Two websites pretending to be from the Bitcoin Foundation are trying to steal Bitcoin users’ cryptocurrency — and there may be more scammers out there, according to VentureBeat.
The fraudulent websites, at bitcompensation.com and bitsecuretransfer.com, both have the same format: Under the headline “Compensating the users,” the sites tell visitors that “Since the price of the bitcoin went down a lot, members of the bitcoin community have lost too much. To decrease these loss and to sustain our coin, we, The Bitcoin Foundation together with Blockchain, are going to offer to each of our members a random amount of coins.”
Below that is an input box inviting visitors to “Insert your bitcoin address to redeem your gift.”
In a blog post on Monday (Dec. 1), the Bitcoin Foundation said it has received complaints about the phony sites and is currently trying to have them taken down, although they were still working late Tuesday. The cryptocurrency group also said similar sites may also be operating, and encouraged visitors to report them at webmaster@bitcoinfoundation.org with a “SCAM SITE” subject line.
“If you are contacted and directed to a page that looks like the screenshot below, please close your browser as you are about to be scammed out of your Bitcoins,” the foundation said. Because transactions can’t be reversed, users who send their bitcoin address to the scammers will find it very difficult if not impossible to retrieve any bitcoin the scammers take.
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