did you see Youtube Recently announced a “sliding robot” that uses… ChatGPT Promising to help you earn passive income through cryptocurrencies? It's a scam. And it scams a lot of people, all while using unexpected actors hired on Fiverr who don't understand what they're hired to read. One actor tells Gizmodo that he ultimately wasn't paid for his work, despite his face constantly appearing on YouTube under accounts he didn't control.
All videos follow the same basic script. They start with an actor saying that he personally created a bot using ChatGPT that allows anyone to earn money without any real programming knowledge. Early in the videos, the actors warn that the cryptocurrency community has a lot of scammers, so it is important that the viewer does not interact with “unfamiliar wallets” and “unknown exchanges.”
After getting the sarcastic warning about scammers out of the way, the script then delves into where you can copy code that can be pasted into a website that is supposed to carry out so-called front-running of cryptocurrency transactions. You'll have to link your crypto wallet, of course, for the whole thing to work. The basic idea, also known as a Sandwich attack, is a real thing that unethical cryptocurrency traders do to extract money. But that's not what will happen if you try to implement the code in the video.
If you actually swipe the code, there's nothing inherently fishy about it, except the promise of free money. But this is because the real wallet address is hidden inside by dividing it into parts. Anyone who connects their Metamask wallet and runs the code is simply sending their cryptocurrencies to one of several wallets controlled by anonymous scammers.
All of the videos follow the same basic script with minor changes and the only real difference between many of the videos is the wording regarding how much you are supposed to make using their method. Sometimes the titles and thumbnails are promising $2000 per day or $3000 per dayOthers list amounts in Ethereum or percentages. But anyone who follows the video instructions will receive precisely zero dollars, and will instead send their crypto to the scammers.
Gizmodo has yet to find evidence that anyone appearing in these videos knew they were participating in a scam. In fact, three of the people we spoke to were all hired on Fiverr for video and voice acting work. It is quite clear why these scammers hire real representatives. By putting a few hundred dollars into a gig site like Fiverr, (one representative told us he made $500), these scammers get real people to be the face of their scam without revealing their own identities while collecting real money.
As you can see in the collection of short videos we've compiled below, the text being read is identical across hundreds of YouTube videos.
The videos have been a huge headache for some of the actors involved because there seems to be an army of new YouTube accounts posting videos every day. Actors have no control over how videos are used, and even if they manage to remove some videos, they constantly reappear on other accounts.
“I have been contacted by cybersecurity professionals, OSINT enthusiasts, […] “It happened. One victim, and several people in my real relationships who came across the video on their feeds,” one of the actors, Scott Banville, told Gizmodo via email on Sunday.
Banville, a 41-year-old music teacher in New York, went on to say that at least four “real friends” have reached out to him since seeing the videos in their YouTube ads. He calls YouTube every time he finds a new video to remove, but it's a total game of whack-a-mole.
Panfil contacted Fiverr to ask about the account he hired and was told it had been terminated. But he says Fiverr insisted he couldn't do anything beyond that. A Fiverr spokesperson told Gizmodo in an email on Tuesday that the company has banned the accounts that were brought to their attention and will offer Panfil some type of compensation after he was not paid.
“Any attempt to defraud or defraud others is a clear violation of our Terms of Service and is strictly prohibited. Allowing anyone to use the services provided through Fiverr to intentionally promote misleading or fraudulent information, or that could otherwise pose a financial risk,” said a Fiverr spokesperson. “For our users, it is against our community standards.”
Many scam videos exist UnlistedWhich means they don't appear in regular YouTube and Google search results. But they often appear as paid ads, as you can see below in the screenshot taken by Gizmodo on March 23. This rightmost video featuring Panfil is “Sponsored”, as it says just below the title that it is being promoted through the YouTube Ads program.
Anyone who clicks to view the supposed creator Other videos We will only see five or six created recently. These videos tend to be general explanations Technical topics Like NFTs and smart contracts, which makes it seem as if the person who ostensibly created this YouTube page knows what he's talking about when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
But the person who appears on each YouTube account has no control over the content that appears there, as you can see in the account using Panfil's face below. These guys just got hired for one video on Fiverr and their videos are being reused frequently.
Most of the tutorials that act as a smokescreen aren't even listed. They're boring and are just a cover for paid ads that aren't even visible to basic YouTube searches. Again, it must be emphasized that the people appearing in these ads probably have no idea that they are promoting a scam. Their videos are used across the world Multiple accounts.
Another common element in all of these YouTube videos is that the comments are very positive, which is clearly a result of some botnets trying to give credibility to scams.
Oddly enough, Gizmodo first learned about this scam about a month ago while combing through consumer complaints filed with the FTC mentioning ChatGPT. We obtained complaints through the Freedom of Information Act, and one complaint that came to our attention came to our attention on December 27, 2023:
I found a YouTube video titled “etsy web3 dev”, and a YouTube video titled “I Used ChatGPT Arbitrage Trading Bot to Make $1,248 a Day – Passive Income.”
I followed the instructions to deposit 0.5 ETH from my Metamask cryptocurrency wallet to the Etherscan contract I was asked to create. I created the contract and then used the translator in ChatGPT to profit from the 0.5 ETH I sent from my Metamask account. Nothing was found in my wallet and the YouTuber was unable to reply to my message. I tried again with 0.65 ETH the next day, but nothing showed up in my contract. I suspect that a YouTuber has somehow taken my Ethereum through instructions in a roundabout way to steal my funds which are now worth a total of $2500.
The name of the person who filed the complaint has been redacted by the FTC, which is standard practice when the agency releases documents through the Freedom of Information Act, so we were unable to reach this person directly. But having a scam video name led us down a rabbit hole where we found hundreds of other videos with similar titles, all promising easy passive income. They were all using the same text and being read by real people.
Since we began investigating this scam, YouTube videos have become more popular, as have other videos on social media mentioned Seeing them frequently in recent days. YouTube spokesperson Javier Hernandez says the platform has “strict policies in place to protect the YouTube community” and six channels have been terminated for scams and other deceptive practices.
“We are also in the process of reviewing the ads in question and will take appropriate action on those that violate our ads Advertising policiesHernandez said via email.
Most of the videos feature real actors, but there are some clips where we never see a person appear other than a thumbnail. Although almost all of the videos we found containing this scam featured male actors, some of them did feature Female voice actors But they rarely had a visual representation of A real woman In the video, unlike… Some thumbnails.
How much do these scammers make? It's hard to know this part exactly, but Gizmodo sent a message to one victim saying he lost 1 ETH, which is equivalent to about $3,300 at the current price. Based on anecdotal reports of various Crypto Forums The amount withdrawn by these scammers is almost certainly in the hundreds of thousands and beyond.
There are a few explainer videos that try to warn people about the scam. But they didn't get much attention. this video, for example, has only 75,000 views at the time of this writing despite being around for about a year. Alarmingly, some videos claiming to expose the scam are actually just an attempt to pay Their own version of the scam By exposing and demanding other videos they You have a real robot that can generate this kind of passive income.
It goes without saying that you should be wary of anyone who promises you a way to make easy money. And if you're an actor looking to do some work through Fiverr, make sure you understand what you're reading. Because even if you get paid, you may face some major disappointments in the future if it ends up being a scam.
