If you are contacted by someone claiming to be an NFT collector who asks you to use the Soulcrafts.io NFT platform to purchase your NFTs: beware! Actually, don’t even be wary, just do not respond to their request, it will save you from losing money!
Everything will go well until the moment you want to recover your money (when you wish to transfer your money from your Soulcrafts account to your online wallet). At that time, Soulcrafts.io will ask you to pay a commission (quite a significant one). Soulcrafts will keep your commission but will never give you your money back.
Soulcrafts.io: What is this scam?
Soulcrafts.io is a purported platform for creating/selling NFTs. The site is quite well-made and might give the impression of being a serious business. NFT sales are conducted in ETH, a well-known and standard cryptocurrency in the NFT world. The customer service is responsive. In short, the site seems very legitimate.
Did I personally get scammed by Soulcrafts?
Yes, of course, that’s why I am writing this article. I will explain everything in detail.
A so-called collector wanted to buy NFTs from me (photos in this case). He contacted me via Instagram. We exchanged a few messages to agree on the deal, and then he sent me the 4 images he wanted to buy as NFTs.
This alleged buyer then asked me to go through the « Soulcrafts.io » platform which I did not know (I only knew OpenSea). Of course, it could have been a scam… or not…
If you are not familiar with the process, you should know that there is a « minting » fee to pay to convert an image/photo into an NFT. Since this represents a few hundred euros, to limit the risks, I suggested we start with 1 photo. He was okay with the principle.
So I uploaded my photo on Soulcrafts.io. I paid 0.18 ETH (about 320 €) for the « mint » (to convert the photo into an NFT). Once all this was done, I contacted the buyer. The guy buys the NFT for 3 ETH (about 5,000 €). The amount seemed huge but NFTs can be sold at any price. Moreover, the sum did indeed appear, a few minutes later, on my Soulcrafts account. I was still not sure if it was a legit operation or a scam.
The problem, of course, arose when it was time to recover my 3 ETH. That’s when Soulcrafts asked me to pay a commission of 0.6 ETH (about 1,062 euros, which is huge!). This was followed by a long discussion with customer service. Once again, the customer service was responsive and seemed serious. The explanations they gave me were thought-provoking but I liked the thrill of the game… or in other words, I was a poor fool who got excited at the prospect of easily winning a few thousand euros!
So I paid the requested 0.6 ETH. Yes, I know, it was stupid, but I paid to see… What did I see? Well, I first received a message that said the money would be transferred to me within 6 hours. Fine, I can wait 6 hours.
But, just a few minutes later, I received another message asking me to pay more money! WTF??? And this time, they were not asking for 0.6 but 0.8 ETH, which is almost 1,500 €… OMG!!! Well, at this point, I exchanged a few messages with the customer service to express my surprise at this new payment request! They just replied that « yes, in addition to the 0.6 ETH fees, there were also 0.8 ETH fees to be paid as well… ». I was surprised that we had exchanged messages at length about the 0.6 ETH fees and that at no time did they mention additional fees of 0.8 ETH to be paid as well. They just replied that if I didn’t pay the 0.8 ETH, my money would not be transferred.
Well, this time, obviously I will not pay. I’ve already lost too much money.
I will not see my lost 0.6 ETH (1,300 euros) again. It’s quite a bit of money. But maybe that’s the price to pay to become less foolish 😉
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