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Schwartz has warned XRP holders about a fraudulent email campaign and website.
Scammers have launched a fraudulent Ripple website and an email phishing scam targeting XRP holders, per a tweet from Ripple CTO David Schwartz today.
Schwartz cautioned that a website claiming to belong to Ripple with the top-level domain (TLD) “.org .ph” is a scam website. In addition, the Ripple executive shared a screenshot of an email he identified as fraudulent, which is likely linked to the scam website, as is typical with phishing scams.
CAUTION: ripple . org . ph is a scam site.
This is a scam email: pic.twitter.com/ZrORJ0ldPN— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) December 10, 2022
The email, at first glance, to any unsuspecting recipient appears to be from leading crypto exchange Binance promoting an XRP staking program on behalf of Ripple. Notably, the fraudulent mail promises 16 to 31% returns for locking up XRP for a fixed period.
“The XRP Staking Platform – a time-based staking algorithm with incentive premium and high ROI, from 16% to 31%, with a secured fund of over 5 Billion XRP,” the scammers write, explaining the scam program. “This improved staking offensive is entirely user-focused, with autonomous controls and balancing procedures for individual bonus distribution amongst users and without XRP address collision.”
As explained by Schwartz in a second tweet, the mail is not from or connected to Binance in any way. However, the scammers use the Binance name and brand to get attention and legitimacy.
Likely, Ripple is already in contact with domain registries and web hosting services working to shut down the website, per a tweet from Schwartz indicating steps Ripple took in situations like this. Notably, at press time, The Crypto Basic is yet to find reports of a user losing money to the scam.
Crypto holders and investors must be careful during the holidays as scams increase per data from Australia’s scam watch. Most recently, The Crypto Basic gave a deep dive into some scams and explained how these scammers use the images of influential figures to lure in unsuspecting victims.