New type of fraud with crypto paper wallets appears in Australia

Scammers leave flyers with malicious QR codes in public places

24.11.2022 - 13:45

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2 min

What’s new? The police of Australia have issued a warning about a new type of scam, which is connected with fake paper crypto wallets. According to the law enforcement report, scammers leave these wallets in public places in order to deprive users of access to their assets.

Police warning on Facebook

What is the essence of the scheme? The flyers contain a QR code with a supposedly real bitcoin wallet. After scanning the code with a smartphone, a victim clicks on a link with access to a crypto wallet with a balance of 16 000 Australian dollars (about $10 790). To transfer this balance to their wallet, the user is asked to provide their wallet credentials and pay a withdrawal fee. After making the payment and providing the details, the scammers gain access to the victim’s wallet and withdraw all the funds from it.

One of the users of the social platform Reddit under the pseudonym Pinnymc told that he almost became a victim of fraudsters. According to him, the wallet and the website seemed genuine, but he became suspicious because of the 0,5% transaction fee. If it had been a legit wallet, he could have withdrawn the funds and the fee would have been deducted from the balance.

Discussion on Reddit

In July, the Australian regulator tested a system to automatically remove crypto scam sites using the technology of the UK company Netcraft. Among the resources shut down were phishing sites posing as government and corporate sites, as well as sites of fraudulent crypto projects. The regulator also reported that Australians lost about $113 million in 2021 due to crimes related to digital assets.

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