If you received an e-mail claiming that you can receive Bitcoin seized from fraudsters, don’t even open it.
What it is about
Recently there has been a surge of e-mails seemingly coming from blockchain.com and claiming that you can get for free Bitcoins from an account that fraudsters opened in your name.
The British financial regulator (Financial Conduct Authority – FCA) allegedly blocked that account due to it being fraudulent.
The blocked BTC are now supposedly ready to be released to you, to the rightful owner of that account. The amount can vary, in the case we’ve reviewed it is 4.29 BTC.
Don’t fall for it, it’s a scam
The e-mail supposedly coming from Blockchain.com and offering you free Bitcoins is of course fake, it’s a scam.
There are several problems with that e-mail that tell the story of a scam:
- If you look carefully, the e-mail does not come from Blockchain.com, but from a similar domain, like blockchain-inc.net.
- FCA is not the authority that can seize and release seized assets to the public.
- Seized assets from criminals are not just given to random people, they are given back to the people who lost them, when possible.
- Blockchain.com would never be the entity to contact you to tell you that authorities are giving you something.
In other words, should authorities in any country seize any cryptocurrency, they would certainly not be giving it to you, if you are not the victim of that particular crime, even if somebody used your name.
If you sustain any damages in a scam, you have to claim them, you are not just given some random amounts.
So the e-mail with the offer to give you some seized Bitcoins is a total scam. But how does it work?
How they take your money
This type of scam is very old, it pre-dates cryptocurrencies. Remember those e-mails back in the day claiming you won in the lottery, even if you did not remember participating in any? This is the same principle.
Scammers claim that they have a substantial amount of money that belongs to you and that you just have to contact them to get it.
But if you contact them, you will learn that it’s not that easy, that you have to pay some fee in advance. And guess what happens if you pay that fee? Of course, you won’t get anything back, you’ll just lose what you send them.
In some cases crypto scams like this one can also ask you for access information to your cryptocurrency wallet (private key, seed, etc.). Then they will load your wallet and drain it if there are any tokens in it.
So don’t fall for it, don’t contact these fake blockchain.com representatives via WhatsApp as they suggest or otherwise. The first thing they will ask is money from you.
In conclusion
Blockchain.com is not sending out any emails about you having the possibility to get some seized Bitcoins, it’s all a scam. You have to stay away from it.
If you contact fraudsters who sent you that email, they will do everything they can to get money from you.
