🚨 Someone Tried To Scam Me On RoboSats \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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2810 sats \ 34 comments \ @Jon_Hodl 13 Apr bitcoin

A few days ago, I was trying to stack some private sats on RoboSats with an Amazon gift card.

As soon as someone took my offer, I filled out the details of my lightning invoice and entered the chat.

I sent several messages and got no response. The seller had the green light on their robot to indicate that they were online so it was a bit odd to me.

I thought maybe it was a Tor connectivity issue but I continued to send several more messages in hopes of making the trade.

After like 30 mins of no response, I opted for a collaborative cancel.

Only just a couple minutes after I initiated the collab cancel, the seller starts to respond in the chat saying “Hey sorry. I’m here and ready for the code when you are.”

I could instantly tell this was a scam.

They were obviously trying to get me to send the code after I had already initiated the collab cancel so that they could just cancel the transaction as soon as I sent the code.

Luckily, this wasn’t my first rodeo so I avoided losing any money.

I told le scammer that it’s too late and they would have to cancel and try again with a new order.

If you’re an RoboSats user, absolutely NEVER send any money after you have initiated a collaborative cancel.

Stay safe out there, plebs.

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204 sats \ 4 replies \ @siggy47 13 Apr

Lately I have frequently encountered a long delay after a seller accepts my gift card offer. Sometimes the seller is online, sometimes not. It's not unusual to wait 3 hours. Odd behavior. I never exercised a collaborative cancel, and eventually the transactions go through. Maybe it's the same guy waiting for someone using a gift card to initiate a cancel, or maybe it's innocent. I dont know.

114 sats \ 1 reply \ @Jon_Hodl OP 13 Apr

It could have been innocent but it seems too suspect to me to send the code after I initiated the cancel.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 13 Apr

I agree that you were right not to send the code at that point.

36 sats \ 1 reply \ @hgw39 14 Apr

One mitigation I have adopted for this is to only trade with sellers who are online. Not 100% fool proof but I started doing this a while ago and it seems to have helped.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 14 Apr

Lately I only make offers. I agree 100% if I'm a taker.

63 sats \ 3 replies \ @TheBTCManual 13 Apr

All robosats traders I've worked with have been a delight, because I make it very clear you F me on a deal, I take your bond and your wife, simple as!

11 sats \ 1 reply \ @hgw39 13 Apr

Are you on the premium version? I don't see the option to take the seller's wife on my interface? Would change the incentives a little so I'd like to find out more.

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheBTCManual 14 Apr

Lol Yes on premium there's a dropdown that says secure bond with wife and you upload a selfie of her and your marriage certificate which is then hashed! Robosats then scans said selfie and then gives her a rating out of 10 the hotter wife is the lower the Bitcoin portion of the bond becomes!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jon_Hodl OP 13 Apr

😂

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 13 Apr

I'm not a frequent Robosats user. Why is it so important not to back out of the collaborative cancel?

76 sats \ 1 reply \ @Jon_Hodl OP 13 Apr

Once you initiate a collaborative cancel, you can’t undue it.

So, imagine Alice initiates a trade with Bob and then Alice decides to initiate a cancel when Bob is unresponsive.

Then after Alice initiates a cancel, Bob says “sorry about that. I’m here now. Send the code.”

If Alice sends the code, then Bob can just accept the cancellation instead of acting honestly and Alice loses her money and Bob successfully scams Alice.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 13 Apr

Got it. Thanks

100 sats \ 3 replies \ @j7hB75 13 Apr

Hmm. Seems like RoboSats should have a safeguard in place to prevent the user from sending the code after a collaborative cancel has been initiated?

30 sats \ 2 replies \ @Jon_Hodl OP 13 Apr

Maybe a way to rescind a collaborative cancel would solve the problem but that may give birth to new ways to scam.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 14 Apr

People will always find a way to scam

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jon_Hodl OP 14 Apr

💯

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @d6c4895049 14 Apr

Honestly robosats is great, you can sell btc 1-3% above spot price and help someone get no-kyc sats it's a win-win all round

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Filiprogrammer 14 Apr

...and eventually get your fiat account frozen. (talking from experience)

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Signal312 13h

Tell us more?

102 sats \ 1 reply \ @Filiprogrammer 12h

My Revolut account got frozen, after receiving 5 fiat payments within 24 hours by selling sats for a premium on Robosats and buying them back on Revolut X at the actual market price.

Now I can no longer receive anything into that account. If I try sending fiat to a friend, my transfer gets declined immediately. If I try to withdraw my sats, I get the following error message:

Sending crypto is temporarily blocked
You cannot send crypto to wallets or Revolut friends.
This may change in the future.

Basically, the account is completely frozen.

I contacted support, but only got AI bot replies saying my account is restricted and under review. When I asked about when I can expect to regain access, the bot said that an update might be available in 17 days. That was a week ago and I am still waiting...

Funny how Revolut encourages users to trade all kinds of shitcoins, but when it comes to complying with KYC regulations, they become extremely cautious.

In the past I did successfully withdraw sats from Revolut and it was an awful experience. Only on-chain supported, and I had to pick from a list which wallet software/hardware I was using. Even then, my withdrawal was flagged as "suspicious" and I had to answer a mountain of questions just to prove I wasn’t being scammed. After that they still gave me a 3 hour time-frame to let me cancel the withdrawal. 🤡

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 12h

Wow.

Thanks for the details.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 13h

Have you reported this on the Telegram group or Simplex group?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 13h

Can you un-initiate a collab cancel?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jon_Hodl OP 9h

Not that I am aware of.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @JesseJames 20h

Sadly, its always the people, not really the technology.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Dkryptoenth 14 Apr

This comment has got nothing to do with being scammed on Robosats, but I strongly believe someone needs to be reminded that "Each morning we are born again and What we do today is what matters most."

A blissful day to you all, keep staying strong.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Dkryptoenth 14 Apr

Scammers! That's just what they are good at, nonetheless robosats should do well to upgrade their security protocol to checkmate such unscrupulous occurrence.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @hgw39 13 Apr

I had a similar instance of this (not with a gift card though) last year on Robosats and it made me aware that you can potentially be scammed by a seller. In my instance I had sent the fiat but the seller claimed I hadn't so we opened a dispute. The coordinator adjudicated and ruled in my favour, as I had clear evidence of the fiat being sent and I got my sats. But it made me realize that if the coordinator and seller collaborate they could scam you, so we're really relying on the coordinator. Although you can't recognize a seller by their bot identity, you can identify them by their Wise or Revolut tag if you're using those payment methods. After this incident I was in another trade with the same coordinator and when I got to the send Fiat stage the Revolut tag was the same as the seller who tried to scam me previously so I cancelled the trade and forfeited my bond. Robosats is still me preferred P2P method (especially now as no one in my community wants to sell sats P2P right now for some reason!) but since this happened I limit the size of my buys and be mindful of who I am trading with (coordinators and sellers). It's a jungle out there :)

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Satosora 13 Apr

Is it becoming a degen site? Where only scammers will belong? Rip robosats?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jon_Hodl OP 13 Apr

Don’t think it’s a degen site. I think the incentives are sound but it still requires some vigilance.

In order for anything in life to succeed, there needs to be more good actors than bad actors so I will do what I can to contribute to the honest use of the platform.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @LibertasBR 13 Apr

Why through an Amazon gift card? Was it for privacy or did you just have one lying around?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jon_Hodl OP 13 Apr

It’s the easiest way I’ve found.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bitcoiner1 13 Apr

Thanks for sharing this!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @flat24 13 Apr

Thank you very much for sharing your experience ... These details are highly valuable to avoid those hungry scammers.

Good instinct, cowboy! 👏🤠