Beware scam emails claiming to offer free Bitcoin through donation scheme

Scammers are trying to lure victims through email into sending them cryptocurrency under the guise of an “Elon Musk mutual aid fund”.

The scam email campaign invites recipients to claim free Bitcoin by clicking a link or attachment that directs the recipient to a website claiming they’ve been invited to join a club or program that offers free Bitcoin.

The specifics of the website differ depending on which permutation of the scam a recipient gets in their inbox, but many sites refer to the Elon Musk “mutual assistance fund” or “mutual aid fund”.

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However these emails and websites are simply an entrance to what is called a “Bitcoin donate scam”. These are scams that claim a person can request dozens or even hundreds of people donate cryptocurrency (Bitcoin) to them, and in return the person only needs to donate cryptocurrency to a much smaller number of people, thus leaving the person with a sizeable profit.

See the webpage below that email recipients are directed to in the latest batch of scams.

The site claims a visitor can request 0.01BTC donations from 25-100 people. After this, they will then be asked to donate 0.01BTC (at the time of writing around $45/£32) to a single randomly generating person, at which point the donations made towards them will be transferred to the visitor’s Bitcoin wallet.

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Anyone familiar with pyramid schemes will understand that such a “system” would be unsustainable, and result in most people losing money. But such concerns are rendered moot because it’s all fake. No one is donating Bitcoin to the visitor. It’s all a trick to lure the visitor into donating to a “random person” which is actually a Bitcoin wallet belonging to the scammers. That makes this scam much more akin to advance fee fraud, where victims are [falsely] promised a large reward, but first they need to pay a much smaller fee first.

Once the visitor pays the donation, it is then they find out that it’s all a scam and nothing will actually be donated to them.

The Bitcoin wallets associated with these scams have received many thousands of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin, highlighting that many are really falling for these scams.

Whether it’s through email, advertisements or on social media – messages that you can get free cryptocurrency are almost certainly going to be fake. And don’t be fooled by claims that they’re endorsed or created by well-known celebrities. Elon Musk has nothing to do with the Bitcoin donate programs.