Bitcoin Forum

http://cointelegraph.com/news/beware-4-typical-bitcoin-scams-in-mining-investment-wallets-exchange

Has anyone had this happen to them?

I once tried a scam "investment" site for fun, knowing that they are not going to last long and operate like a Ponzi scheme. Daily interest was about 3.6%. I figured out, using the "rule of 72", that if the site survived for more than 20 days I will have my ROI.

I was luck to join early and the site did survived for more than 20 days, and I withdrew everything. So I doubled the little investment of 0.01BTC to about 0.02+BTC. About a month later, the site closed down and many investors lost their BTC.

In short, almost all BTC investment at the moment are scams- please correct me by letting me know if there is any valid investment site....

Here is what that article is saying
1. Bitcoin investment program
2. Bitcoin mining scams
3. Bitcoin wallet scams
4. Bitcoin exchage scams

#1 & #2 is for ponzis and yes it obvious we should never fall into tha trap. #4 we should always remember that those paypal, skrill, payza are reversible and #3 always go with the one with good reviews, never try a new one and act like a crash test dummy.

like in the article says most of the investment and mining are scam, even some of the faucet is a scam

bitcoin exchanger is also one of the scam scheme made by scammer, the amount lost due to the scammer in exchanger is very high

overall, be careful in every situation, dont click any unknown link, bitcoin is a favourite target for scammer

No, but it was informational to say the least. Good thread, marked for future reference ;D.

it's true most of them are scam and many people has victims from mining sites and investment sites and i think these article are good for references

For the investment schemes, most of them are ponzi ones. They just collect your coins and never give you back.
I have heard Papyal is reversible, but  never heard Payza is also reversible ?

this is a good article for the beginners and help section for our new friends to watch out for.

i don't see anything new here, it has always been like this. scammers trying to use bitcoin anonymity to their advantage and steal people's money by calling it investment.

i prefer to invest in some good altcoin, than those blatant ponzi, some alt can be a really good investment like it was for ethereum or decred, recently

there is basically a 99% guarantee, with some of them, to make big money

Most of us are attracted to options promising us higher profits on our investments than what we are getting currently in our country of origin. Most people believe these opportunities are legitimate and

not some sort of HYIP or Ponzi Scheme. If you do some research, you will eventually see.... interest rates on most investments are way below these rates offered by these services and it is highly

unlikely that it is legal. So the old saying goes... If it looks to good to be true.. it probably is. Go to http://www.badbitcoin.org/ to see most of the scams out there currently.  >:(

wish more of this stuff was out in the beginning.

I definitely wasted many coins on Butterfly labs and other various
scams like cloud mining.... buying hash for no roi.

Good article that would mostly put newbies in trap, mainly numbers 1,2 and 3 and number 4 could have more of a general scam effect which happened to me in the past due to a good exchange fees, I went in and tried to exchange small amount that I never got converted back and sent to the other payment option I wanted and it's not just that, some turn out to be scams after some times (which many already knew this).

Good of you to summarise as I rarely ever click links on here that direct to another site for obvious reasons. You've pretty much covered everything. Some scams are going to be difficult to avoid but people must be so vigilant with bitcoin. Being overly paranoid is sometimes the best way to be.

That's a really amazing outcome, 7788bitcoin, I'm most surprised that they let you withdraw. Actually, your method could be applied to any kind of trading (set % target limit, follow strict plan @ target %). Nice!

I haven't been into Bitcoin that long but I could tell right off the bat that these options were all scams. If it seems too good to be true it probably is. If you own a high risk mutual fund that's earned an average of 7.5% Y.O.Y. return why would someone offer to double an investment in a few days/weeks?

No. You'd have to be pretty fucking dim to fall for any of those. They are all automatically scams unless they prove otherwise and even then you can never be sure.

Most people that fall for stuff like that or similar to the mentioned on the article are desperate newbies trying to get some BTC quick, fast and cheap, a fatal combination. Anyone thath as been here for a while knows when something is a scam. I mean yo don't even need to click the link, just by reading the url and seeing how it's presented, you see it's a joke.

Frauds ans scams are not reserved only for Bitcoin, that can happen with any other currency, so you just have to be careful like with any other thing

Basically stating if you do not get involved in these aspects you should be alright to a extent.
The whole Ponzi thing puzzles me but I may be biased because I would get more enjoyment out of making the money on my own than risking it hoping I do not get scammed.

If you just take a look at the investment board you will notice that most/all of them ended/will end by scamming their users, it happened me to the past once, and I quitted from investment/cloud mining.

If it sounds too good to be true, i.e. 3% interest per day, it is ALWAYS a scam.

Many investors would give their left nut to get a reliable 3% PER YEAR let alone 3% daily.

i have this rule for myself that i say whenever something looks too good to be true, it means that it is trying to scam by using our greedy nature. so i stay away. especially if they have trouble explaining and providing proof about their business that generates that much profit.

Pretty much all investment programs are scams, except ones that are highly vouched by highly trusted people, or those that can obviously pay for the interest they pay you, like gambling sites.

But I do see these 4 as biggest pros of bitcoin ecosystem.
1. Miming: We can choose lot of legit mining pools. But never go for Cloud mining.
2. Investment : Bitcoin itself an investment. Do not be too greedy.
3. Wallets : Lots of Desktop/mobile wallets available. Never trust online wallets.
4. Exchange : Never keep excess money in your exchange. Deposit, trade then withdraw always.

If we give room, then we can get scammed. It's our responsibility to be aware and stay secured.

As per your comment "Even Coinbase/Xapo which has good reputation can run away with customer's bitcoin anytime they want.", its not going to happen. Why .. only because hey already good income by providing the services of online wallet and even best online wallet and they cant be greedy to scam and stop the business.

You did the right things. All the four mentioned services are based on people's greediness to get scam them. But I do not think these are typical for bitcoin, it is common to every other environments also.

All u need to do is to use your brain. If the offer s too good to be acceptable and the provider cannot explain how do they deliver it, pass on it. Dont let the greed control you. That s all.

I would not count too much on that, if I were you... many people on this forum though the same about MtGox and lost a lot of money in the process. These sites usually follow the same exit route,

when things turns sour. They blame some sort of unknown hacker that supposedly hacked into their site and stole millions of dollars worth of bitcoins. I do not trust ANY third party { exchange or

wallet provider } with any of my stash.  ::)

Yes, I got scam twice or so by cloud mining scams. Fortunately, it is just a small amount of Bitcoin. Never invest in any cloud mining since then. I'd rather lose money on gambling sites than feed the scammers with my money, TBH.

I had lost a lot in investment sites like Minutebtc but now I can know trusty and scam sites depending on some informations , that came with experience .

We need to get out of the mindset that Bitcoin is a source of revenue, and think of it as a payment system. Use it to buy goods or services, and if you do decide to invest, then do it in a viable service, not some vapourware site.

I've seen all these scams appear on these forums over the past years. Just think twice and you will be fine  :)

People seem to lose common sense when it comes to computers. If someone on the street would tell you to give him $100 and he'll give you $200 tomorrow, of course you don't believe him. Why do people want to believe it so badly when it's online?

nice to share this,we sould more carefull to choose wallet,exchange and bitcoin investement,but one that make me surprise is there writed that wallet also have potential to be scam,this is make me scary,but i dont think i will lost my trust to coinbase or blockchain.

That's the one that concerned me the most too, since theoretically it should have minimal risk (wallet customers aren't usually expecting anything unrealistic, unlike "investors"). The "scare factor" is a real bummer for any Bitcoin startup trying to get a legit wallet going.

3% interest per day!!! Is this a real claim? Does anyone realize the yearly interest would equal a 4,848,272% return or a nearly 50,000x return!!!

Starting with just 1 Bitcoin ($415.82) you would wind up with 48,482.72 Bitcoins (or $20,160,086.51) in just 1 year.

No one will be ready to give you free money. If you get attracted to some ponzi schemes then definitely you will end up in scammed all of your investments. It is completely our own responsibility to avoid this type of investments.

Yeah greed is usually the accelerant but the naive and desperate are usually the fuel for such schemes which is really not ok.

Thankfully I have not yet fallen for any of these scams. Most of these can be avoided except for the exchange scams, you never know which might claim one day that they were hacked.

Aren't some insured?

Never heard of insurance. however, we should take per cations for scams site related to bitcoins

The truth is, every ponzi/hyip programs work like that way. They initially pay to the investors, just to build reputation. but when the big investments start flowing in, they stopped paying. Ponzi is the worst form of gambling available in the market.

However, you should try p2p lending platform like btcjam. I am using this website to fund loan for others and getting a stable monthly returns. Here the risk of loosing money is very less. Every other programs I have tested turned out to be a scam.

Thanks for the pointer on p2p lending and btcjam, avikz. What kind of return is reasonable to expect? Have a good weekend.

Okay, I'm not gonna lie!  I've been scammed a few times in the beginning.  My problem was that I really believed that bitcoin was this "miracle currency" where all these ideas were possible.  I wanted to believe this stuff because the technology was just so dang innovative in my mind.  It takes awhile being involved in the community to be able to recognize what is real and what is not.  It's still quite weird, in my mind, that a bunch of imaginary ones and zeros can be traded for real money!  So, these scams aren't that obvious to some until they've been scammed a few times.

Yes , not only they initially pay to the investors, just to build reputation, but when the big investments start flowing in, they stopped paying also they give you return for small investments and eat up the investment of people who invest in bigger amounts.

Looks like I'm not the only one here with that kind of experience :( Time heals, need to gain some experience I guess.

You should check out ethereumpyramid.com (http://ethereumpyramid.com/), it is a transparent ponzi scheme (smart contract) build on the ethereum blockchain.  You can send a payment in with either ETH or BTC.  I sent a few ETH to it a long time ago and got my payout.  I think it is pretty neat that you can have a smart contract ponzi scheme now a days.  It's a heck of a lot better than the scams that promise to "double your bitcoin, just send your bitcoin to 1scamxxxxx and you'll receive double back!"  I'm amazed at how many people fall for such obvious scams.

that's good to share this article,but it think its too late,so many already scammed by mining and other investemetn site,and i also one of so many victims. lets prevent bitcoin from scammer,and its will help us to grow bitcoin to better future.

You're welcome... this is mostly for those new to Bitcoin to learn from our "mistakes" ;)

I never get myself involved in stuff like that I know it's most likely a scam. People who didn't know need to be vigilante olabout these kind of scams and most times it's covered up with something else.