Posts Tagged ‘scam’

Counterfeit Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti Cards Out in The Wild

4, Jul 2017

We should start that what you see in the video above is not a joke, it is real and what we got with an order of GTX 1080 Ti video cards from a reputable European online retailer. Three seemingly brand new Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti video cards ended up with surprising contents, scrap metal instead of the GPUs we expected to find inside. The video cards seemed like brand new and unopened, they were GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition from Gigabyte, all boxes packed with a nylon and with stickers on the boxes as you can see on the video. Yet when you open them up you end up with a surprising content and definitely what you would expect to find inside the box of such an expensive GPU…

Some supplier on somebody on the supply chain has apparently made quite the effort to make these as aside from packaging the boxes to make them seem like new, the contents was made to be the exact same weight as the original box with a real card inside. Obviously the retailer does not open the boxes to check if they contain the correct item, but they can easily weight the boxes and confirm if there is something wrong or not without opening the box. The actual video cards will find their place on eBay or any other place for selling them or maybe they will get used for mining.

Putting pieces of scrap metal with additional lead weight and packaging them in a way that they will not make strange noises when handing the box, some effort to make a counterfeit Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti. Then repackaging the whole thing and shipping it to the seller that in turn sends it to customers and in the end you get an angry customer that is no way happy with what he gets instead of the GPU he expected and paid for.

You may find different prices of scrap metal inside the box, but each one is well made in order to avoid possible suspicion of an issue like metal parts hitting and making strange noises or the package being too light or too heavy.

Of course buying from a reputable retailer will get your problem with the scrap metal instead of GPUs resolved with some extra headaches and time, so nothing too serious besides the bad surprise. Regardless if you are buying GPUs for mining or for gaming, just be careful that you do not buy online from places where returning the items if you end up with a problem like ours will not be an issue.

KNC Titan 2.0 Miner is a Convincingly Looking SCAM

16, May 2017

If you end up on a website claiming to be the relaunched KNC Miner trying to sell you a new Scrypt ASIC miner dubbed Titan 2.0, then you should know that this is not a website related in any way to the new owners of KNC Miner after last year the company went bankrupt prior to the last halving of Bitcoin (BTC). The KNC TITAN 2.0 miner promises to deliver 750 MHS Scrypt hashrate at 1300W power usage and a ready for mining kit including a power supply is being advertised with at price of $1499 USD, but it seems that this is not an actual product and just a convincingly looking SCAM trying to steal some of your hard earned coins (accepted payments are only in crypto – BTC, LTC, ETH, STEEM or XRP). So stay away and do not get mislead by the seemingly good offer, it is simply not real!

If you want to get an up to date specification wise Scrypt ASIC miner for mining Litecoin (LTC) or other crypto currencies, then you should go for either Innosilicon A4 Dominator or the more recently announced Bitmain AntMiner L3+. Both of these are confirmed actual products and work just fine for Scrypt mining, though you should still be careful where you buy your mining hardware if it is not directly from the manufacturer! The recent spike in the price of Litecoin (LTC) has sparkled more attention to the altcoin and as a result the number of people trying to profit at the expense of regular users have also increased, so it is advised to be careful what you do with your hard earned crypto coins.

Bitcion Trader is No Longer Available, Another Ponzi Scheme

19, Oct 2014

bitcoin-trader-logo

Back in march we have discussed the service BTC Arbs warning users that it is a Ponzi scheme as it offers way too high return of investment in very short period of time. This is the way hat Ponzi schemes work – attract people to invest money (or coins) promising them to have high profit in no time, but in the end most if not all of the investors end up losing money. Aside from BTC Arbs back then we have warned you about a few more websites that are most likely Ponzi schemes as well and to be careful with them, one of these sites was Bitcoin Trader. It is interesting to note that out of 9 websites in total we listed back then currently just 1 is still operational, but who knows for how long this will continue. There are however many more new ones trying to get away with your money giving you promises for high profit, so as we repeating our warning to be careful with websites that offer you something that is just too good to be true, as most of the times it actually is.

Here is what was sent to the users of Bitcoin Trader a few days ago:

Dear Clients

Regrettably I have to announce the failure and closure of Bitcoin Trader.

While preparing for the final audit results, a task we were working on for weeks now, our bitcoin wallet has been hacked and emptied, just after exchanging our fiat holdings within the exchanges to bitcoin and transferring our entire holdings to our wallet, in order to proof our solvency.

It is a known fact that I personally opposed any proof of solvency, but agreed to conduct it for the sake of a few dozen small and medium investors.

The hacker contacted me shortly after he took advantage of our holdings and demanded a ransom in order to transfer the coins back. I have agreed to a 25% ransom of the entire sum, but haven’t heard back from him for several days now.

My aim was to create something based on trust, just as bitcoin itself is based on distributed trust. Unfortunately I must admit today, I have failed. All left to do now is to declare bankruptcy with the Panamanian authorities and to hand over all relevant files and information for further investigation.

Sincerely,
John Carley

At the moment the website is no longer available, so we can clearly confirm that this was a Ponzi scheme as well. The excuse of getting hacked and all of their Bitcoins stolen we’ve seen a lot already, even MtGox went this way, though they were not originally an investment type of scam, but a crypto currency exchange. The interesting thing we have observed as a result of our warnings was that even though we have pointed out that some websites are most likely a Ponzi scheme there were people still registering and using them despite reading our warnings. It is true that with some Ponzi schemes or high-yield investment program (HYIP) you can make some money if you are fast to get in and then get out as they usually pay out initially to attract more users, however it is very risky and you will be making money at the expense of other investors in the end. A word of warning, if an investment service of any kind offers you to make more than 10% on a yearly basis then you should normally consider it a risky investment. If a service offers you something like 5-10% return on a monthly basis, not to mention when they promise you such high daily returns, then you should be aware that it is most likely a Ponzi scheme, so be very careful with these as in the end you will most likely lose money than make profit.

In short – if something looks too good to be true, then it probably is and you should be wise and best avoid it.

– To follow the current situation with Bitcoin Trader at the bitcointalk forum…


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