Coinbase Telegram Scams Affect Users Searching For Help and Support

Coinbase has recently released a new blog post in which they inform how many scammers are trying to steal users funds using Telegram accounts that impersonate the cryptocurrency exchange.

Matt Muller, in charge of security at Coinbase, wrote an article informing about the different scams that are currently affecting users on the popular messaging application Telegram.

Coinbase Telegram Scammers

In this article, Muller explains that there is no official support from Coinbase through Telegram and they do not have authorized groups or channels. At the same time, Coinbase has been tracking several threat actors that attempted to leverage the Coinbase brand to scam users.

One of the fraudulent scams is related to employment opportunities. Fraudsters impersonate the company’s recruiters and executives with fake career opportunities. Job seekers could pay for training materials, mining hardware or even provide the scammers with their private information.

If you are searching for a job and want to apply to Coinbase’s positions, you can do it at https://www.coinbase.com/careers. Coinbase recruiters will also be contacting users via their official work @coinbase.com address.

Another way of stealing users’ funds is through giveaway scams in which stealers advertise Coinbase giveaways almost every single day. The Telegram channel dubbed Coinbase has over 7250 members. Nonetheless, most of these users are bots that aim at generating interest from other users and make them believe that it is a legitimate channel.

As Muller says, the opportunities to earn are promoted through https://www.coinbase.com/earn/ rather than via Telegram. As they explain, they will never be hosting a giveaway on a third party website.

Furthermore, there are load-up scams in which attackers say that they want to buy accounts with high limits so they can perform their trading activities. Although they claim that the profits will be shared with the owner of the account, they will be using the users’ financial information stored on their Coinbase account to perform financial crimes. Only the account holder would be responsible for the issues caused by this attacker.

Muller says that usres must not give their passwords or 2-factor security codes. Those that request access to a Coinbase account are fraudsters that want to steal users’ funds or private information about them.

Real cool to see the #bitcoin trading volume per exchange 2017 till today. 🔥🚀🔥 #BTC #trading #volume #cryptolife #thebitcoinfamily pic.twitter.com/gNvhIB8XM6

— ₿ Didi Taihuttu ₿ (@Diditaihuttu) April 19, 2019

There are two more scams reported by Muller. One of them is related to tech support from Coinbase, in which there are some users that claim to be providing basic account troubleshooting. These members will be asking users to pay a fee to fix these issues and keep operating. Moreover, they can also request access to users’ computers to operate the Coinbase accounts directly from the victim’s computer.

Coinbase will never be asking for private information or access to a client’s computer to solve any kind of issue. Coinbase has a specific team that works in order to solve all the issues via the official channels.

Finally, there are coin listing and ICO scams on Telegram as well. These scammers talk directly to developers and project leaders to list their assets on Coinbase and other virtual currency exchanges. Fraudsters will be asking an extremely high fee to list these coins.

Nonetheless, Coinbase has no application fees for listing digital assets in its platform.

Muller wrote about these scams:

“Coinbase will never ask for remote access to your computer. Coinbase staff will also never ask for your sensitive login credentials or ask you to send money to external addresses. Coinbase does not host giveaways, recruit job seekers or list new assets via Telegram. Coinbase has no official presence on Telegram, any usage of the Coinbase logo or band on Telegram is a scam.”

Muller also provides some tips to keep users’ accounts safe. For example, to communicate with Coinbase only through the official support channels, keep sensitive information private, never send virtual currencies to “customer support,” never share passwords or 2-factor security codes and more.

This is not the first time that there are scammers trying to steal users’ funds in the space. Back in 2017, when the market was reaching new all-time highs, the number of scams in the space grew exponentially. Nowadays, there are still some scams taking place in the space but users are more prepared than in the past to face them and avoid losing their funds.