Uphold Attacked by Email Scammers in Black Friday Sales

By Debarun Gupta

Black Friday sales are widespread across the world for their outrageous discounted prices on products, and enterprising scammers are always taking advantage of it. This year, scammers sent a spoof email from crypto exchange Uphold, offering Bitcoin at discounted prices.

From video games to home appliances, Black Friday sales fill shopping malls with thousands of people looking to cash in on it, and as such, nobody looks twice at a discount rate that would otherwise come under much speculation.

Cryptocurrency discounts on Black Friday were virtually unheard of before Black Friday scammers managed to conjure up a scheme for doing the same. Uphold has been a growing cryptocurrency exchange and in the evening of 21st November, customers of the exchange reportedly received emails seemingly coming from the company, offering a 15% discount on Bitcoin.

The Basic Attention Token (BAT) team noticed the discrepancy and immediately rolled out a warning on social media site Reddit, attaching screenshots of the spoof email.

It can be noted that unlike other conventional scam emails, this one manages to look very convincing with professional graphics and the correct use of grammar.

“We are receiving reports of a scam email posing as Uphold and offering a 15% discount on Bitcoin for Black Friday… I have confirmed with the Uphold team that this is indeed a scam,”a BAT team member wrote on Reddit.

Additionally, Uphold’s services have been under “temporary lockdown” for the security of their users. Other users and commenters on Reddit noted that Gmail and the rest of the email services aren’t flagging the spoof emails as spam, leaving users of the service vulnerable to phishing attacks.

According to Cryptovest’s report, people are being asked by the scammers to deposit their Bitcoin into a wallet and are being promised to be returned the full sum with an additional 15% as part of the Black Friday “deal.”

One promotional material reportedly promised the cash back rewards after the Black Friday sales end.

Uphold’s Twitter handle posted updates trying to clarify the confusion.

…Uphold HAS NOT BEEN HACKED. Uphold’s mail service account may have been compromised. We are investigating, and suspending BTC withdrawals until we have been able to communicate with all members that would have received phishing email…
-Uphold (@UpholdInc), November 21, 2018

According to the tweet, the scammers may have gained access to Uphold’s email service, explaining the convincing emails.