A member here recently lost his wallet after a fake support account on Discord asked him to share his screen. His recovery phrase showed for a second, and that was enough.
I work in support at Gem Wallet, so this one hits close to home. The tricks keep changing. It’s not just “send me your seed phrase” anymore. Now it’s screen shares, fake help forms, and “support” accounts that message you first right after you ask a question in public. Our own rule is simple: real support won’t DM you first and will never ask for your recovery phrase or a screen share.
What tricks have you seen recently? And if you help newcomers, how do you teach them to spot fake support?
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That screen share detail is the scary bit, mate — it only takes a second for a recovery phrase to flash up and then it is game over. I reckon the simplest rule for newcomers is exactly what you said: if support DMs you first, assume it is dodgy and do not engage. Cheers for flagging how quickly these tricks are moving on from just asking for the phrase outright.
I’d say, having something like “official” or “dev” in the username (despite having no “official” role whatsoever) is also a huge red flag. cough
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Good point. Names like “official,” “support,” “admin” or “dev” cost nothing to fake, and neither do profile pictures or logos. The safest habit is to look up a project’s support channels yourself, from its official website, instead of trusting whoever reaches out first.
I wonder why we use discord at all for these matters? It’s just such a horrible interface and way of communicating tbh. Personally I’ve given up on trying to get support in these channels.. whenever I’ve tried to get help with some midnight claim related thing this is what happens: First, simply joining the midnight discord through the invite link on midnight.network usually lands me in three or so different “official support” channels, then I’m told to ‘open a ticket’ which lands me another 3 direct messages all asking me to go to some suspicious url and give my seedphrase or similar, like wtf? And this is all from joining the discord through the official website o.O
I actually find that simply asking one of the artificial thinking machines is the most reliable way to get help these days..
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Thanks for sharing this, it’s a perfect example. Joining through the official link doesn’t protect you, because scammers watch new members join and message them within seconds. One thing that helps: turn off direct messages from server members in Discord’s privacy settings. Real support tickets open as a private channel inside the server, not as a message from a stranger. AI tools can help explain things, but double-check anything about your funds against the project’s official docs.