Bitcoin Scam Exposed: Using a Deceased Person's Account to Steal Identity and Personal Data

As the price of Bitcoin, the king of virtual currencies, breaks past US$60,000 per coin, scam groups can once again be seen stirring into action online.

The simple scam uncovered this time is actually just like the old ones about needing someone to help transfer hundreds of millions in overseas assets (I’m genuinely curious who actually falls for it) — except that they also know how to keep up with the times, switching tracks to cash in on the Bitcoin craze.

Contents of the Bitcoin Scam Email

This time I received an email in my inbox, with the following content:

*“We are a Bitcoin Investment Company. We have professional Bitcoin miners with years of experience, who mine our coins (BTC) to produce Monthly and Yearly Payouts to our Customers around the world, with their capitals still yielding interests. *

We found your name and email on our DATABASE used by a DECEASED as NEXT of KIN to his Bitcoin account. Kindly get back to us with a photo of your valid ID card, so we can give you access to his BITCOIN TC Classic Account.”

Translated into Chinese, the gist is that they are a Bitcoin investment company that found our name and email address in their database, and that this registration data was previously used by a now-deceased relative to sign up for investment services.

The company asks us to scan or photograph a government-issued ID document bearing a headshot photo (such as a passport) and hand it over to them for verification, so that the login access to that investment account can be transferred to us.

A Scam That Opens the Door at a Glance

Doesn’t the whole story sound great?

Just by sending a copy of an ID card — on which we can even add a note saying “For the use of so-and-so only, not to be used for any other purpose” as an anti-abuse declaration — we might get an investment account holding who-knows-how-many Bitcoins!

Well, first of all, that added declaration is actually completely useless; it only takes a little image editing to make those words disappear without a trace. With a bit of time, someone could even manually fabricate all kinds of legends for the data you didn’t write, and even turn you from male to female or female to male.

But the biggest problem is actually the data you hand over, which contains a large amount of accurate personal privacy information (personal data for short) — and simply by swapping the photo, it can be used to register all kinds of accounts with other online operators.

To put it in terms that are easier for everyone to understand: it can even be used for money laundering. Are you scared?

Next time, if someone tells you that just by giving them your ID document they can help you transfer a Bitcoin account, absolutely do not be foolish enough to believe it. As the old saying goes, as long as you don’t give in to greed, it is very hard to be scammed.