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Reversal of Transfer for affected victims of PolkaDOT Scams

fhasan
5 years ago

Hello Council members, I'm writing this as a recently affected victim of a PolkaDOT Airdrop Scam. This was a Socially Engineered that involved a Youtube Video, a website with an address to send to, and a claim to send 2x tokens back. I now understand that this is a pattern that the scammers are using - However, I was gullible and fell for the trap. I'm a relatively new Cryptocurrency User and did not have the regular sanity checks in place that most veterans in this Crypto space have when encountering such questionable offers. I humbly request the Council to consider enabling some kind of mechanism to reverse fund transfers in case of Scams being reported against a particular address/set of addresses/transactions. I feel that this can be especially valuable to new users of PolkaDOT and to Cryptocurrency in general as we are easy prey for these scammers. I also see the general sentiment in the community that "If you got scammed, It's on you - There's nothing that can be done".. However, when we look at Mainstream Monetary services such as Paypal, One of their most useful features is the fact that fraudulent transactions can be reversed if the request is legitimate. While this does introduce a somewhat "Centralised Authority" in these organisations, I feel that a similar function can be implemented in the Cryptocurrency Space as mainstream adoption will demand that such features are carried over from the traditional Monetary Space. This will also make it less lucrative for Scammers to operate on these Networks, especially when a group of people can vote to completely reverse the flow of scammed money out of their accounts or freeze those accounts altogether. I'm not a technical expert, and It's hard for me to suggest how we would implement something like this on the Polkadot Network. However, Im a Product Manager by profession and when we look at the "User side" of things, being able to support those who've legitimately been scammed of their funds for whatever oversight of theirs would be one of the top things that could make a Cryptocurrency or Token highly attractive to Mainstream Retail Users. I for sure would rejoice at the possibility that Im not constantly in the Wild West when I'm translating my value in the Cryptocurrency space. My Loss : I lost 2374 DOT worth approx. 34000 EUR on Jan 19 at 1AM. I am devastated by this incident and am at a loss of words to describe my emotional state. [https://polkadot.subscan.io/account/14KcwxS19QFZmcfe43MRvZh5D7RCS2XNpuGYGP3C9bQyBER1 ](URL) I really wish there was something that could be done to recognise the legitimacy of a request of the kind that I'm making and help to take the funds back from the addresses who have scammed hundreds of people like me. This is my humble plea - I really hope that someday I'll be able to recover those funds back to my account. I hope I've provided some food for thought. Thank you all for reading through the end. Best, Faheem Hasan

Comments (5)

5 years ago

Hi @fhasan thanks for your letter and so sorry about your unfortunate loss of funds.

I agree that something should be done to protect people who are new and susceptible to schemes like these.

Can you please share evidence of the scam? For context, realize that force_transfer itself could be used as a scam vector, so your task is showing us how it is not so.

In this case, links to the scam website(s), Youtube channel, and other social networking sites would be helpful. Also providing the transaction hash for the transfer you made to the scammer and the scammer’s account number. You’ll also want to be able to prove that the scammer’s account is indeed a scam account and not someone you sent money to for a good or service, and are looking to steal the funds back. Since the airdrop affected many people, you could try to find others who were affected and put together a petition of attestations (each with evidence) that corroborate your story. I think ultimately when you submit your proposal for referenda, it should be as concise as possible without omitting any meat and potatoes of evidence, otherwise many voters may not have the attention span to read it all the way through.

The ongoing referendum has strongest "aye" turnout of the three attempts to force transfer of token ownership--if I recall correctly. The other two were 95+% nay. One key difference I think is noteworthy is they are requesting a lock on the scammers account, not an immediate force_transfer. The explanation is that if, after one month, no one steps forward to contest the claim, the transfer should happen at that point. I think this is a smarter way to do it.

Let us know if you have questions!! You’re not alone and if you have a legitimate claim to this I’m here to help and I hope others will be as well.

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fhasan
5 years ago

Hi Windy, thanks so much for your response.

As far as evidence goes I have the following :

I do not have anything more to go by.

Please let me know if this sufficient to open up any kind of referendum.

Thank you for your help and support.

Best,
Faheem

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Comments (5)

5 years ago

Hi @fhasan thanks for your letter and so sorry about your unfortunate loss of funds.

I agree that something should be done to protect people who are new and susceptible to schemes like these.

Can you please share evidence of the scam? For context, realize that force_transfer itself could be used as a scam vector, so your task is showing us how it is not so.

In this case, links to the scam website(s), Youtube channel, and other social networking sites would be helpful. Also providing the transaction hash for the transfer you made to the scammer and the scammer’s account number. You’ll also want to be able to prove that the scammer’s account is indeed a scam account and not someone you sent money to for a good or service, and are looking to steal the funds back. Since the airdrop affected many people, you could try to find others who were affected and put together a petition of attestations (each with evidence) that corroborate your story. I think ultimately when you submit your proposal for referenda, it should be as concise as possible without omitting any meat and potatoes of evidence, otherwise many voters may not have the attention span to read it all the way through.

The ongoing referendum has strongest "aye" turnout of the three attempts to force transfer of token ownership--if I recall correctly. The other two were 95+% nay. One key difference I think is noteworthy is they are requesting a lock on the scammers account, not an immediate force_transfer. The explanation is that if, after one month, no one steps forward to contest the claim, the transfer should happen at that point. I think this is a smarter way to do it.

Let us know if you have questions!! You’re not alone and if you have a legitimate claim to this I’m here to help and I hope others will be as well.

profile
fhasan
5 years ago

Hi Windy, thanks so much for your response.

As far as evidence goes I have the following :

I do not have anything more to go by.

Please let me know if this sufficient to open up any kind of referendum.

Thank you for your help and support.

Best,
Faheem

PleaseLogin to comment
    Polkassembly - Reversal of Transfer for affected victims of PolkaDOT Scams #268