Bitcoin Forum

I was in a bus with a friend of mine and he was telling how he lost some bitcoin trading it with some people he found on social media platform(instagram to be precise) and just like this guy many people are being defrauded by this type of people

https://i.imgur.com/oGhQrm5.jpg
This type of criminals claims to trading in various sectors from selling and buying of bitcoin to also trading Giftcards and iTunes card many of them don't even give there customers an avenue to involve an escrow.

There adverts can be gotten every where showing altered or stolen transcation they claimed to have completed in the past just to entice prospective victims
https://i.imgur.com/qzVEVmC.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/tFaLoqx.jpg

And even the few once that are sincere still try to get a huge chunk from the percentage they collect from trading with anyone.
Your chances of falling into the wrong hands as a newbie when trading in bitcoin is high so it better to do things in a more transparent way but just to let you know there is no completely safe way.
I would advice to sell or buy your bitcoin from exchanges. There are good exchanges out there do your research and ask questions where necessary then select an exchange register(oblige kyc if asked) keep your details and information safe then this would become yours and you can trade your bitcoin at fast rate and lower transcation fees most of this self acclaimed buyers and sellers of bitcoin do have there exchanges where they trade your bitcoin and then charge you for it.

I believe your friends might be lost their bitcoins with the scammer in social media and lost funds on trading site. It is usual for every people when they have a thought to invest and make money out of it.
I use to invest on bitcoin as well few of the top altcoins which i believe it can grow well in the marketplace.
Your friends might not be used the clever while they are involved in trading.

We are living in 2019 where so many scams have already happened till now.
If someone gets scammed he is dumb. They still realize that they can make easy money for bitcoin, a thing that it is not possible in every sector.

Many people want to make money without doing anything and most time fall victim of scamers and fraudulent people. Yesterday I received messages on Telegram from anonymous person that was asking to help him withdraw bitcoin from a sites as he has used up his withdrawal limit for the day and I should keep 0.30btc for myself after that is done. I told him  that "I am not interested and directly tell him that I understand life and Cryptocurrency more than himself" and a friend of mind try to test them and open account with the sites and the guy transferred the same amount to a fake wallet which and at the end they were asking my friends to make deposits of 0.025btc before he can make withdrawal from the site. The aim of sharing this story is to help us to be careful online as many scamers are out there to steal your coins by enticing your with fake opportunities.

Tell your friend to use escrow when he trades.

Just don't trust other people with your money.

And don't trust completely a stranger.

Instagram is terrible. Do people even monitor that or do they just pass any ads?? I am sure you have seen that one android game that actually uses nintendo pokemon as part of their game. It is pokemon and everything just at the end it has a nother name. This passes into their system so they clearly don't care about anything but money.

A friendly reminder that would help any trader: Tips for local transactions (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137272.0)

Of course, it is a local transaction but it's still helpful to get the idea before doing any risky trades. If your friend did follow the protocol of trading safely he might have some Bitcoin today to trade. Sadly, he was carelessly fell in the trap of a scammer.

These days, there are alot of scammers around especially on the internet who would promise you  what they don't have. The target of most scammers are mostly novice who have little knowledge on the tricks scammers use. We all need to careful with the people we put our trust in especially when it comes to transactions involving strangers.

sorry for the loss but once you sent the coins from your wallet there is nothing you can do to stop it. seems like there is nothing we can do now as the scammer already got his money but you can be careful on these type of matters which involves money. this is internet and you can not trust anyone in it all you can do is share your knowledge and learn something new from it every day.

Yeah, even if they offer good services that is still a suspicious help coming from the unknown person. If you don't want to lose your money then put it on a good wallet like hard wallet, but if you do believe on any advertisement like this then expect to lose your bitcoin and money which is very common nowadays.

I would recommend to use escrow service when dealing with strangers.

Otherwise I handle BTC like my valuables.

Don't lose your btc and remember - don't participate in ICOs anymore. Maybe IEOs re ok. I lost a lot after my investment in Bitclave.

Not only with Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies, dealing with things that offers unrealistic return or just simply too good to be true are a clear sign of a scam.

Transacting money online is alright for as long as you know what you are doing and at least you are using a platform that can mediate your trade with other people but if you are transacting straight from the people who offers these kinds of things then you are all on your own.

I don't think it works thru social platform aside from here (bitcointalk.org), scammers are really big on social medias especially on Facebook and Twitter but I didn't know that they also exist on Instagram, now we have another reason to be more secured.

Its ok to trade as long as you have the assurance but if you don't know the person you're dealing with then you must be careful, luckily your friend deals only for a small amount, learn from this mistake and don't trade again to anyone easily.

I am also concerned about your friends, scams often occur in online transactions. Moreover, I saw from the screenshots you gave, the transactions in the Nigerian currency where this country is the most fraudulent country in the world. https://www.wonderslist.com/countries-highest-number-scammers/

I hope you can advise your friends, to transact on trusted platforms such as binance, coinbase, etc. Because scammers are now very clever in fooling their victims.

Newbies should remember that they shouldn't entrust their hard earned money to anyone.

Whether they say they are an expert in trading or what, an expert will never ask your money unless they want you to avail their product that you can use. It's not them that will trade for you.

It's your obligation to be more careful when dealing with your assets, always remember that it's your hard earned money that involves here, trusting strangers are not applicable, always remember the very basic as bitcoin is non reversable if you lose it then there's no way that you can recover it back.

Not unless the wallet that you send it will be very generous to send it back, logically needs to get use to it keep your investment safe as always.

you think exchanges don't scam their users? they do. and there are no "good" exchanges out there. there are only worse exchanges and bad exchanges that we choose bad ones because we have no other choice. otherwise they are not trusted either.
of course it is not as bad as finding random shady dudes on the internet but you shouldn't also be blind to their risks.

It baffles me when I hear or read news like this. I'm quite sure most of the times newbies get introduced to the blockchain or cryptocurrency through someone who is quite strong and understand how things work here. So how do they become preys to people like this? Why not reach out to the person who brought you into the system or do your own research. Yes, I know sometimes when we do our own researches we still need some clarifications so JUST ASK QUESTIONS!!!. If you do not trust anyone or a particular exchange to trade, look out for the ones popularly known or used that used an escrow system and avoid being victims of cases like this.
Well, we always learn from our mistakes.

I think your friend lost bitcoins with people claiming they are an account manager and can managed to grow the bitcoins but the truth is they will just stole your bitcoins and this is rampant on social media especially on Facebook. Your friend has learned his lesson not to trust anyone, he can learn it on his own.

Yes, as just like what I've said and suggested.

It's impossible that there are scammers that generous enough to return the amount that they have stolen unless they are forced to do by the gov't.

Yeah there's a lot of scamming method to SCAM someone to steal their bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. so we have to be careful when surfing the internet and always maintain our private key properly if it can be put on a flashdisk because if on a PC it will be very vulnerable because hackers can see the contents of our PC

it turns out that in various social media including Instagram there are people who try to make money by cheating, and in my opinion for the security of money  we need to be careful for anyone to make transactions whether individuals or companies like exchangers, there is no place 100% safe to make transactions, but we must be smart and carefull to choose who we make transactions, guarantees in conducting transactions are also needed because this is one of the risks of holding a cryptocurrency. 

The fact that these and similar schemes are all operating in broad daylight in almost all social media platforms means that there are still many who can fall victims with their enticements and promises of greater rewards...the appeal to our basic desire to gain more is very effective for unsuspecting victims. Well, I had been a victim too so I paid my dues and was baptized with fire, so to speak. The thing is that there are thousands who are entering the world of cryptocurrency and related fields every day and they can be the targeted market by many scammers and hackers just pretending to be angels of light when in fact they are bringing destruction. Newbies should not be trusting anyone online because people we meet here are actually strangers and anonymous and they are usually promising the whole heavens and the stars just for us to be the prey for their traps.

Imagine those with the same modus posted here on the forum are doubted as scam. What more with social media and not trusted sites? I guess your friend is still a newbie without knowing where to buy or sell. As a friends, you should teach him the right thing after telling that. We cant help those new bloods experementing in their crypto journey. Lead them if possible.

His friends lacks the knowledge and therefore jump into trading whilst not learning about the partnership he is engaging in. This is common, since Bitcoin now is known for being one of the reason people get instant profits overnight. People that have slow minds still wants to use some apps leading them to be defrauded, they should just stop than to lose their money.

Don't buy and sell your coins from the exchange if you aren't aware of the particular platform. Don't invest your coins on a single platform so that you will not face any lose. If you are believing in any social media advertisement then investigate about it and send your coins. So that you won't be scammed by anyone.