A new type of scam ( scam ) has been hitting users of the Metamask wallet, specifically those using Binance’s Smart Chain (BSC) network. Some users complain that once they try to claim the 800,000 VERA tokens they receive in a supposed airdrop, their portfolio is emptied of the BNB and other tokens they possess.
The complaint has been made known by different sources. For example, YouTube users comment that their wallets have been emptied and explain the nature of the scam. They allege that, when interacting with the fake VERA website, something inside the smart contract drains the wallets of those affected. This type of complaint has been repeated on different social networks.
How the scam works
Yes Well, some users have commented that “there is something in the smart contract” that steals all the assets in the portfolio; it is worth noting that a large part of the theft occurs due to the carelessness of the users.
The scam begins by receiving tokens from TheVera.io (the name of the token and the website), which they say belong to a project known as VERA. It should be noted that this platform is real and is still under development. The official portal is vera.financial, but no token has been publicly promoted so far.
The total tokens received by users amount to 800,000 VERA. Within CoinGecko, you can find a token with the same name trading at USD 0.0006, supposedly causing the amount received to amount to more than USD 48,000. According to data from the contract in which this token was generated, the airdrop was sent to almost 6 million different addresses. Also, in BscScan, the contract has been reported as a scam.
A scam is defined as a form of scam through emails. However, with the massification of the Internet, this definition was adopted to refer to all types of scams based on deception carried out through digital means.
Since these tokens cannot be claimed on any known exchange platform, such as UniSwap or Binance, users are asked to go to thevera.io website, which Metamask already marks as a page scam.
In this portal, users are asked to mark the option of Claim You Token (claim your token). When clicked, a window indicates the number of tokens to ‘unlock’. At the moment of confirming the transaction is when the deception occurs.
In this case, the transaction that is opened from Metamask does not correspond to the confirmation of the connection of the wallet with the website. It confirms the sending of all the funds the user has in his wallet to the scammer’s address. Users confirm this simple shipping transaction by not carefully reviewing the transaction details.
According to what we have been able to collect, the VERA token is not the only one that is affecting users. Other tokens like MNEB or USDM are also being shipped on airdrops for scam purposes.
How much money have you managed to scam?
At the moment, criminals have been using the address 0xba298E76324f2F9a506A831f3B9409920Dd3C84D as indicated in Metamask.
According to BscScan, the address currently has a BNB balance of USD 342 and more than 45 thousand dollars in different tokens. In the records, the management has accumulated more than 12 BNB, equivalent to about USD 5,000, which has already been withdrawn.
How to avoid these scams
First of all, it is worth noting that tokens are not the means of scams. A BEP20 token is harmless on its own. However, it can be used as part of a social engineering framework that affects careless users. Based on this, if a user receives this token, they do not have to worry since the token alone does not represent any danger within their portfolio.
Another precaution To follow is to apply the maxim of Bitcoin: “do not trust, verify”. The transaction that is being confirmed should always be verified. In this case, users are robbed because they confirm, without paying attention, the sending of all their funds.
