Bitcoin Forum

Scammers and hackers are now threat to the world of cryptocurrencies, they are increasing in number daily, but what really surprised me is that many people will not still know about this but will still be scammed. Scammers and hackers are getting successful because many people lack knowledge of a particular aspect they invested on.

For example, someone joined a group on telegram for a legit airdrop (although most airdrops are not also legit), he posted ''hi'' and asked a question like "how can I collect the free airdrop" in the group, from their one of the scam members of a legit airdrop just messaged him posing like one of the bosses of the aridrop campaign answering him all the questions but just introduced him to an unknown business like mining telling him 24 hours return, he invested and got scammed.

I read on new yesterday about scam ways invogue and rising:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-scams-reach-new-heights-in-2020-with-24m-stolen-so-far
Whale Alert’s study, which relies on data from the crypto scam tracking site, Scam Alert, suggests that the popularity of dozens of different types of scams have been on the rise. Some of these include giveaways, sextortion, fake exchanges, fake ICO’s, Bitcoin recovery, video scams, fake tumblers, and malware.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5261948.msg54787438#msg54787438
I even read on this forum about someone complaining about an upgrade of electrum wallet that stole over $3 bitcoin from him, he mistakenly downloaded a fake upgrade for scammers, all his bitcoin gone at one time.


https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-scams-reach-new-heights-in-2020-with-24m-stolen-so-far
Even according to cointelegraph, the link above, I could not believe El one Musk can be scammed. Celebrity impersonation scams dominate
Whale Alert made case studies of a number of well known incidents. One of the most popular — in which scammers impersonated Elon Musk — made over $130,000 in a single day.


We should be careful, any slight mistake could ensue total loss of cryptocurrencies.
We need to be careful, read new all the time, know about scammers and any scam tricks but I am still surprised, since I have known about scammers five years back there is nothing new, their could be something new but I have not found one, in 2015, scammer and hack wallets like they did now. For example:

1. Through Fake ICO
2. Careless use of devices wallets are installed
3. Normal phishing attack, especially through email
4. Fake cloud mining
5. Airdrops
6. Fake wallets and exchanges. And many more like that.

I have known all these since three years ago and nothing new about it, but still people getting scammed, let us always tell our people, friends, family and people around us about these scam so that one day, they will avoid such too, the scam may not be new to you but what about people around you.

I want to let us understand that we should not take anything for granted and always be careful of scammers, let us always deal with our wallet devices carefully, install in new wallet updates from the official sites.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5262214.0
This is one of the latest posted scam tricks I have seen on this forum, the member is a newbie claiming to selling verified paxful account, this will definitely be a scam.

Please, I want to ask  question
1. How can we fully avoid scam in such a way not only us we not be affected but people around us too?
2. What can we do to let people in the whole world know about scam and avoid?

Securing yourself is one of the concerns people have with cryptocurrencies, you cannot avoid scam for people around you, you can't even be sure of what people around you are doing at every time that exposes them to scams, be it participating in fake giveaways, registering on websites that ask for their private keys etc. What you can do though is to tell people the ways they can get scammed and hope they follow through with the learning on their own, but securing them by your own actions is not possible.
I'd tell them about btt, it has helped me to avoid scams.

Coyster has already answered you. By telling people you know about scam is excellent and can help them but about wishing to help people in this world to avoid being scammed is not possible. This world is so big and there are different types of people with different religion, ethnicity and the way of living and thinking, this also reflect the ways we live and linked to now individual can be scammed. Also with ignorance and lack of knowledge you even mentioned, some people are easily scammed, many people do not know the latest trends about scam, some people are not even bothered, which can not make the world to be free of scammers and hakers.

You can do your part, tell the people you know about scammers and tell them to avoid them, but how many people will you tell, you can tell the whole world, this is not possible, even if you are capable of telling the whole world, some will ignore and still be victim of scammers.

Not only you, it helped me too avoid scammers. I started crypto few months back but I have been attacked many times by scammers, this forum really helped me. I was just thinking if there is not forum like this, many members here that have not been scammed before would have been scammed.

I've also noticed a rise in fake/unfair casinos lately. Apparently it's very easy to set up a casino site with the scripts in existence.

But lately I've been seeing many new dice sites use bad provably fair systems and try to attract new users with crazy and unrealistic rolling competitions etc...
And many of these casinos look polished too! They for sure hired designers and programmers to work on backend and front end so their casinos looked the best. It's easy to uncover such scams, but they can still cause a lot of confusion and trick victims into parting themselves from their funds unfairly. That's why how established a platform is is also important when playing online.

1. Experience and common sense, at least.

2. As much as possible, try to spread awareness. That's the only thing we can do since people have different thinking. Sometimes, even an experienced one and knows the risk still falling on the trap. Their reason? Taking chances.

If you care for others, especially at people around you, don't stop educating them about these scams. That scheme won't stop but at least it will minimize.

This will be very common in ICO and Airdrop project offers. I know someone that his wallet device was infected and another that fall into pump and dump projects and still taking the risk. But for me, I have made up my mind not to be involved in such, greediness at times leads to scam even for experienced people.

You have also made good suggestions that can be adhered to.

Question 1: Ans: is by not over looking post you probably know it's a scam post, you voice out ( alert) the next party not to endoged in. I think your question two is the same to question one.

1. Education is the key here, you just have to think logically, are people like Elon Musk going to give you free money or bitcoin?

2. We have  Scam Accusations (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0) board. You can go visit it and see that there are a lot of members exposing this kind of scams. So if you found one you can open a thread there. And this community is also very active in reporting those scam sites as well. That is the best thing that we can do to help newbies not to fall for this scammers.

If ever you found a scam site you can always create a thread in scam accusation board. If you found a fake app in google playstore then you should report it or share it to inform other people that they should avoid it at all cost. It's not only those platforms that I mentioned, also casinos are scamming. Your list will prove that we should be very vigilant in keeping our security very tight.

Hackers and fraudsters are not threats to cryptocurrencies, but only to those who are naive to believe that it is possible to get rich overnight and that such things are true only because someone wrote a fictional life story that he sent x coins to some address and got xx coins back.
 

It’s actually easy to avoid scam, you just need to turn on your brain and think about each of your actions before you actually put something into action. The first and basic thing is not to trust anyone blindly, which means that everything must be checked, even several times if necessary. Another thing to always pay attention to is that if something is too good to be true, then it is certainly a lie. Various groups on Telegram, Facebook and the like are the bases from which scammers operate, and I guess the old warning not to talk to strangers is still valid, especially if it is about money and confidential things.

I would blame parenting for everything, but also the school system, which should introduce at least the basics of safe use of the Internet. When people are left to fend for themselves, then they often learn in a harder and more expensive way, and scammers profit precisely because of it.

I think you can write some descriptions for links you posted. Descriptions help readers fastly imagine what links are written for.

That one (I get it in OP): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5261948.msg54787438#msg54787438 can be posted like this Upgrade stole of my bitcoin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5261948.msg54787438#msg54787438).

Some good this posting way can help: save more space, and the aforementioned reason.

1.  Be knowledgeable about the method used in scams  and don't be greedy.  Scammers often triggers people's greed.  No matter how knowledgeable a person is or not once greed take over rationality is lost.
2.  That is too much of a task,  Why just mind people around you, educate them on how to avoid scams and advise them to remind/teach those people around them too.  By the network of friends, we can at least spread awareness about these scams and how to avoid it.  Social Media can play a huge part in this too.

- Instill in yourself that good people are just fairy tales.
- Look for bad reviews (if any) before looking for good reviews.
- Scammers and hackers will always benefit us with promises and silly offers, so don't refer at it all, act suspiciously to new/random people and always verify.
- Involve third parties who do not know each other but at least have been known by many people to confirm or mediate.

These is the most common scam, strangers are supposed to be treated like strangers, I couldn't believe some people can trust a stranger they only just meet few days to few weeks ago. This is a very good suggestion, like me, I do not deal with strangers because strangers can be scammers.

The complete mindset of scammers is to scam people, they will do their best to fulfill their goal no matter how hard you try and secure your private keys it is absolutely they will find a hole on it.

What is happening now twitter accounts hacking (https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-hacking-musk-obama-apple-biden-kanye/) is purely an evil act. These people never think about it and how hackers will intend to use their accounts. That is why we don't ignore placing our social media accounts security and not used by illegalities. Their account/s fall into the hands of scammers that would likely to use in scamming and any related fraudulent activities.

when we have started to be vigilant and covered the holes inside which will be used by scammers, we are able to overcome scammers with a variety of methods used to seize our social media accounts or private keys that we have. We should know some new methods used by scammers and do not give up to continue to secure everything. Scammers also have limits where they will not be able to enter easily when we provide multiple security and are not careless in everything.

I have also experienced various types of methods used by scammers to trick me through telegrams, emails, phishing links, malware, ransomware and many others. Never give up because scammers, they also have limits.

Scammers will always be there, so it is up to the user how he will avoid being screwed by them. Do not be tempted by too-good-to-be-true offers. And you should be careful in entering your personal details to online sites. Check the legitimacy of the sites that you are visiting because a lot of them are just phishing sites.

Yes, there are many scammers here so being cautious is the first thing to do. Just do not fall for any traps like good offers bonuses, and even KYC might be risky at all.

In my case, I had stop any form of investment for now (except for btc and eth). I had my work already and focus on it as a breadwinner in the family. But I am not closing also the doors to invest on cryptocurrency like bitcoin and ethereum. These too coins are relatively good to hold over a period of time. I am just waiting for the right time.

Greed, vanity, unwillingness to learn/research/question. They are the reasons why scam persists to this day.

We cannot 100% avoid scam, but with a little cooperation, we may make that percentage less than 1%, thus increasing the difficulty for these scammers.

In the past, Scam ICO campaigns used to spend a lot of money to persuade investors about a good investment opportunity, and after a lot of time and gain confidence, they start scamming.

Currently, some kids are building a site that does not cost them $ 10 with scam forms like ( send me coins, you will them twice) and scam a lot of people.

If the way of thinking (it is a way to get rich quickly and free money) about cryptocurrencies does not change, the scam will continue.

I have noticed many people lack knowledge, if they know about what they are investing in, most seem too fake to be real but still they are scammed, ignorance at times could cause it. That is why I did not regret I joined this forum, it has really helped me to not be ignorant and avoid scam.

It depend on what they invested in. If they were in shitcoins then probably shit happen and no gains. This because most of the tokens are created to scam if not most of it failed for the same reason. They are good at first especially in the promotion but once they done the team change their way on how they handle bounty hunters and even investors. So, do not trust your money to them instead go bitcoin or ether and hold it for a period of time. See how much you can get or probably chances you can have losses. But this is investment so one must know how  to earn on it.

That's true and greed plays a big factor in the world of scammers. They used it as an opportunity and advantage to delude people who possess an excessive desire to earn money easily. Hence, people must remember that not every opportunity is real and needs to be taken, then most of them are just fooling you around. It may seem alluring, but you can't easily say it's a lucrative investment, except if you have properly examined the information about the investment. You can help people to be heedful by giving some ideas about various scam tricks.

That's true, there are so many scammers in this crypto world, they have many ways to scam people, they actually target those beginners or the newbies because they know that they are not so familiar about the nature of scamming people. They may try to email you from Gmail, or they may also private message you from telegram, always remember that telegram is one of the common platforms of the scammers.

What Charles-Tim is saying here is true for me also. The little knowledge I have gained here have helped me to understand certain things about cryptocurrency and this knowledge help me from avoiding scammers whenever they present mouth watering offers. If not, scammers would have finished me.

These scammers tricks are unending. You block one way, they explore another. It's only best we expose any discovered trick. Be watchful guys.

You are absolutely correct about this, they bring up new idea about scams trick, recently on uniswap, a new token is required to lock liquidity, because lots of token that refused to lock liquidity rugged, but their new tricks is to lock liquidity and dump team tokens and later claimed to be hacked

When tempted by a tempting offer from a scammer, that's a good start for a scammer to influence that person.
Many are finally fooled by the lucrative bonus offer method. Even scammers are currently making offers like Buy 1 Get 2, which are scattered with advertisements on YouTube and elsewhere.
Scammers target ordinary people who don't understand about the world of crypto, then influence them to make investments by promising a double bonus.

Not just how to produce it. in investment must also take into account the risks that will occur. Every investment made will risk the money you invest.
Making more from investment is everyone's hope. But the loss experienced is a faux pas. Don't be too greedy for a result to be obtained.

To avoid scam: We definitely should read a lot of rumors here in this forum regarding those scams that was reported. We should not fall for other people's bait just to scam people and get our money instantly. It is really hard to trust people nowadays and even those most used platforms are being used a tool to scam more people. Our safety should've start with ourselves.

To other people: We should make a review about our experience towards those scams if we are victimized by it so that other people who will read it will have a prior knowledge towards scams. Also sharing some knowledge in this forum will help so that we will become more careful about who and what platform are being used by those scammers. just like Twitter.

We should always promote safety of our accounts and verifying people so that we will know if someone is legit and real.