Posts

Beware the 888 888 KICK air dump scam! (AND SIMILAR scams)

avatar of @revisesociology
25
Zebedee
@revisesociology
·
·
0 views
·
2 min read

When I last connected a certain ETH address to ThorSwap (which I don't do very often), I noticed I had received 888 888 KICK tokens dropped (or rather 'dumped' as it turns out) to that address.

I wouldn't have noticed these tokens had they not shown up in the THORSWAP interface as I rarely use the ETH network these days and they wouldn't have shown up just in MetaMask.

Anyway, with my scam alert senses tingling (following the horrible news of @belemo's funds getting stolen yesterday), I decided to investigate by checking out the KICK token price on CoinMarketCap.....

So 888 888 tokens are worth almost $8000 - O.K..... sounding too good to be true, but still worth taking further, let's have a look at the website...

OK it's an exchange, I don't want to register, but at least there's a functioning product, but I don't need another exchange, and NB I've NEVER HEARD of anyone using this before!

Onto UniSwap and let's see what I can get for these....

$350....?

OK DEFO something not right here....down from $8000 to $350...... DEFO a warning sign to not click that button.

Thankfully given that the swap fees would have been probably above $100 the thought of swapping wasn't even tempting!

Yup this is/ was an 'air dump' scam.....

After a bit of digging I found this reddit thread outlining how this scam works....

  • You agree the contract to trade the tokens on Uniswap (or other exchanges presumably)
  • The exchange fails (and you lose the GAS fee)
  • You get informed that the 888 888 KICK tokens are locked until you've traded a certain amount through the KICK EXCHANGE
  • HOWEVER, there's apparently no reference to the amount you need to trade in order to unlock your 888 888 KICK tokens.

IN SHORT this is just a scam to 'lock you into' trading via their website, avoid it and clicking on anything that gives this site permission to interact with this wallet address!

Also keep an eye out for similar scams - 'the air dump scam' as it was referred to on Reddit seems like a fitting enough name for it!

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta