Everyone has seen it before. Someone got scammed, lost their cryptocurrency and they are in tears. While cryptocurrency has many great things going for it it also opens up a window for scammers to run scams anonymously.
Most people think they are great at preventing scams, but the truth is far from it. Scammers scam for a reason, they always find victims. By reading this short guide you can protect yourself from a whole lot of trouble.
1. Prevention is the best protection.
2. The deposit scam.
3. Cloudmining scam.
4. Trading scam.
5. Referral scam.
6. Telegram scam.
7. Hot gril scam.
1. Prevention is the best protection.
The most common way people get scammed is by leaking details or reusing passwords. When a site gets hacked and you use repeated passwords you run into the chance that hackers will try using your passwords on other services. There are various services out there on the internet that let you check your email address for free for leaks. When your email is on the list you should change all your passwords immediately. Now I hear you think, that is a lot of work. Use a password manager like Lastpass. This app can remember all your passwords securely, generate them for you and help keep them safe by providing backups. You can lock the app with a master password. That would be the only password you would have to remember. It is also a great way to store seeds if you don't have money for a hardware ledger.
Don't share your phone number online. People can sim swap your card and gain access to services that require an SMS verification. When you can choose between SMS authentification or 2FA you should always pick 2FA.
2. The deposit scam.
Suddenly you get a sob story in your email, texts or chat program. A woman found her husband dead, and now she is going through his computer to find out what happened. She found out that he bookmarked a website called an "exchange" and that he has a lot of bitcoin on that website. Quickly googling learned her that she was sitting on a fortune. Only one problem, she doesnt know how to get the Bitcoin from the website and sell it for fiat.
By draw of the luck, she messages you and desperately pleads you to help her. You are a great guy, and make an account on the site. She moves to the funds to your account and lets you withdraw. A pop up appears on your screen when you attempt to withdraw the Bitcoin. "Please deposit 0.1 BTC so we can verify that you are a real user". You deposit the BTC, and the site kicks you off and the woman ignores you. In that moment you can get scammed.
The woman never existed, and the desperate plea is send to hundreds of people hoping that some will bite the bait. The BTC never existed in the first place. All they wanted was your deposit.
Never respond to random messages and save yourself the trouble. These things are always a scam.
3. Cloudmining scam.
This new company got the best ASICS and lets you use them for a small fee. Guaranteed profits, at least 1% a day.
This is called a ponzi scheme, and the miners don't exist. (See the running trend here?) Ponzi schemes promise massive profits to investors. People deposit money, and interest is paid from future investors. This can't continue forever, so when there are no new investors the scheme fails and the site goes offline. These sites usually don't stay up for more than a few days so its not even worth risking it as new investor. Stay as far away as possible from these kinds of sites.
4. Trading scam.
Same idea as the cloudmining scam, but this time they promise that they have an awesome bot that always calls the right trades.
5. Referral scam.
A website promises you 0.1 BTC just for signing up new people. You register, get your referral link, invite ten folks and get the BTC.
What actually happens: You invite 10 members, and the site will prompt a survey that you need to complete before you can withdraw. They promise you that you can defintiely withdraw after completing the survey. The site earns a few pennies when you complete the survey. After you completed the survey, another one prompts, and another one, and another one. The people who you invite will get tricked the same way. Free advertising for the scam website and profit from the surveys people complete. This one is especially tricky because it requires no investment except time. This makes it easier for sites like these to find people to dupe.
6. Telegram scam.
Hello, I am trader MR. Tokenclaimer and I can help you earn thousands of BTC. Just send the deposit to me and I pay you 10% on your deposit each day. These kinds of messages are posted on a lot of Telegram groups. They fake payment proofs, Telegram chats, and Whatsapp chats to look completely legit. They also add tons of bots to their groups to appear more popular. The investment you give them will be used for marketing their channels, and not to help you make money. After a deposit you get banned from the group and the trader will ignore you.
7. Hot gril scam.
Some random girl will message you and show affection to you. They will chat you up and will ask a lot of questions.
They try to get you interested in talking back. Most people drop their suspicion when the girl wont beg for cryptocurrency. Instead, she seems genuinely interested! What she is actually doing is trying to get your guard down so she can fish for your phone number and security questions. This can be used to swap your sim card or log into accounts on popular exchanges. With enough information, they can get past the security of your accounts and withdraw the money to never be seen again.
These are the best tips to stay safe while using cryptocurrency.
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