*!!! NEW: “Sets” Scam Fools Everyone!! *

 

 

What if I told you that I could convince you to send $50 in Bitcoin to someone you don’t even know?  Then, in a few minutes, they would send you back $70 in Bitcoin. 

And what if I told you that I could convince you to send $100 or even $500 or $2,000 to someone you have never heard of?  But don’t worry, they will send it right back, along with a little extra. 

If you make a game out of it and do it every day, then you have what I call the “Click Set” scam.

I love exposing scams.  I love saving people from getting scammed.  I have given seminars on how to expose and avoid being scammed.  Here is a link to basic things that show something is a scam.  https://identifyscams.com/red-flags/

But recently, I’ve come across a very interesting scam.  You see, the point of getting emails, phone calls, or messages (text, WhatsApp, or Telegram) is to throw out a “hook”. You know, like fishing.  When you respond to a “hook”, then the “Scammer” on the other end knows that you are “hooked”.  The allegory of fishing is appropriate here.  Especially with this scam.

This scam is so good that even the people involved think that it is legitimate.  Now that’s a good scam!  Out of all the people that I’ve tried to convince of this, only one person even showed any sign of even considering the possibility that this is a scam.  

Here’s how it works: 

You get contacted, usually on WhatsApp, either by a “Recruiting Agency” (which gives legitimacy to the scam), or by someone directly on some messaging platform that wants to pick up the conversation on WhatsApp.

There will be some tale about the job description involving “promoting” some service or item in order to “boost” sales or ratings.  You will be given a “mentor” who will guide you through the steps that you need to perform.  The one thing I’ve seen that all of these sites have in common is that you have to “click” through “sets”.  That is why I am naming this the “Set Clicking Scam”.

We all know that items and services on the internet get stars or ratings.  That’s how we judge items before we purchase. 

So each of these “Set Clicking” scams hires you to click through a set of items that their “platform” has chosen for you to promote.  Each mentor tells the new recruits that companies pay to have items clicked on to increase ratings, “pay-per-clicks”, or visibility.

The catch is that you have to go through 2 sets of 40 per day (the numbers change depending on the company “platform”, a.k.a. scam website).  But each item you click on will take money out of your account until you click on it.  After you click on it, the money taken out of your account will be put back, along with a small, or possibly large, commission payment.  The amount of commission you get depends on how much money you transfer into your account on the platform. 

After you finish your sets for the day, you can withdraw your money from the platform and put it back in your Bitcoin (or other crypto currency) wallet. 

But you have to finish your “Sets” in order to be able to withdraw your money.  If you don’t complete your set, they keep your money. 

On one site (the one I used to discover how this scam worked), items came up that were more than 4 times the amount of money I had deposited into my account.  At that point, I had to get more Bitcoin and deposit more money into the platform to unlock my “set”.  And I had to do that 2 times.  Suddenly, I realized that I had just send a bunch of Bitcoin to someone and had no idea who they were! 

Other sites will have some kind of different hook that randomly comes up in a “Click Set”.  A “Movie Review and Promotion” site calls it a “Superior Film”.  Whatever they call it, there is something that will come up to make the money in your account go negative.  In order to continue, you have to make another deposit to cover the deficit.  With this tactic, people are suckered into adding more money to their account – often, more than they planned on putting into the portal.  And so when the money is returned, their confidence in the portal increases.  (In our fishing allegory, this would be equivalent to “letting out more line and letting the fish run”.)

People get hooked by the commissions and “salary”.  It just looks like you are playing a video game.  You have to go on every day and do your “Click Sets” to get paid.  I found that people trusted the platform because they were able to withdraw the money every day.  But this just leads people to feel that they can safely put more money into the platform the next day.  And little by little, the amount of money that people put into the site increases.  It’s like a fish that is hooked, and the fisherman just keeps letting out a little more line to let the fish run.

Can you imagine how many “lines” the scamming website has out at any one time?  At any point, they can close up shop and not pay back the money that people have put in to the “platform”.  The scammers just have to decide when the amount of money that they have from all of the participants is sufficient to cash in.  Or they can be selective and only cut off the high rollers (the mentors usually organize people into groups). 

The first website that I connected with has changed its web address 2 times.  My “mentor” told me it was for “security purposes”.  Isn’t that the truth!  They go away and don’t want anyone to find them.

Luckily, the site I checked out gave me a $200 bonus after 2 days.  I was promised a $500 bonus after my 5th day, but I figured out the scam on my 4th day.  So, I was able to get out with my money. 

Promoting items does not work the way these scammers say.  There is no “Set Clicking” that uses your money and returns it within seconds in order to “promote” items. 

Here is a list of various clues, or questions that each person should ask themselves, to show that this is a scam.

This scam is becoming very popular.

  • I have been contacted by 9 different people/recruiting agencies for “jobs” that all have the same description. It’s almost the same script: very vague, “promote <something>”, but ALWAYS, there are “Click Sets”.

 The websites are not “standard”. 

  • These websites use a technology that prevents any type of Google search being able to index them. It’s like the website is a bunch of “pictures” instead of marked up text.  To demonstrate, try to select and copy an important section of wording somewhere on the website.  You can’t because it’s a picture.  All of these “Click Set” scams use the same template for their “portal” website.  Minor visual changes in each site and different themes, but the same overall structure as to how they work.

If the “job” is to promote things, why are these sites only open certain hours?

  • Why do you think that there is so much human interaction on this site? Wouldn’t this work better if it was all automated?

Why does the “portal” need to use your real money?

  • One of my mentors said that we were helping promote these products using the “PPC” method: “Pay Per Click”. But that is not how PPC works – you don’t have to buy the item in order to click on it!

When you send money to the portal, when you withdraw money from the portal, and when you have to “reset” after finishing a “Click Set”, you must interact with a human.  Why do you think that is?

  • On one transaction, a deposit to my portal account, I received a few more dollars than what I put in. Bad at math or a typo, there is a human doing all of this “accounting”. 

Why is this “job” only using WhatsApp or Telegram? 

  • The communications are encrypted and easy to hide behind. Burner accounts allow scammers to hide.

On WhatsApp, why are people put into little “groups” of 13-15 people?

  • My theory is that behind the scenes, a group of people can be burned all at once. Better to keep the communications groups small.

What is the endgame?

  • I have 2 theories on how the scammers are going to (or are currently) cashing in with this scam:
  • First, the scammers could decide one day, based on how much [of your] money they have, to JUST NOT RETURN ANY OF THE MONEY!
  • Second, the scammers could simply not return the money for small groups of people. This would allow the scam to continue to grow while providing financing for the “commissions” that need to be paid to new “workers”.
  • THINK ABOUT THIS: Some people are putting in hundreds and even thousands of dollars each day!  People have been “tricked” into feeling comfortable because they “put their money in” each day and “take their money out” each day, and get a commission.  So, they continue to build trust and feel that their money is safe.  I have heard over and over from people in the WhatsApp groups, that they have been doing this for a “long time”.  But as that trust grows, and the number of participants grow, so does the “prize” of the amount of money that people “put in” every day.  It makes for a wonderful prize to decide to walk away with one day. 

How can you identify a scam?

  • Here is a list of clues and red flags that I outlined from my “How to Avoid Being Scammed”. ( https://identifyscams.com/red-flags/ )
  • And here is a link to the entire Seminar.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljtZuD_-PsY&t=183s )
  • You can see from the “Red Flag” list that these “jobs” hit several of the red flags: WhatsApp, Bitcoin (crypto), Asking to lie, money apps, too good to be true, unsolicited contact, feels dirty or nefarious, Incorrect domain name, unverifiable contact information, inconsistency in story details.

 

Hopefully this helps some people.  I will try to update this page with links to videos that I have recorded.  But editing will take some time.