HunterXD's blog

Strange message (Scam)
By HunterXD, history, 3 years ago, In English

Today i received a message from (relita9302) a unrated account who said that i could be a tester if i sent a key to another codeforces account (crowdforces), thing that i did, big mistake, i found out that when you sent that key you get some Near reward or something, i don't know about Crypto.

Clearly is a scam and probably more fake accounts will appear, so if you receive a similar message from a stranger, please be careful to NOT answer and report.

PD: English is not my primary language, sorry if i made some mistakes

UPD: It's quite concerning that a lot of you guys recevied similar messages, even people creating fake accounts to get cryptos.

I also noticed that the messages i received got deleted (not sure if that account got deleted or just the messages), but it was exactly the same as alpha_1001 received.

And i have a question for the people who know about Near: the account that the scammer got is actually linked with my account and will affect future contests? I have been in cf three years and i really don't want to lose this account, rather for an emotional attachment.

Special thanks to MikeMirzayanov for adding a highly noticeable warning, and all the users that make cf a better place.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

Auto comment: topic has been updated by HunterXD (previous revision, new revision, compare).

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +24 Vote: I do not like it

    I recieved

    Spoiler
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3 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +42 Vote: I do not like it

I got a similar message from Rookie8 but I didn't do anything as stated by him.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +36 Vote: I do not like it

    Similar message from different user OldGuyFromHills

    Message
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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +42 Vote: I do not like it

    Similar message from different user vadimka2004

    Message
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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +39 Vote: I do not like it

    I also got a message, from devaneter_99, but this one is quite funny:

    Spoiler
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      3 years ago, # ^ |
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      Well, he actually sent you the message without any lies :)

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +36 Vote: I do not like it

    This person didn't go into much detail but the similar message from different user igor1234567890

    Message
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    3 years ago, # ^ |
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    I got this from devaneter_99

    message

    I still can't understand this..

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3 years ago, # |
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Guys I checked comments and saw that there so much who got these messages from different accounts. It seems as a scam and fraud, so don't get fooled. Good luck!

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +86 Vote: I do not like it

(Obvious) idea for NEAR: instead of simply asking users to send their public key to crowdforces, ask them to also send a note with some information on the Crowdforces project, e.g. I am imachug and I want to register an account for the Crowdforces project, use my rating and/or contest results as a proof to send NEAR reward to address ed25519:....

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3 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +18 Vote: I do not like it

NEAR crypto coins were the reward for getting top 255 in cf round: Good Bye 2021: 2022 is NEAR. See: https://mirror.codeforces.com/blog/entry/98471

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +21 Vote: I do not like it

    You can also get some if you have blue (or higher) rated codeforces account for doing some easy tasks

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
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      Why would they give away free cryptocurrency for solving easy tasks? It sounds to me as if the coins would lose value in a hyperinflation-like style (but I may be wrong, since I know almost nothing about cryptocurrencies)

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        3 years ago, # ^ |
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        Well, I have no clue why do they do this, but I wirthdrew about 20NEAR recently and traded it for more than 300USDT (Tether USD), later changing it to my local currency.

        There are some ex-competitive coders among the developers of NEAR protocol, so maybe it is their way to pay back the comunnity or smth.

        Or it is some kind of plan of making NEAR more expensive (which works tbh, it reachead its all-time high a couple of days ago).

        It shouldn't become hyperinflated because amount of awards is so much less than total NEAR amount, that it almost doesn't make any difference

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          3 years ago, # ^ |
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          It sounds like a crypto ploy, because there are more fruitful ways of contributing to the community (like sponsoring another round or donating to Codeforces). Also, I find it quite surprising that they would give you a whopping $300 for solving easy tasks, that is a quite substantial sum of money in most parts of the world...

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            3 years ago, # ^ |
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            I totally agree with you. But until they stop this money generator — I'm in :)

            And just some boasting to improve self-esteem: https://ibb.co/NnFHJbD

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            3 years ago, # ^ |
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            If NEAR folks are printing these tokens out of thin air, then they are not losing anything by donating a few tokens as a part of their marketing campaign.

            The real losers are opportunistic gamblers, who are greedily buying these tokens on crypto exchanges for real money. All of these gamblers hope that the price will keep going up for a while and that they will be smart/lucky enough to sell at the peak to make profit.

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            3 years ago, # ^ |
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            You don't only need to solve easy tasks afaik, you need to create easy tasks.

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
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      Really! Where? Can you please provide any link related to it. I also want to make money .

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3 years ago, # |
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What happens if you end up replying? Asking for a friend >.<

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
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    TBH, nothing bad will happen to you

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +17 Vote: I do not like it

    It creates NEAR wallet (.crowdforces.near) that has access to nearcrowd.com/starfish, where you can get rewards in NEAR for some easy tasks)

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3 years ago, # |
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I got one of these messages from staryuliamarowa. No claim of being a tester or getting a reward.

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3 years ago, # |
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The biggest problem is that there would be a lot of smurf accounts in some next contests that will grind for 1600+ rating sending copy-pasted solutions

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +17 Vote: I do not like it

Got same message, but not in CF. Random person wrote me in VK(Rusian facebook). Fortunately, I understand that it is scam, but what is more frightening is that they somehow get my VK, and, as far as i remember, i didn't mentioned it on CF.

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3 years ago, # |
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I got same message from kajero5266.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
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    How to report such kind of messages. If anyone knows, please share.

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
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      You can restrict rating range of users who can PM you.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +7 Vote: I do not like it

I also got the same message , but with a caution as well.

Screenshot
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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +16 Vote: I do not like it

    Looks like Codeforces team added this after this blog. It's showing in my case now as well.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +167 Vote: I do not like it

Unfortunately, there are many rascals in the world.

I did the following steps:

  1. Alert before sending a message to crowdforces with the text 'ATTENTION: by sending a secret token to this account, you withdraw your money to the owner of this token. Possibly it is a scam. Do not send any data to this account at someone's request. Follow the instructions exactly here https://nearcrowd.com/crowdforces'

  2. If a message to you looks like a scam, put a special warning about it: 'It is most likely a scam message. They want to deceive you.'.

  3. I banned all non-rated users who sent messages looking like this kind of scam in user talks.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it -8 Vote: I do not like it

    So, If my account was scammed before this feature was implemented, can I deactivate the account on crowdforces? I'm not going to use it anyways and I'm ready to have a permanent ban on that platform.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it

i didn't reccive anything because i am single

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3 years ago, # |
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Auto comment: topic has been updated by HunterXD (previous revision, new revision, compare).

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

"And i have a question for the people who know about Near: the account that the scammer got is actually linked with my account and will affect future contests? I have been in cf three years and i really don't want to lose this account, rather for an emotional attachment".

The account that scammer got isn't really attached to your CF account, no more than just your nickname before the ".crowdforces.near". So he wouldn't have ANY access to your account. Idk what you meant for "affect future contests" but that scammers can't even login to your CF so I would say "no".

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

I also received such email today from niki4.mak@mail.ru

message
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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

I recently received a similar message from nta11, interestingly with no warning banner:

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