🔎Scam Exam(ination)🔍
Seen as: I accidentally reported your account Scam Type: Account hijacking/take over
Platform: Discord
Hello everyone!
Today's scam examination was requested by @2broschlininahotub who was kind enough to send me screenshots of such a scam via an ask. Thank you for contributing!
Today we're going to talk about the "I accidentally reported you on discord account for <reason>" scam that's actively going on that- if you fall for it, will result in your account being taken over by a scammer who will then use it to scam your friends and/or buy things like nitro and gift it to them and their scam buddies.
If you use discord and don't know about this scam, I highly suggest reading this post so you know what to look out for.
If you don't want to read this post, you can watch a video instead!:
Otherwise let's get started!
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How it starts:
This scam starts with one of your friends falling for this scams.
Sadly if they can't warn you they fell for it via another platform (facebook, twitter, bluesky, ect), you might think that what your 'friend' sends you is a legitimate call for concern. But, thankfully, it is not, no matter how convincing it may seem.
If you find yourself encountering this scam, please report your friends account for being hacked. Discord will usually lock the account and hopefully contact the original owner of the account to fix the issue.
Part 1 - First contact.
If you are messaged by someone and they try to get your attention, and then say something akin to:
"Idk how to say this because I accidentally reported your account instead of someone else."
or
"hey there, I encountered a situation on discord where someone with a very similar name to your profile attempted to deceive me. Instead of reporting the deceptive user, I mistakenly reported your account. I'm sorry, it was all an accident. I didn't mean it."
or
"I accidentally reported your discord account instead of someone else. I mean im the one who reported you accidentally I'm sorry I got panicked and I lost control, its not good cause it was quiet alarming cause I told some of my friends to report you that's why I reached out to you to see what the discord emailed me and I'm scared cause I don't want you to get ban bc of me, I just really need your help so I can fix it."
Sounds familiar?
If you're at least a little familiar with the infamous 'I reported your steam account on accident because I thought you were a scammer' scam.. This is the same thing.
If you choose to reply to their grab for attention, you will receive a message like the one above paired with an image or google doc of the 'email/form' that Discord (it is fake) supposedly sent them (the victim).
Here are screenshots provided to me by @2broschlininahotub:
Another version of this fake email looks like this taken from reddit:
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, Thank you for reaching out to Discord Support.
Discord is focused on maintaining a safe and secure environment for our community. We've found the account that you have been reported and it irregulated our Terms of Service or Community Guidelines. We need you to contact [anotherhydra] to resolve this case.
On the other hand, we suggest you to reach out the reported user and have them contact to the same corporate team for proper identity matching. We have taken steps to do this action since they will not be notified about these claims due to the option selected for this report type..
• In any instances that you are not aware about this report activities, kindly reach out to our corporate security head by filing a friend request on Discord for investigation. Username: [petercho.support047]
• Failure to validate the legality of an account within a specific time frame (12 hrs) might lead to account suspension, limited or ban.
• Furthermore, we are working with some officials on this matter so that we can record all processes taken legally and are not violating "Title 18 of the U.S Code, Section 798 (Disclosure of Classified Information)" By that, we can also perform legal actions if said user is found guilty of chargers.
• By taking the measure of this process we can ensure that your Discord is not prone to fraudulent activities and personal information is not compromised since this could lead to any malicious activities.
Case: Attempting potentially fraudulent activity
Please get in touch with the person you unintentionally reported as soon as possible so they may file an appeal and save their account from being seriously compromised
Sincerely.
Discord Trust & Safety
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Part 2 - The scare tactics and red flags.
Going through the above transcript I'm going to highlight some very clear and obvious red flags that make this an obvious scam off the bat. Mind you this itself isn't the entire scam, only part of it.
In any instances that you are not aware about this report activities, kindly reach out to our corporate security head by filing a friend request on Discord for investigation. Username: [petercho.support047]
Discord will never, ever tell you to add a supposed 'corporate security head staff member' or another user as a friend to resolve any issue you may have had involving a scam.
Discord will only communicate with you through their website where you fill out a ticket, and via email with the account that is linked to your discord account.
Think about this: Why would 'Discord' tell the victim of a scam via email, to then contact the person they reported, to instruct them to then add a 'staff member' on Discord to resolve the issue?
Because Discord will not, nor ever would, do this. Ever.
Failure to validate the legality of an account within a specific time frame (12 hrs) might lead to account suspension, limited or ban.
This is a scare tactic. Paired with #1, 'add this staff member or your account will be terminated in 14 hours!' If you were reported by someone (for real) and you scammed someone (for real) you wouldn't be given a count down to talk to someone.
They'd look at the evidence, and you'd be banned. End of story.
Furthermore, we are working with some officials on this matter so that we can record all processes taken legally and are not violating "Title 18 of the U.S Code, Section 798 (Disclosure of Classified Information)" By that, we can also perform legal actions if said user is found guilty of chargers.
Again, this is a scare tactic that a lot of scammers use with their victims. "Follow these rules and do what I say or you will go behind the bars."
Please get in touch with the person you unintentionally reported as soon as possible so they may file an appeal and save their account from being seriously compromised
Discord would. never. do. this.
I say banging my fists on my desk.
If you report someone I'm also pretty sure it blocks that user for you and sends discord a report. Discord would never say 'hey you know that person you reported for <thing>? Yeah contact them and tell them to contact us. Okay? :) '
In a realistic world, this would never happen. But alas scammers will do everything to try and make money or steal from you.
Part 3: The actual scam
Upon reading this message and talking with the person who 'reported you,' they will tell you to add another user (as mentioned above) who is a member of Discord staff.
Remember:
This is not a real Discord staff member. This is also a scammer.
When you contact this 'staff member', they will use markdown tools to make their text look 'legit', and will talk you through a 'validation process' to validate you are who you are.
Here is an example of one of these fake discord staff members asking someone to send them money to complete this 'verification' process:
Keen in mind this 'staff member' may even be the same scammer who contacted you to begin with, or possibly even a friend or associate, or it may be someone different. Either way they're obviously working together.
These fake support scammers will have a profile on discord that claims they’re a discord support team member, and will usually have some sort of 'badge/image' of certification they show you right off the bat to try and prove that they are 'totally legit (no fake)' and in even ballsier cases, they will straight up steal the LinkedIn links, twitter urls, names, images, you name it, of actual Discord staff members.
An example of one of these fake images:
The scammer will ask for basic information like your age, date of birth, and other questions seemingly related to your account identity.
Then- the finale of the scam:
They will tell you that in order to secure your account, you will need to 'temporarily change' the email associated with your account to the email account they send you so that they can 'screen/verify' your account. You will even be asked to give them a verification code to complete the 'verification'.
WARNING: Changing your discord email that YOU registered with to any other email will link it to the scammers email and THEY will gain complete control over it.
The code sent to you is to verify that you want to change your email, and once you give it to them? It's game over and you've completely lost your account.
Now they have your account and will use it to scam your friends and those in your servers on top of using your credit card to buy nitro for them and/or their friends.
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But don't lose hope!
If this happens to you, and you get an email from discord saying that your appeal was denied, it's probably because they are now using AI/Bots, and your account wasn't reviewed by a person.
Here is what people suggest you say/do when you contact Discord Support (via their website) if you are tricked by this scam:
Fill out the form as: Title: Got Scammed Description: Is there any way I could talk to a human? They didn't send anything for mine but the original guy got an automated response. It just turned into “awaiting response” then I sent: “My Discord account's email was changed. The login page says that my email does not exist. I cannot login.”
They also suggested:
You could try just directly saying “My Discord account's email was changed. The login page says that my email does not exist. I cannot login." as the description in your ticket it could prove the same results.
Also:
REMINDER: Don't send multiple tickets. Don't keep asking for updates unless it says “awaiting response”, this will push you to the back of the queue. If its marked as "solved" try replying to reopen the request if not, create a new ticket. “However, if you received a reply that our team is unable to provide additional information or support for your account then we cannot assist further. To continue using Discord, you will need to create a new account.” One of the replies I got. Just create a new ticket.
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Final Thoughts:
If something seems fishy, trust your gut. Never click any links sent to you by strangers, even if it's with the promise of 'free nitro', free items in video games, free anything, really. If it's too good to be true, it's probably not real.
I hope this helps those who need it, and make sure that if you use discord to let others know about this scam too so they can avoid it. :)
Here's a post on some tips and tricks on spotting scam blogs.
Helpful guides on how to spot scams. (by @kyra45)
Current list of documented scammers: Part 3
Please god, I almost fell for this on Steam (they used a very convincing GUI mockup to try and fool me.) Annoying as hell. Edit: Oh god I looked, it was even the same stupid codeblock shit because these losers can't write normally. Hot damn. I wonder if I still have the screens from the Steam version of this scam somewhere lmfao.