Hi all, please hear out this story: -
I'm completely new to freelancing. I just took it up as a side hustle to make some extra money. I have 2 years of working experience and I aim to impress my customers.
Within three days of making my profile, I got a message from a user that said this: - (Not sharing the actual screenshot yet because I still have no idea what happened and I do not want to reveal much about the customer)
"Hі! I wаnt to рurсhase уour gig but уоu havе рroblеm, tо stаrt my rеquеst рIeasе рrovide ur E_-_mаiI to me pIеasе."
My gut told me to be careful so I sent them the email that I had created for fiverr.com work reasons only.
I received an email which had a "Confirm the Transaction" button which lead to a link
Which redirected to something like this: -
The website looked legit, never asked much except mode of payment where I selected my debit card. After that, a chat window opened asking for a pin code which had been sent to my email. They also asked for my postal code, which I provided. They also had my phone number and were able to send OTPS to my primary email address.
An email came from my bank stating that an OTP has been obtained for transaction to a website I was in a hurry to get started with my client as I had read that clients were rare. So I skipped checking that link, which was a link where we could buy and sell CS:GO crates.
I had transactional limits set, which I removed just barely to let this transaction pass. The first transaction failed because of this.
Within seconds, 100 USD was deducted from my account, and the chat window kept insisting that it will be returned "in a few days". They kept asking for a screenshot of my bank emails. I didn't send them that.
I am still unaware of whether this is a scam or not and how a professional website such as this would allow a new user like me to just get fooled like this.
