Snowfall Protocol scam
I’ve been scammed out of US$100 thanks to unsuccessfully punting on the Snowfall Protocol crypto pre-release.
It was just a punt and I’m not really worried about the money, but the scam itself is disturbing.
I will correct this article if I’m proved wrong in the next few days, but as things currently stand, Snowfall (SNW) is definitely a scam.
I forget how I found them, but unluckily I stumbled across their website and started doing some basic research.
That involved reading their website, searching on Google and checking “news” stories. Admittedly I should have done a lot more research, including a deep dive into the crappy whitepaper.
Their premise is attractive: “At Snowfall we believe in a multi-chain future and want to simplify the process for communication between blockchains. Our aim is to remove technical barriers and allow every user the same ability to engage within their favourite projects.”
I sent them $100 to purchase 500 tokens at 20 cents each. The appeal of the pre-release was a bonus doubling of the initial buy, giving me 1000 overall. Snowfall Protocol was tipped to launch on the market at 22 cents.
An easy $120 upfront, right?
Wrong. Last I checked, Snowfall Protocol was trading at $0.0005230.
Okay, I’m red-faced and out of pocket, but I suspect more than 5000 others are much worse off.
The sophistication of the scam includes:
- Professional-looking and functional websites
- Individuals named as being associated with the project (probably made up or stolen identities)
- Twitter accounts offering “support” that are much older than the project itself and unrelated, probably created for a previous scam.
Crypto has its place in the modern economy but it’s like the wild west right now and there needs to be greater regulation.
The other point I want to make is that Google aids and abets criminal activity by allowing fake news to run rife.
A Google News search for Snowfall Protocol brings up dozens of so-called “news” stories from disreputable, dodgy-looking sites that appear designed to hype shitcoins.
The article shown here has a disclaimer that it’s sponsored content, which should be a red flag if anyone notices that.
Google should not allow sponsored content to show up in its news search results.
I don’t have a problem with media statements and aggregators appearing in Google News; people can make up their own minds about an article if they know the source.
What’s happened with Snowfall Protocol is they obviously bought placements with dodgy crypto news sites and Google has promoted these with high rankings in its news search.
It creates an impression there’s a buzz around the project, which is not the reality.
Google needs to develop a system that prohibits scammers from using its platform to manipulate others, deceive and steal.
The lessons to be learnt from this include:
- If it looks too good to be true, it isn’t;
- Don’t trust Google;
- Do thorough due diligence on every investment, no matter how small.
Thank you, Michael Gorey for your post!
I attempted my (SNW) protocol research from all sponsored Google “News” ads and fell for the ICO.
Yeah, a White paper that didn’t give Developers Team members names should have been the first clue and am seeing many other Red Flags a little late.
FLAG 🚩 #2: Cannot claim tokens from main website. https://snowfallprotocol.io/
Still wanting to believe:
FLAG 🚩 #3: I Found https:// snowfallprotocol.io/claim/ on google search. I attempted to claim SNW tokens via different Wallet connections and Wallet Receive addresses were different than what should have been mine. Hopefully with all my due diligence I haven’t exposed all my credentials online???
Flag 🚩 #4: LOL, I received “Billy’s email for the final Offer for additional (SNW) tokens @.20cents. Ugh, Why would I at that price when I got in at stage 2 for $0.0025?
I’ve spent numerous hours following up and have learned you cannot do enough “(DYOR)”.
-Do Not Trust Google sponsored FAKE NEWS
-Scam? Hope I’m Wrong!!
Similar to my own story, sorry for your experience. Except I never tried to connect a wallet. It’s annoying they scammed some personal details from us by registering for their fake site.
Thank you for the story. Quite true. Too bad we can’t all come together and find out who these sons of b!t€he$ are and try and give them a little payback. Have a great rest of your year.
Someone I know got scammed over 20k from these guys. It’s probably closer to 40,000 but she’s not gonna tell me because I told her not to do it.
That’s terrible, sorry to hear it. There really needs to be an enforcement effort by regulatory agencies to prosecute these scammers.
Man it sucks. I was hoping to get in on the ground floor for a coin like I missed for Bitcoin. I ended up spending $200 doing the same cursory research as described in this article. I definitely agree in this day there is no way Google shouldn’t be able to use some mechanism (AI) to stop this kind of scam.
For a new starter and think u have invested on an IPO and thinking with excitement to see results. Unfortunately I lost $500 on this… feeling so demoralized on this scam.
I JUST DISCOVERED THIS POSTING TODAY(03/24/24). I purchased their coins on an ICO offering via my e-mail. $649.89, token balance 14,273. Very convincing. But after the launch, I tried to transfer my coins w/the address provided on the ICO website to my binance.us wallet unsuccessfully. I knew I was scammed when I could no longer access this website. What I don’t understand why this is being traded or appearing to be traded on coinbrain.com.