It has just been over a month that popular live streamer Shroud left Twitch’s affiliation and moved on to Mixer. A New Twitch Scam Scheme Rising Targeting Shroud And Other Popular Streamers’ Viewers where viewers are coming across an impersonating channel that is appearing on the top section of Twitch’s CS: GO. It streams a very old video-on-demand that hordes a banner that reads viewers are eligible to win up to $10,000 in their giveaway bonanza. This unprecedented trick is not appearing on Shroud but other streamers like Anomaly and S1mple are also victims to it.
The scheme starts with registering an account by the names that are close to that of these personalities like ‘Anomalyuzp’ or ‘Shroudleo’. The scammers then copy the credentials regarding their profile page and avatar.
The old VOD is being taken from real streamers. The giveaway works by commanding viewers to check the description box and a false website is created within the chat. The channels to which the viewers are being redirected to are brimming is bots claiming that they have received the prize in the giveaway. The scams are projected to the reselling of skins for the renowned FPS game.
A user, Oleksandr “S1mple” Kostyliev was recently banned last month from Twitch for the second time in a row in three months based on using a Russian slur. The ban did not make any sense whatsoever and he took the matter to Twitter and posted his concerns regarding the same. It is everyone’s ethical responsibility to speak up for their community and went on to say that he is severing any ties with the platform.
Jared “Anomaly” Simmons also expressed his anger against Twitch on Twitter asking everyone to ban them for making illegal use of his username and VOD that is ripping people off their money. It is not at all legal or ethical to make new accounts by the same name right after the original was banned.
Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, professional Mixer streamer did not know initially that his profile name was also part of their scamming strategies until one of his viewers pointed out the matter. He was furious to know that some fraud with the pretense is selling skins and surprisingly, they also have a lot of viewers to up to as much as 5,000.
After the news broke, he decided that it is not his mess and it would be unethical if a viewer follows the imposter thinking he is the real Shroud. Scams are quite common in the cyber world and it takes more than one mistake to realize what is wrong.
One of Shroud’s fans also expressed his concerns over the situation on Twitter. He said that not only was the $10,000 giveaway a scam but the messages were also pushed through spamming by bots and that the entire site was a fake.
The past few days discovered approximately two Anomaly and 3 Shroud accounts that were fake. One Shroud streamer had more than 4,000 viewers with the average viewer count of the Anomalies being 5,000.
Twitch has still not released any statement officially on the issue.
