A Heads Up on Avoiding Scam in the Crypto Community

[Stuart]

Different Scamming activities that can be encountered online and on the crypto community. We should be aware that on daily basis new ideas and technologies are being crafted and brought forth to the market industry, for everyone to make use of. As it is/was created for public use, for good and mass use, so are their different people who will want to use these new ideas and technology to scam/take away funds and important data from people around the world of internet.
That being said, I would want to use this as a medium to give some heads up on how people can be scammed in the crypto community.

Investment Platforms:
It is said that every money that you save is your own, and for that money to yield more, you will need to invest it into something that will yield more at the end of the day. Because of this, scammers made use of it to affect those who got caught on the hook of scammers.

Fake ICOs:
At the time of ICOs, there were lots of project booming into the crypto community, and at that time these scammers used it as a means of scamming people by creating fake whitepapers, which is a needful tool for any project as at then, and even till now. That is why proper personal research is very crucial when it comes to investment.

Ponzi Schemes:
This one I call it to be Pay Peter and Rob Paul. This only favours the early birds, which is a means of luring more people into the net, because people who enter earlier got paid, and they shared testimonies of them receiving payment from the platform. It is a form of investment, where huge amount of returns is promised in a short period of time, which is not supposed to be true, but due to the blind chase after money, people still get caught up in it.

Pump and Dump Schemes:
These where and are still in use in most trading platforms, if you don’t join at the right time, you get left behind. And this method is used to kill projects, cause after the massive pump, only those who buy at lows and sell at its peak comes out with profit, while those who don’t sell, ends up having shit coins in their portfolios. Most of these Pump and Dump schemes used to be on Telegram, cause that is where I have come across them some years back.

Fake Trading Exchange/Platforms
Most platforms will look enticing and good looking, but because they have a self-motive purpose of stealing people’s funds and data, they make it look legitimate. Giving some rules that one needs to adhere to before withdrawing, which is never possible to withdraw after funding such accounts.

Website Phishing and Impersonation
Scammers create fake websites or emails that mimic legitimate platforms to steal user login credentials, private keys or person information, which can be used on the official site to siphon the funds in such related account.
Homographic Phishing Sites
This is one that got me wondering. This is a phishing site that looks almost like the original site, but with a little difference that is almost impossible to notice with a quick glance. I have come across such, from a friend's system, though, it was not related to anything finance to the little I know of as at that day, having the second and third view on the image below.

The above image shows an original domain name, and fake/scam domain names that looks similar, and without care and proper check, one falls into the trap set by these scammers.
I added this image as it caught me wondering.

Other forms of scam activities:
Opening an untrusted email links
Fake celebrity endorsement
Unsolicited Investment Offers
Giveaway Scams

There can be more that are not here, and can be added to give a general heads up to everyone and newbies in the community.

[Charles-Tim]

Other common scams:

X account hack to promote fake tokens
Too good to be true pay this amount and receive double
Telegram scam like impersonation after you join a group but there are others you can also explain
Too good to be true investment scam with very high return promise
Cloud mining scam
Fake wallet scam
Ads scam in which an ad take you to a scam site
Crypto recovery scam

[r_victory]

Great post for beginners and even for the most experienced!

Platforms, tokens, investments that offer a much higher profit than the market rate, the famous “it’s too good to be true” scam, is unfortunately what makes the most victims on the internet.

[bitterguy28]

funnily as i was replying to this thread, an unknown number texted me saying that i won winning tips from an online casino based here on my country it is telling me to reply to the message so i can be given a pattern and even gave a name on who is this person that sent me the message i immediately blocked and reported as spam i do not trust anything like this and most likely this is a scam so we should not fall for it

[Findingnemo]

It's impossible to list all the scam techniques used by the scammers to steal money from others but you covered the most common that is good enough for a newbie to avoid the scams on most cases.

I would like to add the fake wallets and revealing seeds or recovery keys with the hope someone deposit funds to move the tokens then the deposited funds will be swept away immediately.

[Sim_card]

Beware of trading signals because scammers can still use that to scam you. Since they know that a lot of people want to get rich quick through trading. These scammers will claim that they are professional traders and that you should give them funds to trade for you or that they give trading signals. A lot of scam tricks that is out there and more will still pop up as time goes on.

[Roseline492]

Is exactly pay Peter and  rob Paul because those scammers usually pay some people to confuse others that there business is legit and the next thing the new users are rob of there money. However you are right about crypto scammers targeting white paper because that's were people consider if the project was going to be a good potential, however fake trading exchange is the one that is not common because everybody has their exchanges were they usually use, so they think less of any other exchange since is very unfamiliar with them. So actually people should use all this information you shared to learn to avoid being scammed.

[joniboini]

However you are right about crypto scammers targeting white paper because that's were people consider if the project was going to be a good potential,

Considering ICO is no longer the trend since 3-4 years ago, how often do you see people publishing fake whitepapers to scam users? I honestly believe the number of phishing links spammed on social media is much higher than scam whitepapers. I doubt people still think whitepaper explanation is key for a project's success, too, considering the narratives shift to short-term pump and stuff like meme tokens.

[TomPluz]

Anyone looking for one of the best signs of people using their creative prowess to the max needs no look further than the cryptocurrency industry. We have many opportunities here but this has also become like a vacation spot for many scammers, hackers and all evil people in between with the intent to get rich by robbing other people and existing crypto-based platforms. Years ago, I was a victim of phishing when someone message me in Slack that there is something wrong with my wallet and I need to login to rectify the problem...and at that time I was still so naive so at the end I lost my coins and tokens. In the coming years, there will be newer forms and types of scams and hacks and unfortunately there will still be people that can be a part of the victim statistics.

[Z-crypt]

Beware of trading signals because scammers can still use that to scam you. Since they know that a lot of people want to get rich quick through trading. These scammers will claim that they are professional traders and that you should give them funds to trade for you or that they give trading signals. A lot of scam tricks that is out there and more will still pop up as time goes on.

Honestly, I still wonder why people still believe in those that charge fees for giving trading signals. I have this play out several times and those who pay are always on loss. But unfortunately, many people are not aware of this pattern of scammers.

[albon]

Crypto scams can be difficult to spot for beginners so everyone should do their research and understand how to spot cryptocurrency scams to avoid falling victim to a crypto scam. Moreover, there are currently many fake social media accounts where the names and profiles of famous people are attached. Accounts with such profiles are used to promote scam projects at different times, so it is important to check and avoid the right accounts. Many times we are contacted unexpectedly through our personal mail and some links are given from such mail where clicking on them can lead to scam. You may see unfamiliar crypto assets or other digital tokens in your wallet which is also a type of scam.

[Faisal2202]

This is helpful, and we all should spread it to the newbies so they can avoid getting scammed. I liked all of the points, and one way of scamming people is using a honeytrap, as I just read a news story where 11 Chinese scammers scammed more than 66,000 people and made 6 million dollars.

This is not the first time scammers have used honeytraps to scam people, so we all should know what they are. We can avoid them by not getting into discussions with unknown beautiful ladies on Twitter or Facebook, because at first they will talk to you like they care for you, they can make you money, etc., etc. I once talked with one girl (whose identity I'm not sure of), and she wanted me to invest some money. Well, for fun, I talked but never invested, as I have my mind; I can invest, I can trade, so why do I need her or him in the first place?

[Stuart]

Crypto scams can be difficult to spot for beginners so everyone should do their research and understand how to spot cryptocurrency scams to avoid falling victim to a crypto scam. Moreover, there are currently many fake social media accounts where the names and profiles of famous people are attached. Accounts with such profiles are used to promote scam projects at different times, so it is important to check and avoid the right accounts. Many times we are contacted unexpectedly through our personal mail and some links are given from such mail where clicking on them can lead to scam. You may see unfamiliar crypto assets or other digital tokens in your wallet which is also a type of scam.

That is correct, as it is used mostly to mislead those who are influenced by celebrities or big celebrity fan and end up having his/her money being looted before crying.  I will remain to say, if the unreasonable desire to become a millionaire or billionaire over night comes, the senses of thinking straight and right is lost, that is when someone starts looking for an investment that will give a life transformative return within minutes, hours or days, just as Charles-Tim said below;

Too good to be true pay this amount and receive double
Too good to be true investment scam with very high return promise

It is rear to see a celebrity chatting with anyone who is not in same place with them, and because people just feel that anything can happen, life can change in just a twinkle of an eye, that's how they end up losing the little they have, forgetting to ask, how did he know me, get my contact, why me? At this situation, these questions become unnecessary questions to ask, because a big celebrity is chatting with you.

[Roseline492]

However you are right about crypto scammers targeting white paper because that's were people consider if the project was going to be a good potential,

Considering ICO is no longer the trend since 3-4 years ago, how often do you see people publishing fake whitepapers to scam users? I honestly believe the number of phishing links spammed on social media is much higher than scam whitepapers. I doubt people still think whitepaper explanation is key for a project's success, too, considering the narratives shift to short-term pump and stuff like meme tokens.

You are right because is been long we last hear about ICO, however I was only referring the time when it was very serious that a lot of new project were doing it and people were being scammed because of what their white paper says but now nobody think about White paper because the scam that ones come from it has made people realize is not about anything that was written on the white paper because 80 percent of projects with good white paper either end up rug pull or they never get listed while people's money was on it.

[Z-tight]

There are a lot of things to watch out for in order to avoid scams, you must avoid phishing links, do not click on just any link that you find. If you receive a message from someone you do not know, then it is probably a scam, you should also store your funds in cold storage, so that even if your online device is compromised, you only lose a little amount of money.