Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: p3nd8s on April 02, 2013, 02:59 pm
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I received an email today from an Inigo imposter under the name of "SR Staff," do not send any money to that address people, it is a SCAM! In only 8 hours he has been able to scam 666BTC out of people, so some have already lost money.
The email is below:
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SR Staff Good morning Silk Road vendors and buyers, my name is Inigo. As some of you will already know I offer customer support here on Silk Road.
Firstly, I must apologize for the increased site downtime this week, and that there has been some strange goings on since it being back online. And of course the database rollback. There is a reason for this, many new features are being implemented on the site and will be revealed in due course.
I will tell you that domestic rate options are one (choose to view in EUR & GBP as well as USD) and also a new exchange feature will be implemented next month. We have also added more admin accounts which will be better staffed to assist you.
We are now also ready to offer a very unique opportunity to a lucky few. The chance to invest in the site. I must be very clear and say that this is investment only, you will not own or have a say in any part of the running or management of the site. This can all be verified with DPR's forum post here http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=138016.0 Or message him here http://silkroadvb5piz3r.onion/messages/send_message/b1e30b5819 Please do not speak about this on the forums yet as we are anticipating a lot of media attention over this and would like to minimize the impact if possible.
We are offering 250 investment shares of 0.1 percent of the income of the site (income excluding running costs & Dread Pirate Roberts share, staff etc.) which currently stands at ~$200'000 per month or $2'400'000 annually Shares will be priced at $500 for a 0.1% share, paid in btc (see below) at Mt. Gox's weighted average at that time. There is no limit on the amount of shares you can buy, and the amount we will be paying out equates to 25% of the sites income.
There is no limit to the amount of shares any one person can buy. For a 0.1% investment you will earn $200 per month, for a 0.5% investment you will earn $1000 a month and so on. As the site grows so will your pay-out, investments can be withdrawn at any time and pay-outs will be paid at the next pay-out date up to that point. This is a very unique opportunity and a chance to be a part of history.
Money invested is going to be used in the short-term to finance more servers and to cover more staff to be able to make the site run faster and better than ever before, with more staff to assist you and more features for you to make your buying/selling experience that much better. Investors will have a new area within the account section of the account, where they can see the amount they have invested, the next pay-out date, and the amount which will be updated hourly. You will also find options here to change pay-out schedule (weekly, monthly, annually), cancel investment & change view types.
Pay-outs will by default be monthly into your SR account, the schedule can be changed and a wallet address can be specified for payments. If you decide to cancel your investment, it will be refunded immediately.
Payment for your shares need to be paid to the address specified below, these are then tracked internally and after payment for 250 investments has been received the payment address will no longer be valid and payments will not be able to made into it.
Payment address - 1F48CymZsof76oZob8UiCAaz7P4yUdnz7M
If you receive an invalid wallet address error, you are too late.
Your new investors section will become active 8-10 hours after payment is received. You can speed up this process by messaging SR Financial here http://silkroadvb5piz3r.onion/messages/send_message/733d1d49e8 with your Transaction ID, User name & Amount of investment shares and total btc sent.
Example
Subject - SR Investments
#277349296
Inigo
4 x 0.1
฿29.20
This is strictly first come, first served. As, said before there is no limit on how many one person can buy. Again, this is the chance to be a part of the site and a part of history.
Thank you and good luck
Inigo
SR Staff
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I have a hard time believing anyone sent this scammer 290 BTC. At first I thought it was a mixing service address, but the first transaction was 10 hours ago. He may be sending his own coins to the address, to make it look like lots of people are investing large amounts.
I hope nobody has actually sent him money.
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People have sent him money. I've been receiving PM's from people asking me about it and telling me the large amounts they've sent. :-\
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Yeah, I just read that in the other thread. Crazy.
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This scam works over and over with each new generation of SR users that come in from what I've seen.
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thanks for sharing that info 'p3nd8s' 8)
It's members like you who care about the community that make the Road forums such a great place and such a cool/good thing 8)
Thanks again and +1 to you :D
M
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Just curious how did they get the username SR Staff or DPR ?
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Isn't it about time that advertising online status was disabled by default?
It's always been a security threat, but these scams and spams seem to be on the rise recently. There have been like 5 in the last week, and the scammers get the user info from the list of online people on the main page. I know, because I have online status turned off and never get these messages.
The only argument I've heard against it is that some people like to know when their friends are on. That's fine, but these people are a tiny minority. Most people don't use this feature. Their online status is enabled because they don't know they can turn it off.
Disable online status and let the people who want to use that feature explicitly turn it on and accept the risk.
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But the messages are being sent via the SR messaging system, which doesn't show who is or is not online ... right? Only the forums show online status, IIRC.
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Isn't it about time that advertising online status was disabled by default?
It's always been a security threat, but these scams and spams seem to be on the rise recently. There have been like 5 in the last week, and the scammers get the user info from the list of online people on the main page. I know, because I have online status turned off and never get these messages.
The only argument I've heard against it is that some people like to know when their friends are on. That's fine, but these people are a tiny minority. Most people don't use this feature. Their online status is enabled because they don't know they can turn it off.
Disable online status and let the people who want to use that feature explicitly turn it on and accept the risk.
Yes I agree,I accidentally turned off my online status 'green square' and even though I'm kinda new here, I haven't recieved any of these SR equivalents of the Nigerian scams! 8)
But the messages are being sent via the SR messaging system, which doesn't show who is or is not online ... right? Only the forums show online status, IIRC
So, scout, (or anyone) how do you think these peeps are being targeted? AND ... how can p3nd8s post in this part of the forum with ONLY 4 posts? ???
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So, scout, (or anyone) how do you think these peeps are being targeted? AND ... how can p3nd8s post in this part of the forum with ONLY 4 posts? ???
The OP has 79 posts ...
Also, I have no idea how people are being targeted - in part because I don't have access to see who all received the messages. I don't know if it was just targeting a few specific vendors/users, or what.
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They get the list of people from the online status and then send PMs to them.
It's the most efficient way to do it, rather than going through the long member list, where 80% of accounts have never posted and 90% of them haven't logged in in a long time and probably won't log in again.
I'm online a lot (unfortunately :) ) and I never get these messages. Others that I have advised to turn off online status also don't get these messages anymore. I'm 99% certain that's how at least some of the scammers do it.
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Just curious how did they get the username SR Staff or DPR ?
There are plenty of bots scraping the SR site for users, why that's even allowed to be possible is beyond me. In the old days there was a pretty predatory vendor that had his bot scraping SR for new users constantly and when you signed up for an account it automatically sent you a 'Welcome To The Road' message via SR PM that linked you to all their bullshit listing for pirated software and ebooks that you could get for free anywhere else. They would say 'pad your stats to qualify for vendors' and all that stupid shite. There were a few vendors mentioned in it so it was a group moneygrab on new users. Whether the admins were/are in on it or not is up in the air, I would hope not but you never know. From some of the things I've seen over the past year I could believe anything. I really don't think they're using the forums to get usernames and if they are just disable the fucking 'who's online' and member list bullshit and your problem is solved.
I don't know that it's still possible to scrape the site for users but as successful as the scam was it seems like it is. Obfuscation of users needs to be stepped up, and the fact that vendors got the same message is pretty disturbing.
In the end, the easiest way to avoid scams is to not be an idiot which is asking for a lot these days. I don't think the lads running SR want to hold anybody's hand at this point, nor should they.
*edit - As far as being able to use those usernames, it doesn't look like there are restrictions set in place when you create a new account as long as that name is not already taken, haven't tried so I can't be sure.
**double edit - For the vendors' user IDs, we're required to put them in our sig as well so obfuscation on the main site wouldn't help the spam in our cases :(
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They get the list of people from the online status and then send PMs to them.
It's the most efficient way to do it, rather than going through the long member list, where 80% of accounts have never posted and 90% of them haven't logged in in a long time and probably won't log in again.
I'm online a lot (unfortunately :) ) and I never get these messages. Others that I have advised to turn off online status also don't get these messages anymore. I'm 99% certain that's how at least some of the scammers do it.
I know that's how they operate with the forum PM's ... so maybe they look at the online list on the forums and then use that to determine which users to message on the main site. However, most people have different usernames here on the forums than they do on the main site, so I'm not sure how the scammers operate...
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The OP has 79 posts ...
Ooops my bad ... although when I posted, I'm sure it said 4 posts )I checked before I commented! ???) anyhoo 79 it is, thanx scout 8)
I'm no IT wiz by any means, but I have a foaf who runs a Simple Machines Forum that much like this one, would much prefer to stay under(out of!) the radar, and I know he was able to get some help coding to thwart ALL the bots 8)
FWIW Apparently it's not that difficult with only a few commands being added to stop the bastards in their tracks ... and he's also using a Tor server ... maybe they just need to do the same here
Together with Malwarebytes and Avast I also run NoScript with Tor and it works a treat ;)
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@astor
I received two of these messages today and just checked and my online forum status is turned off
1st message
SR Staff Site Update
2nd message
SR Vendor Support Vendor Opportunity
@p3nd8s
Thanks!!! +1 if I could
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These are messages on the main site, correct?
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@scout
yes correct on the SR site not on forum
and make it three messages now for the scam
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xpsbud, is your market account name the same as your forum account name?
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But even people who have their forum preferences set NOT to show their online status have received these messages.
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xpsbud, is your market account name the same as your forum account name?
Yes it is and I haven't been on forum all day. Also as Scout mentioned I already had preferences setting on forum account name set not to show online status.
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Sorry to hear people got stung by that scam. I wish something could be done about these scammers.
People need to be more alert to these scams and critically question everything before handing over their hard earned cash.
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Wait wait.. Wait a minute.
I have THREE kind of these messages in my inbox, all 3 different usernames and deposit addresses:
The first message is from "SR Staff", the second message is from "SR Vendor Support" and the third is form "STAFFInigo"
Since i lost 2 btc last week with the SRAdmin scam, i didn't fall into the "STAFFInigo" message again. It's OBVIOUSLY a fake, because of the no spacebar in the name.
But..... are you guys telling me that "SR Vendor Support" and "SR Staff" are scams too? How the f*** can a scammer get access to an account with a SPACEBAR in the username. And wasn't "SR Vendor Support" the offical vendor support account????
..?? Can please anyone confirm that they are all scammers ? Or is "SR Vendor Support" real ?
---------- Gosh, seriosuly, isn't SR Vendor Support an official name??? How can a scam message be sent from that username????
I am so lucky that i read the forums first, i was almost going to deposit 200BTC. I am so glad, i would have been so upset if this has happeend.
I still don't get it how they can get hold on those usernames, i thought SR doesn't allow spacebars in usernames :-\ :-\ :-\ :-\
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No, the official names are:
SR Support
Vendor Support
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ItalianMafiaBrussels, is your market username the same as your forum username?
For another data point, mine aren't, and I didn't get these messages.
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Mine are the same, but I didn't receive the messages on any of my accounts ...
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Just received this in my vendor acct on SR as well.
Sounded fishy, would be a good deal but the cash in vs cash out ratio isn't logical for SR side. THey would be losing entirely too much on a small investment of 125k. Not to mention there was no way to buy in, just an address to send funds to.
Anyways, there should be a ban on names containing ADMIN, SR, SILKROAD, or anything else that could be used for fishing scams like these. I hope people didn't lose too much on this one and if they did, do more research next time.
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Jesus I just checked, he's at 747 BTC now
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I don't understand how or why people are STILL falling for this! There must be a ton of vendors who never visit the forums ... ?
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I don't understand how or why people are STILL falling for this! There must be a ton of vendors who never visit the forums ... ?
I still don't get it how it is possible that a scammer can register the username "SR Vendor Support" ...
I'm sorry but I don't get how -especially after the SRAdmin scam- It's possible to make user names with SPACEBARS, or including names like Admin, Vendor, Support, Staff, etc ............
The funny thing is the SR Support crew has sent me a message, after i complained i lost 2btc to the SRAdmin saying 'We are making sure now such usernames cannot be registeren anymore in the future" and today we got usernames with SR Staff and SR Vendor Support (big shame that this last one was possible to make!!)
I still don't get it..
Poor vendors who lost their money.
I was so almost falling into it.
@scout: if you have a ton of orders and messages and work to do, you don't really think of visiting the forums. So i can totally see how vendors got scammed.
@ The SR crew: Please make serious work of disabling usernames to be created with:
1) SPACEBARS in the username (for god's sake, how is this even possible)
2) names that include "SR" , "Support" "Crew" "Admin" "Moderator" or any combination of these words, at least..
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Even if you don't have time to come to the forums very often, I would really have expected vendors here to realize that these messages were a scam.
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something fishy when he said dont go to the forums & talk about it
When i got the 2nd mgs from them i knew it was a scam
Cant believe how much bitcoins there raking in
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Unbelievable how many BTC this scummer has gotten from seemingly smart vendors! Use common sense!
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Even if you don't have time to come to the forums very often, I would really have expected vendors here to realize that these messages were a scam.
can you not freeze the money in the account if its still there?
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Even if you don't have time to come to the forums very often, I would really have expected vendors here to realize that these messages were a scam.
Don't want to blame the victim of a scam but you have a point there. The scam played into peoples dream of having a piece of SR.
Maybe every time we get a scam message people should post it so people know to stay away. Might stop them from getting as many people.
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And yet still no message from an official account on SR warning users it is a scam. I think people that send these people money are idiots but there should still be some kind of action taken on the site by the staff (which seems nonexistent at this point, other than mods here). Ho hum. And no, not all vendors/users visit these forums, there are some of us that come every now and again just to sift through all the bullshit.
I'd really like to hear how the lack of any action whatsoever by the staff is helping the "community". On the other hand...maybe it'll help get some of the morons out of here, but of course they will be replaced by new ones and the scam will work again...rinse and repeat.
I do find it comical that a few new accounts have popped up spamming similar shit with similar names, the funniest being STAFFInigo.. Scamapalooza baby, everybody on board....choooo choooo!
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What? inigo made a post about it immediately last night warning people it was a scam. He even stickied the thread.
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Even if you don't have time to come to the forums very often, I would really have expected vendors here to realize that these messages were a scam.
can you not freeze the money in the account if its still there?
;)
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Even if you don't have time to come to the forums very often, I would really have expected vendors here to realize that these messages were a scam.
can you not freeze the money in the account if its still there?
;)
I highly doubt they were using the SR wallet for their scam. More than likely, the addresses they posted were for external wallets.
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I mean over on SR where the scam is actually taking place scout, sorry for the confusion. Warning users here does nothing for the buyers that don't frequent the forums for whatever reason.
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Even if you don't have time to come to the forums very often, I would really have expected vendors here to realize that these messages were a scam.
can you not freeze the money in the account if its still there?
;)
I highly doubt they were using the SR wallet for their scam. More than likely, the addresses they posted were for external wallets.
Any statements from Sr ? will vendors be refunded?
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I still don't get it how it is possible that a scammer can register the username "SR Vendor Support" ...
I'm sorry but I don't get how -especially after the SRAdmin scam- It's possible to make user names with SPACEBARS, or including names like Admin, Vendor, Support, Staff, etc ............
The funny thing is the SR Support crew has sent me a message, after i complained i lost 2btc to the SRAdmin saying 'We are making sure now such usernames cannot be registeren anymore in the future" and today we got usernames with SR Staff and SR Vendor Support (big shame that this last one was possible to make!!)
I still don't get it..
Poor vendors who lost their money.
I was so almost falling into it.
@scout: if you have a ton of orders and messages and work to do, you don't really think of visiting the forums. So i can totally see how vendors got scammed.
@ The SR crew: Please make serious work of disabling usernames to be created with:
1) SPACEBARS in the username (for god's sake, how is this even possible)
2) names that include "SR" , "Support" "Crew" "Admin" "Moderator" or any combination of these words, at least..
Yeah. That was the first give-away wasn't it. We don't have S R Support, we have SR Support. GRAMMAR!! Jesus H. Christ...... This is not the first, either. Someone was impersonating nomad bloodbath a couple of weeks ago, probably same people based on grammar and content. It was a little confusing at first, as they said nomad, lol " Moderator Nomad Bloodbath" or something was exchanging MPs at the time...... well, nomad WAS doing something with MPs at the time it was written, I think he was wanting to get rid of them or something but I am very tired right now and can't remember. He made 2 posts referring to it. As soon as I saw the shitty grammar I knew. On top of that, the writing style was not nomad..... from the point of view of someone who has read many of his posts it stood out like a sore dick. That's a really good benefit of actually being on the forum. You can't pick these things up if you don't. I bet you 5 dollars ::) it is the same people.
Piece, love, and Fuck Hater.
(Lol, I love your avatar!! It looks like you are laughing your ass off at the OP! >:D Lulz........ lol )
"Warning - while you were typing 2 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post."
Don't care just post it lulz...... ALWAYS does it to me :(
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Any statements from Sr ? will vendors be refunded?
No, there will be no "refunds" offered.
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As posted in the other thread regarding this, this person probably made close to 120, 000....
For me I knew it seemed fishy, because I got three from different sellers, plus the math just didn't make sense.
0.1% for $500 = $500, 000. So SR makes 2.5 mil annually but they value themselves at 500, 000.
That's what made it seem way to fishy for me.
Also, I have NEVER ever EVER in my 4 years as a buyer and couple months of a vendor got an email from an SR admin that was not from the standard SR Support account.
Also if the same person made all three accounts I estimate he actually made closer to $120, 000.....rat bastard -__-
Hoping SR is down atm to deal with the scamming situation. I just cringe knowing this thief made 130, 000 off this stupid scam, even if none of it was mine.
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Something about this doesn't sit right with me...
1. How the "scammers" were able to see who was online on the main SR page... Isn't this limited to admins and DPR?
2. How the "scammers" were also able to create usernames using characters the rest of us can't.. spaces in their names and words relating to "staff, vendor support, support team"..
I feel like this may be deeper and a bit more complex than we think.. I really hope not though.
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Something about this doesn't sit right with me...
1. How the "scammers" were able to see who was online on the main SR page... Isn't this limited to admins and DPR?
Not the SR page. I was talking about the forum.
Since at least one person mentioned that their online status is disabled and they got the messages, this must have been a more sophisticated attack. The scammer may have crawled all profiles and looked for people who had logged in in the last day, or 3 days. It makes no sense to target people who haven't been around for a while. Also, unless there's a bug in SR that exposed account names, he would have to get the names from the forum. I don't know, maybe 80% of users have the same name on both accounts, so it wasn't that hard once he found the recently active ones.
It's all guesswork, anyway.
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Something about this doesn't sit right with me...
1. How the "scammers" were able to see who was online on the main SR page... Isn't this limited to admins and DPR?
2. How the "scammers" were also able to create usernames using characters the rest of us can't.. spaces in their names and words relating to "staff, vendor support, support team"..
I feel like this may be deeper and a bit more complex than we think.. I really hope not though.
Regarding #1, I don't think this is correct because when I logged in I had the message, meaning it was sent when I was offline.
Regarding #2, I have seen vendors who have space in their username before so this is not new (However banning words such as support and SR would help reduce this scam)
I am guessing that they went through vendors (not sure if there is a "view all vendors" option) and just messaged any vendors who logged in recently.
I doubt SR had anything to do with this if that is what you are hinting, Just don't see the benefit in it for them
They make way too much to even bother with something like this.
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There is no benefit to SR from this or any other scam. SR profits from successful transactions in the marketplace - not from scams.
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0.1% for $500 = $500, 000. So SR makes 2.5 mil annually but they value themselves at 500, 000.
Those figures are about 20 mil short. 2.5 mil? Estimated 22-28 mil p.a., though the higher estimates seem too optimistic; generally agreed around 22-3 mill range, but this is form media. This, btw, was before they raised vendor price in December. The media estimates seem all over the place though, 22-28 mil a huge fluctuation. 2.5 mil, not for SR though? DPR could barely afford his groceries for the week if it was that much.
Piece, Love, and Fuck Haters.
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There is no benefit to SR from this or any other scam. SR profits from successful transactions in the marketplace - not from scams.
Address 1F48CymZsof76oZob8UiCAaz7P4yUdnz7M
No. Transactions 33
Total Received 834.02729047 BTC
Address 1KC8PbJqf4a3RqCv7hKXva7F7zLw2hUrJH
No. Transactions 8
Total Received 137.10172962 BTC
WHO wouldn't benefit from these deposits??
Who else could even register these 'SR Staff' & 'SR Vendor Support' accounts??
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I didn't read anything from the thread, but all I know is I invested 10,000$, I can't wait for my return!!!!
Yay money
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I didn't read anything from the thread, but all I know is I invested 10,000$, I can't wait for my return!!!!
Yay money
Haha that gave me a good laugh. And yea I agree with previous post I thought the 2.5 seemed short as well.
And regarding SR pulling this scam, everything they MAKE is pure profit. The amount of transactions on here 100,000 is peanuts, plus the response wouldn't have been so fast. The warnings were out here by the morning, and the posts taken down as well. So I could easily confirm that this was a scam.
Just wouldn't make sense for this to be SR imho.