Give and Take: An End-To-End Investigation of Giveaway Scams

Scams — fraudulent narratives designed to extract money or items of value from victims — have existed as long as recorded history. However, the Internet’s combination of low communication cost, global reach, and functional anonymity has allowed scam volumes to reach their historic zenith. Designing effective interventions against such activities requires first understanding the context in which they thrive: how scammers advertise to potential victims, the proceeds they can expect in response, and how they ultimately monetize their illicit activities. In this paper, we focus on such questions in the specific context of a giveaway scam, in which scammers offer to give away cryptocurrency to users who send them coins first (often promising to send them back double whatever they sent). In particular, our work aims to understand how such giveaway scams are advertised on both on textual social media (Twitter) and via video livestreams (YouTube and Twitch), the extent to which such efforts are effective in attracting victims, and the scope and nature of the payments received in such fraudulent transactions.