Scam Grubhub Email Promises Tenfold Crypto Returns—Here’s What Actually Happened

Another day, another too-good-to-be-true crypto pitch lands in inboxes—this time disguised as a Grubhub promotion.

The Hook: Promising Ten Times Your Money

The fraudulent email dangled the classic carrot: turn a small investment into ten times its value. It's the oldest trick in the book, repackaged for the digital asset age. No specifics, no white paper—just a vague promise of explosive returns that should set off alarm bells for any seasoned investor.

Why These Scams Keep Working

They prey on urgency and FOMO. The message implied limited-time access to a "groundbreaking" opportunity, leveraging a trusted brand name to bypass initial skepticism. It's a reminder that in crypto, if an offer seems to bypass all market logic, it probably is.

The Real Takeaway for Investors

Legitimate projects build communities, publish code, and withstand scrutiny. They don't arrive via unsolicited email promising guaranteed, tenfold returns. This Grubhub incident is just the latest example of bad actors trying to cash in on crypto's mainstream momentum—a cynical but predictable move in the finance world's eternal chase for the next greater fool.

Stay sharp. Do your own research. And maybe just order the pad thai.

Fake GrubHub promotional email promises users return on crypto

The scam is a fake crypto reward campaign being carried out by scammers, where they lure their victims to send funds to wallets under the control of the scammer, promising to send back a larger amount. This type of scam has been seen over the past few years since crypto became mainstream. For instance, scammers take to the comment section of popular figures to promise users more than two-fold returns when they send digital assets to a specified wallet.

With the messaging address appearing to take the shape of an original GrubHub email, some users have speculated that the scam messages might be due to a DNS takeover attack. This WOULD allow the attacker to send emails that pass authenticity checks, although the company has yet to provide any in-depth details about the incident. In a statement, a company spokesperson mentioned that it is an isolated problem and they are working to prevent a future occurrence.

“We’re aware of unauthorized messages that appear to have been sent by Grubhub to some of our merchant partners. We immediately investigated, contained the issue, and are taking steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” Grubhub said. At the beginning of the year, the company announced that a hacker had been able to access a directory that contained names, email addresses, and phone numbers belonging to its customers, merchants, and drivers.

FBI issues warnings over increased crime during holidays

The company noted at the time that the intrusion was caused by an account used by a third-party to provide support services to GrubHub. Meanwhile, this incident is one of the few that the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned users about a few weeks ago. The federal agency mentioned that scammers would be looking for victims looking to take advantage of the holiday, in turn robbing them of their funds or digital assets. For instance, users looking for holiday discounts may fall into the trap of these bad actors.

In addition, the FBI mentioned that other scams include non-delivery scams, where users pay for an item, and they do not receive it, non-payment scams, where users ship goods before payment, and many others. The agency mentioned that users lost more than $785 million to non-payment and non-delivery scams in 2024, adding that credit card fraud accounted for another $199 million in losses to scammers.

The FBI says it receives large amounts of complaints in the early months of each year, suggesting that several users had been scammed by bad actors during the festive and holiday period. In view of this, the agency has urged users to refrain from clicking on any links, noting that scammers use phishing links to access people’s personal information. In some other cases, phishing links are used to trick users into using their crypto login on fake websites, which leads to theft.

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