Seeing that the digital currency wallet password contained more than 2,000 USD, Quoc Trong decided to try logging in to get it, but the result was losing transaction fees and not gaining anything.
Through a message on Telegram, a person contacted Quoc Trong (Hanoi) and asked him to log in to his electronic wallet to withdraw for him, promising to split the amount in half. This person provides Trong with a photo of the seed phrase - secret information to access and manage the wallet.
“Nobody normally reveals their wallet seed phrase. I thought this person had no experience and agreed because of the large amount of money," Trong shared.
Due to the mechanism of transactions on the blockchain, the network always requires a gas fee, paid in tokens of that blockchain. This fee depends on the network, it can be less than 1 USD but can also be up to hundreds of USD with old mechanisms.
To make the transaction, Trong deposited nearly 10 USD worth of TRX tokens of the TRON network because he thought he might need to transact many times. However, after the successful transfer, these tokens did not appear in the wallet, making Trong unable to continue trading. At that point, Trong realized he had been tricked, but could no longer contact the other person.
Recently, in some cryptocurrency communities in Vietnam, the situation of luring users into wallets to cheat on gas fees has begun to appear. Thieves intentionally provide or "accidentally" reveal the seed phrase, allowing access to wallets containing large amounts of money. They can send private messages with a scenario to donate money in their wallet, or post photos of these secret phrases on chat groups to "ask for support".
Mr. Phan Duc Nhat, founder of a Web3 wallet service and administrator of a cryptocurrency investment group, explained: "Many people think that having a seed phrase will be able to control and get the money in the wallet, so they log in immediately." . However, if you want to withdraw money, you will have to deposit gas fees first." For example, with wallets on the TRON network, users need to deposit TRX tokens, or the BSC network will need BNB coins.
According to Mr. Nhat, wallets used for this type of fraud always have a bot system that continuously scans transactions. Every time a user deposits fees, the bot will detect it and automatically transfer it immediately, causing the wallet to always be in a state of not having enough gas for transactions. In addition, some wallets operate as Multisig, which requires more than one set of keys to control. Therefore, users, even after successful access, will not be able to get money from their wallet.
Gas fees for blockchain transactions are not too high, but this method can help crooks earn large sums of money when defrauding many victims or doing so on a large scale. In particular, when seed phrases are shared publicly in groups, victims are afraid of missing out on the opportunity, afraid of others logging in and taking the money first, so they quickly make transactions without being wary.
Mr. Nhat said he has received many requests for support from members regarding this situation. There are victims who thought the transaction was an error so they deposited money many times and lost dozens of USD. There are even inexperienced people who think that if they are given a wallet, they should use it to receive money, leading to large losses of money.
According to experts, tricks to easily donate large amounts of money often pose risks, especially when digital currency transactions are not protected by law. With digital wallets, the recovery phrase or private key is always an important security factor, so do not share and do not use wallets with exposed seed phrases.
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