Hi! I think you may have been scammed. They are first getting you to interact with an EVM (ethereum compat) chain called zcore. Zcore appears to be a cheap knockoff ethereum clone.
I am guessing they are giving you fake 'bitcoin' which are something like ERC-20 tokens on a zcore, and trying to make you think this is real Bitcoin on the Bitcoin blockchain.
There is no reason the smart contract that is powering whatever scam token even permits sending. If you are willing to share addresses, we might be able to determine more.
When you switch addresses like that, it causes the wallet to refresh the token balances.
I suspect the attacker is not related to zcore, they are simply using their testnet to scam people.
this territory is moderated
Yeah I knew my funds were gone just wanted to see if this was the end and it appears so. It stinks but I think I can finally move on from all this
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Would you share a screenshot of the wallet? Maybe we could see. Redact the addresses / amount if you dont wish to share the details.
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Bitcoin: bc1qk6vsdyaeglmmr33yutr25fnl7j3fxqspm75m4u
Ethereum: 0x22c4ccC059393495cF79b60b34Ed3C5A87b4dbAa
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Thank you for sharing. I can see that 3 days ago someone transferred 1.84 ZCR coins on testnet to your wallet (scammer?).
These are "ZCR" coins, but the scammer instructed you to override the label on these coins with "BTC".
So you own 1.84 ZCR testnet coins, but the Coinbase wallet reports them as "BTC". but this is just a text label. They are not ERC-20s, but the native gas coin of zcore testnet.
That bitcoin address is empty. I think the coin is gone, very sorry.
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek 7 Mar
That bitcoin address is empty. I think the coin is gone, very sorry.
It never arrived on that address though. No transactions were seen involving this address.
If @BlokchainB really send bitcoin from mainnet (which hold value unlike testnet coins), his wallet shouldn't even allow to create such a transaction to some other net. Addresses are prefixed with their network (mainnet, testnet, regtest, signet) and you can definitely not send something from bitcoin mainnet to some ZCR testnet.
So I am still confused what exactly happened here. @BlokchainB, is that really the address to which you sent your coins or is this some deposit address you are getting now?
How did you send your coins?
Here, you'll need to delete the custom network that was previously added.
Maybe this was a cover-up for them. Maybe you can't find the actual deposit address in the Coinbase wallet anymore. But the wallet from which you sent the coins should still show it?
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I think the idea is they are meant to send the coins from that zcore wallet to the address he provided, this is the 'scam' part.
OP provided payment through other means not documented here. We don't need to know this, this is private to OP.
They are making the zcore testnet coins look like "BTC" on "BTC" on the coinbase wallet. Its designed to confuse the user into thinking testnet coins are bitcoin. Thats the flourish.
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Yeah I’m still talking to their customer service and they are saying I was paid and I need to talk to the network provider and pay a fee to finally withdraw to a personal wallet.
If you guys only knew how many times I paid a “fee” to get my own money back it’s laughable. But once you get in that’s how they kept me on this emotional roller coaster
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I don't know this Reddit thread is related, but has more details:
Still talking to their customer service!!! If you can, make recordings. They will be most useful one day. These folks are not friends and I doubt they can help you, only try to scam you more. Scammers destroy value. Put them out of business.
If this amount is what I think it is, you may wish to log a case with the financial authorities. This is entirely up to you if you wish to seek help from the authorities.
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Thanks for going the extra mile and explaining the this to me. I paid you the bounty.
Now I have a much better understanding of how they pulled this nonsense off.
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Thank you for the bounty, and thank you for giving the community the opportunity to document this attack -- and hopefully it is avoided in future.
There should be enough details here that it will show up for a search about:
hillstone global testnet zcore BTC scam
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That is part of the reason I posted on SN I wanted to have a more technical discussion here on like what happened how can this company send my these fake ass tokens but yet trying to convince me they paid me back.
If you search the web about this company nothing shows up! And they are still Active meaning they are still working the scam!
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