Guided by “professionals”, live teaching, investment value, and lead “make money”… Many people may be familiar with such calls and rhetoric. Recently, a reporter’s investigation found that the currency circle used the phone to pull people’s heads and WeChat groups to bring orders to induce new users to speculate in currency again. The other party pretended to have professional analysts on the platform under the guise of Huobi. In the group to exchange orders, but the actual situation is: once you are drawn into these exchange groups, it is equivalent to entering the “leeks circle”, and a well-planned scam begins.
Free “coin circle exchange group”
“Hello, I am the customer service of the world of currency, and I hereby invite you to join our VIP currency exchange group and share money-making experience.” “Hello, we are currently doing free promotional activities on Huobi. We have invited experienced teachers to do it. Free sharing of currency appreciation”…Recently, reporters have received many promotional calls like “customer service”.
To find out, the reporter passed the request of the customer service’s WeChat friend and joined a WeChat group called “Bisheng Community”. This group is already the 263rd WeChat group of the “Bisheng Community”. In addition to the group owner who established the group, the group assistant who explains the group rules, and the “experts” who share the “experience”, there are also several people who are responsible for the active atmosphere. , Fixed group members participating in the discussion. At present, the group is still expanding. Most of the newly joined people are men. There are also groups such as mothers and elderly people.
After joining the group, the group management will first share group rules and organize group sharing activities. Then a group of “experts” will explain the knowledge of the currency circle. After sharing, the group assistant will tell the group members that interested users can add “experts” to WeChat for further communication.
In fact, this is the third similar currency group recently joined by the reporter. However, the difference this time is that the group of “experts” also shared some common fraud methods in the currency circle and high-risk reminders, which also made some new users believe in what the “experts” said.
Long line to catch big fish
“Users all need to be cultivated. If you don’t talk about dry goods, let new users taste the sweetness, how can you further build trust?” Lin Feng (a pseudonym), an industry insider, told reporters, “At present, it is all about the operation risk warning of the currency circle. Even Xiaobai’s new users have a sense of vigilance. Therefore, community’experts’ share the currency circle fraud methods and prompt investment risks. This is also to’educate’ users, lay a good foundation for later interactions, and put a long line to catch the big fish.”
“Once you are drawn into these exchange groups, it is equivalent to entering the’leek circle’.” Lin Feng said that through this way of pulling heads and sharing investment advice in WeChat groups, there is basically a team operating, and the purpose is generally Guide investment, after establishing community influence, induce users to buy coins and even contract orders, or be entrusted by the project side of the currency circle to induce users to invest in some other projects in order to profit from it.
It is worth mentioning that Lin Feng’s statement has also been confirmed by the “experts” of “Bisheng Community”. The person said frankly in the group, “I am talking about coins for everyone, the purpose is very simple, first, for the fund at the end of the year, and second, to enhance their own reputation.”
In fact, this kind of situation is not uncommon. In addition to the reporter’s own experience, many readers also reported to the reporter that they have received frequent calls of this type recently: the other party claims to be the customer service of Huobi.com, Biworld, OKEx, etc. Claiming that the platform is doing activities, there are professional analysts in the group to exchange orders, add a WeChat to pull into the group for free. There will be “teachers” and “experts” in the group through operations such as popular science currency information and market analysis, leading users to speculate coins or even contract orders, which is the so-called “make money”.
The official crackdown
Obviously, such scams have recently begun to spread again. In the opinion of Liu Feng, director of the Blockchain Technology and Application Research Center of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Change Management, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, the main reason for the emergence of market chaos in which calls in the currency market are pulling people’s heads and WeChat group raising “leeks” It lies in the hotness of the blockchain investment/speculation market. Recently, the price of Bitcoin has remained at around US$10,000, and the popularity of the currency market has risen, which is the fundamental reason for the resurgence of these illegal activities.
“In addition, the blockchain trading market is a global market. Because it is still in the early stages of development, the price fluctuates greatly, and there are many gambling trading markets such as contract transactions. Therefore, these attract people and raise leeks. The illegal organizations in China can make full use of the’internal disk, private disk’ and even those outside the United Nations to kill familiar customers.” Liu Feng told reporters.
In addition, from the perspective of industry insiders, the central bank’s digital currency has made frequent progress recently, and there are many illegal institutions that will “hitch a ride” in the digital currency fever and conduct financial fraud to the public under the guise of digital currency.
It is worth mentioning that these so-called “Huobi Customer Service” and “OKEx Customer Service” have also been officially cracked down on the platform. On September 20, the relevant person in charge of OKEx responded to reporters that OKEx officials have never set up various “teacher/experts with orders” and “guidance speculation” exchange groups, and will not actively contact users to join such communities. Any behavior that induces users to speculate coins under the banner of OKEx can be regarded as a fraud. Huobi also told reporters that if users receive this type of call, they must first determine whether it is a real Huobi customer service group.
“The issuance of these virtual currencies can be said to be frauds under the cloak of the Internet.” Li Quan, professor of finance at Nankai University, director and chief economist of the Federal Reserve Securities, told reporters that to prevent the promotion of such illegal virtual currencies, it is not only necessary to strengthen law enforcement. Such products should be strictly supervised and related illegal institutions should be banned. At the same time, the public should increase publicity and popularize the knowledge of digital currency.
