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Wherever there is a financial transaction, whether its involving fiat money or digital currencies, scammers are always out there fleecing the people. In a few years, Bitcoin’ meteoric rise has attracted all sorts of scammers or fraudsters and there have been many instances where the investors lose coins to their shady ventures. The regular users can fall prey to this easily, hence we are here to talk about the most common Bitcoin scams which you need to avoid. You must be cautious where the money is involved. By doing so, you can prevent from being prey to any of these traps or scams. There have been scams all across the world wherein Bitcoin scam in India also is noteworthy. You should be aware of the Bitcoin fraud news, which will give you a broad idea of the various scams happening worldwide.

Here’s a list of common Bitcoin scams:

1 Malware Downloads
The internet has been a blessing for all of us, but it has its small downside, too. You must not download or click on any unwanted Bitcoin spam emails or links, as it can expose you to malware, risk of thefts, Bitcoin blackmail emails or Bitcoin spam emails. For instances, people use Bitcoin as bait. They can entice the users by saying that you can download a program and start mining Bitcoin easily. You must always be suspicious of scams in this kind of cases, wherein unnatural simplicity is involved.

There are many unsafe illegitimate exchanges, which you must avoid and do a lot of research before trading or in any of the exchanges. You can ensure security in these ways:

• Use 2-factor authentication
• Try and use cold “offline” wallet. Having multiple cold wallets in a different place is considered a good idea.

2 Hardware Wallet Theft
A hardware wallet is a viable option for the users who are concerned with privacy and security features as it stores the private keys. You can stay offline, which can help you protect your funds from hackers. But there have been reports of some vulnerabilities which led to stealing of funds. Some of the crypto enthusiasts have reported that one of the scams can be selling pre-configured seed phase to the users, hidden under the scratch card. This will lead to draining of the funds by the hackers once a wallet is activated with funds. Hence you only must accept wallets from trusted sources, where you can go to their website, research and then take a step.

3 Exchange Scams
Most cryptocurrencies are traded, bought and sold at exchanges, which makes it easier for the investors but there ain’t any regulatory body overseeing the transactions in some of the countries. Most of the investors turn into penniless because of the scams run by some of the exchanges. Last December, as per Bitcoin news, several South Korean exchanges were exposed as they were running scams and the country has signed up for stiffer regulations post that.

One of the suspicion flags should be high when they are offering unrealistically schemes and price as these are the cheapest traps to lure the users or the investors. You must avoid visiting unsecured websites, which can prevent the investors from losing money.

4 Fake ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings)
Some companies use ICOs to raise capital and there has been a massive explosion of ICO opportunities which has raised the fraudulent activities even on a higher scale. The scammers can open fake websites which resemble like ICOs, asking to deposit funds into compromising wallets. For instance, Centra Tech was sued for providing with fake information about team members, investors, and products. Research deeply that involves taking a deep look at the reviews apart from the white paper. Report a Bitcoin scammer when you come across, so others are not prey of the same scam.

5 Cloud Mining Schemes
Mining is the only process left to acquire Bitcoin without exchanging or buying them and it has become a resource-intensive activity. But it takes massive energy and cost to mine Bitcoins. Nowadays the companies enable regular users to rent some server for some time. As the difficulty level increases, the returns tend to become smaller. Some of the companies take bold claims about their returns and not being clear about the diminishing returns and true cost. Ponzi schemes which promise incredible return are scams, too wherein Bitcoin complaints are unanswered.

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Source: 5 Common Bitcoin scams you need to Spot & Avoid | Bitcoin Fraud News 2019 (https://coinswitch.co/news/5-common-bitcoin-scams-you-need-to-spot-and-avoid-bitcoin-fraud-news-2019)

I also want to add up; the recent giveaways in some social medias, especially in twitter which you can see some impostor twitter account or just fake twitter account which replying to some big crypto celebrity tweets. Not only in twitter and also in some huge crypto related facebook pages.
The more bullish the market is, the more they are active.

Bitcoin doublers, there is no such kind of thing that exists in the crypto market but still, people fall for it.

Deposit bonus scams, normally you can find these schemes on unknown gambling sites where you have deposit required amount to receive the rewards.

Youtube live giveaways, Youtube channels with high subscriber count go live with reputed coin-related name and also many people will comment that hurray! I just received my rewards. :D

In addition to the list.

You can also avoid fake telegram bots that promise you earn bitcoin thru registering and investing. This is widely been spreading and lots say they profit maybe at first but dont trust scheme like this. It is similar to the number 5 where you need to put up 0.01btc and wait for sometime to harvest your weekly earning. Some bots trick are let you buy a modifies bot that works for you and taught as miner bot. Be wary of these kind.

I would like to add to the list the fake casinos because they are becoming popular in the community and a lot of people are getting scammed this way. I already open a thread about this kind of scam, and this scheme makes the use thinks he just won a big amount on the casino, and to make a withdrawal they ask for a deposit. So, be careful guys.

This is bad advice.

Yes, there are plenty of shady, scam, illegitimate, etc., exchanges. Yes, people should avoid them. But 2FA and using cold wallets does absolutely zero to protect you from them. Any exchange, service, or website can institute 2FA with minimal effort. All that does is prevent other people from accessing your account. It does nothing to protect you from the exchange exit scamming, shutting down your account, or stealing your coins. Similarly, using a cold wallet is good advice, but to trade on a centralized exchange you must send your coins from your own wallet to theirs. It doesn't matter whatsoever where your coins have come from - once you have deposited them to an exchange, the exchange has complete control over them, can choose to keep them, and there is nothing you can do about it.

A hardware wallet is good for security. It does absolutely nothing for privacy. If you want to be private when using bitcoin, then you need to utilize coin mixing techniques and care address control.

You're most likely lose your money even with "legit" ICO's, because ICOs these days are just HYIPS - everyone knows that they are scams, people just think that they can outspeculate the market. Only newbies think that they can find a good ICO, because they think that if they read about common signs of a scam like fake team members, then it's enough to spot scams. My advice to everyone, regardless of their experience, is to stay away from ICO and other offerings, it's simply not worth the risk. In the long run all these tokens go to zero, as history shows.

There have been a lot of scammers that are currently circulating on the internet. Specially in the cryptocurrency markets. It is the best for us to always review and have doubts to every person or companies that we may be encounter while thinking and making move to make some money. You do not want to lose money so, always be careful. Scam exchange platforms are the worst for me.

This is a nice article. But, you did not talk about the phishing attack. They are very common means or ways of scamming people. Another common one is social media. Another one is dust attack. You can find this link helpful.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5232577.msg54021683#msg54021683