the target when you start getting flack!
You must be hurting somebody!
Is there any practical hands on help people can give you? -I'm on steemit for hours everyday....
I hope I am.
Best thing to do is to notify me when you see a scam comment. My warning bot will learn from it and do the rest. Thanks for your support!
will do !
You are doing a great job. Just voted you for witness and resteemed the post. Keep guarding us @arcange.
Thank you for your support @roxy-cat!
Spitting in the wind is right, they do not seem like the smartest bunch and thanks again for your work.
Thanks for this, I had no idea this was going on! They've clearly put a lot of effort into designing that scam site to make it look authentic.
I guess it's some comfort to know that probably the more invested people are in steem, the more aware they're likely to be about what constitutes a scam.
Something which maybe further supports your comment about their being a tad stupid!
Karl.
Nice
Thanks for coming by and warning others about the scam on one of my post. I intend on creating an article on the Phishing scams to help spread the word.
Thanks for all the work you put in responding to those scams !
Thank you @rentmoney
You really do a great job brother . And very much thanks for this beautiful post . I really found help from your beautiful post .
They must be assuming we're idiots. I knew better when I saw you indicated as the creator of something you ardently fight against. Keep up the great work!! :)
It has now got to a point if you don't recognize it, don't click on it. Sad since the handful kill genuine players in one foul swoop.
We need a TERMINATOR to terminate trash permanently somehow.
I appreciate your work, and you have my witness vote!
Depending on how your name is being used (links and so on) you might be able to file a Google removal request. It's "personal information" being distributed without consent (technically speaking). It wouldn't have much direct effect, but it would make autosteemer invisible in searches...
=^..^=
Thank you for your support @curatorcat.
To be honest, I do not worry about google searches, as they are "external" to the platform.
Wow, these guys do seem to be pulling out of all of the stops. It also looks like they're getting more and more desperate. Hopefully, they will run out of new tactics and just give up.
I hope so (even if I do not believe it will happens) because this fight is quite exhausting and taking my time away from more positive projects.
Yeah. I was thinking both of those things when I wrote the comment but did not mention either because I wanted to be positive. :) You can say them, though, because you're right in the thick of it. I can't believe they're trying to use your username like that. Just insane.
I think what you and many others are doing is awesome, with the spam and particularly with the phishing. I just hope that it all ends up being time well spent in the end because that will mean Steemit et al will be a safer place. As I come across things, I hope to report them. I'm generally a step behind (someone's already reported and flagged), so it's obvious that the work is happening and at the very least raising awareness. That might be what actually turns the tide—people just being aware and not falling into the little traps.
Thank you for all you do! it is certainly appreciated!
Thanks for this advocacy @arcange. You would really even go a minnows' post to check on these malicious sites being posted as comments.
Terimakasih kawan
Thanks man, now I am trying to figure out if I clicked that damn scam link. Keep up the good fight!
@arcange, Thank you for warning!
Shit i already signed up.... what to do now??
If you still have control over your account, change your password immediately!
Oh the sneaky little... Wow, some people, eh.
Stop spamming your self promotion, or more flags will follow.