QR Scams

QR Scams are a common type of scam on Discord. They involve a malicious actor abusing Discord’s QR code login functionality, having the victim scan the bad actor’s QR code, giving the bad actor access to the victim’s account.

These scams convince victims to scan the QR code by having it as “verification” for a fake server. Victims are contacted by compromised accounts (usually friends or someone they have recently messaged) with a message containing an invite and a reason to join. The most common types of messages are:

• Offering free NSFW content
• Threatening to “expose” the victim
• Offering free discord nitro or games

After joining the server, a verification button is presented which when clicked (don’t click it) looks something like this:

These servers usually impersonate large, well-known verification bots such as Wick and Captcha.bot. Always make sure these bots are verified, and do not scan QR codes given to you by bots.

Remember, the best way to avoid these scams is to ignore the message in the first place. You can’t scan the QR if you never joined the server.