Looking at the tactic he came with you wouldn't suspect that he was a fraudster. He has used a small fish to hunt down a bigger whale. I have very little in my wallet and was the bait use to track my friend.
His best idea was to go after newbies who have at least a substantial amount of hive and HBD in their wallet knowing fully well that older hivers would be too wise to share their active keys. I have persuaded my besty @gloriaolar to share her active keys with him because I trusted him, that was really foolish of me and the most foolish thing I ever did, I leave you to be my judge, but you should hear me out first by reading further.
He came to some of my post,read them and dropped some nice comment and piece of advice about how i could make quality content that will attract the curation trails on hive.
That was a supercool idea, every newbie is looking forward to some support and guidance from older hivers which he was willing to share
He repeated this same process for a week reading and correcting my blogs where necessary just to gain my trust.
Afterwards he told me that I should share some HBD tokens with him that a process exist on the Blockchain which he can use to boost my post for more upvote, I have no clue this existed and of course a lot of newbies will welcome the idea of post boost and more upvotes especially newbies who are usually desperate. This conversation happened over Whatsapp.
I so much cherish hivekeychain and key defender's, they really do a good job at tracking such people hence he took the conversation to my DM in Whatsapp. On hive anyone will have scolded him for asking for a fellow hivers active keys.
I wasn't on discord then as well, as the conversation lasted I haven't giving him my keys but only sent the requested HBD to his wallet for post boosting like he said. After gaining my trust and taking the conversation to whatsap he went further to ask about my friend @gloriaolar and how he can equally help her by boosting her blog.
I was less than 6months on the chain and she was close to a year, we didn't pay any attention to protecting our keys, the social life ,fun and ability to earn on hive was pleasing and we focused more on that. He kept persuading us to boost our blogs.
He didn't do a thing with the HBD I sent which I later found out but I got some substantial votes as a newbie that made me believe that his post boost worked.
Hence I wanted thesame for my friend
At this point he insisted that the method for boosting post has changed and that he needed Gloria's active key 🔐🗝️ to carry that out.
Since he didn't steal a thing from me I trusted him and urged her to have faith and do thesame.
On the evening of that particular day, she sent her active keys and immediately he wiped out all the HBD and Hive she had and started a power down of her HP. He had so much gut and felt that we were too naught to stop further damage. Gloria hadn't made any withdrawal in months was saving both the hive and HBD to purchase a particular item. Within a twinkle of an eye our countenance became sour and I was twice pained because I obliged her into doing this.
Her funds weren't in the savings wallet which will have taking at least 3days before it can get to his hands.
Image created in Canva.
Although we were not familiar with how to change keys but won't allow him power down and withdraw all her HP We contacted our onboarded immediately who help us go change the keys from what the fraudster had and stopped the power down. A bit of a relief that he won't steal everything she had.
Ever since we learnt a hard lesson and started paying attention to some important details in hive, how to defend keys, trade our hive tokens and general crypto terms.
There is fraud in every nook and cranny of crypto, including in exchanges where I have experience some loss trading P2P, the list is just endless, fraudster get smarter by day and we have no option than to stay abreast and avert occasional losses .
Posted Using InLeo Alpha