Bitcoin Forum

As we all know Black Friday is coming so I'm sure scammers are going to take advantage of it. domain spoofing, or too good to be true offers.

[1] check the website first, there could be signs like no SSL, no padlock, although scammers are also wise to avail of free SSL. So you need to be careful.

[2] Emails you got from so called discount stores, as this might contain phishing links

[3] Do not give enough information to a online website, criminals might take advantage of this and use social engineering attacks

[4] Do not use the same password for all of your email accounts, and used very strong passwords

Again, its better to have knowledge and education so that we won't fall for their scheme and be another victim in cryptosphere.

Many of us use the same password in each of our emails for the convenience of remembering.  Which is a kind of stupidity.  Many even keep their other account passwords the same as emails, which is even more stupid.  Everyone should be careful about this.  There is no point in using the same password everywhere to make it easier for scammers to do bad things.  A strong password protects your wallet or any site from all kinds of scammers.  So my advice would be to use at least one upper case letter and one lowercase letter in your password with different types of sign and numeric numbers.  This will make your password strong.

I can only be aware of a subject when I have a thorough knowledge of that subject.  We need to make sure we don't fall prey to them.  And for this we have to have full education in this regard. Because ignorant people have always suffered losses for ages.

Many of us also use same passwords that's on our emails for our wallets & even on our social media pages, please I beg you all to put just one password for each mails, wallets & social media accounts.
For most people who use only one password for the purpose of remembering, please change them, instead try to look for another way to remember your password e.g write the passwords of each of your mails, wallets & all social media accounts in your diary, so when u forget, you can easily go back to your diary to check for the forgotten password.
Please let's be wise.
It is manageable to loose one, but it is unbearable to loose all, be mindful of how you secure yourself from now to avoid scammers!

Good reminder, actually I have been receiving a lot of promotions and discounts this coming Black Friday. In any case if you are looking for a good deal, I would suggest to go for hardware wallets are Ledger and Trezor could be off by almost 30% or even more.

Again, it's everyone's responsibility to be play safe with our emails and where to buy stuff online.

Black friday deals are often from established companies. When it comes from shops especially the strange once, you've got to be extremely careful not to fall into a trap. The trap is using phishing because, I don't believe anyone responds to 'pay before delivery offers' these days, even from known companies. It's a practice of the past to me as there can be alterations of product quality, damages and worst of it all, it could be a scam.
The chances lies in the phishing through which, all could be lost in one attack. A typical having all your eggs in one basket kind of destruction is expected. Hence, when dealing with anything confidential or has the authority to authenticate transactions that could be detrimental to you, you've got to be mindful of the links you click and the platforms you expose to your details.
Too good offers could be the worst offers, if it scares you, stick to your regular stores.

I'd recommend everyone on this forum watch out for stuff that gets posted on this forum more than anything honestly. Wouldn't be the first time a massive number of people on this forum have gotten scammed from a black friday store opening.

Its just not like that scammers only take the advantage of black friday momentum but they are active throughout the year to steal your money. If anyone can't control the limit of greediness then nothing can stop him from getting scammed. Most important part is that on the eve of special events scammers get more active to attract people by spreading unrealistic offers and discounts but we have to make the final decision before getting any service.

Discounts and free offer doesn’t mean that any companies will bear all the costs from their own pocket anf if anyone is doing something like that then that will exist for few lucky people not for me atleast. 

I am trying not to get tempted by the offers because I don't want to spend my money right now. If I want to buy something, I still prefer to buy it at the offline store near my house.
That will be safe for me, and I can prevent the scam because I can directly use my fiat money and don't need to use credit or debit cards, crypto, or other digital payment.
But I know that the scammers will be at many places and trying to scam people to get their money.
If you want to try to buy via the online shop, make sure you can check the domain, check the offers, and make sure that you get the discount price from that store.
Please don't be naive to get more discount from the store because some store needs more customer requirements before getting more discount.

Depending on where we live, Black Friday may be the best time to buy, because discounts go up to 90%, so although it seems to be too good an offer to be true in some cases it can be quite legitimate. If you want to avoid fraud, buy from already verified stores with which you have good experience, and if you have any doubts and want to protect yourself, pay with PayPal and no one will be able to deceive you.

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This doesn't really mean anything, as you know SSL is available today for free and there should be no indication of whether a site is legitimate or not - but if the site doesn't have it at all and has online payment, then it's a sign that it is not a serious merchant or it is a simple scam.

Nice warning and remembering. I have forgotten about this. Yes, scammers always target such days as their turning day. I will thank op for remembering this because for a simple aware maybe we could save a lot. So be aware guys. aware don't ask you for money :)

* Also don't forget to take the advantage of black Friday. and don't forget to buy something you are looking for if you have any chance.

They will surely make a move during those times, also they will send promotional tactics for sure like discount and freebies, these people will use same old mistakes but sadly there are still people who never learn, and fall from the same mistake, extra cautious is okay to be safe, I hope we won't hear any scams or troubles keep safe guys

Scammers are always waiting for these days to launch their next scam. In order to scam, they use trending topics which people are a little more interested in. So it can be assumed in advance that the day of Black Friday can also be used by scammers to scam.

Thank you for your advance warning about this scam, and this will allow many crypto users to be cautious and eager to check before using any website.

Thanks for reminding us a few words about the scam. Scammers always finding a new technic and opportunities how they can cheat us. So, as always, we have to be more careful when we are going to dealing with money. Remember, our greedy behavior is responsible for most of the scams. So if you see a massive offer for you, then you have to be careful. Just need to use your common sense to save our valuable assets.

Scam methods do not depend on the theft of your money, but rather your delusion of a lot of useless offers or fake discounts. Therefore, you must keep track of the commodity prices for a sufficient period and read the discounts and warranty terms before purchasing them, especially those offers that include subscriptions for long periods.

Note that tx fees with be high so use some altcoins

Just like when btc halving was very close, to now that btc has crossed 19k and this last Friday of Nov (Black Friday), they are all good times for scammers to trick people, mind you that scammers operate round the clock all the time, but there are certain periods that makes their operation easier, during this times, people are more anxious to get something at a good offer, make good ROI quickly, get into a rising Investment etc; having said that, with more effort put into verification rather than trusting, then there'll be no way you'll be fooled by scammers, it's a good head ups op.

Yeah, thanks for the fitting reminding as we are getting close to Black Friday. And people in crypto might be excited to see huge discounts and sales all over around the internet. But if they didn't check everything and not careful on sites they visited or purchasing items without doing some verification then they can fall easily, and when they realized, it's gonna be too late.

The best option to avoid getting scammed is to use the old trusted sites like Amazon, eBay, and all those sites that we already trust. The tips that OP shared are good to avoid getting scammed in life and not just on this black Friday. But is good advice to all the users.

By the way, I'm already busted after the 2 weeks of 'Good Weekend', so I will skip this black Friday.

Get those offers for Black Friday from official websites to be safe. Officially visit websites & download apps, not fake ones. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5259689.msg54725580#msg54725580).

Install the Adblock extension to avoid fake Black Friday offers when you are surfing. AdBlock — best ad blocker (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock-%E2%80%94-best-ad-blocker/gighmmpiobklfepjocnamgkkbiglidom/related)

I don't know what the others do but I personally have a special email for those things: Black Friday offers and discoveries on new websites. If that email is attacked or compromised, it is not too risky for me as it is not my main email.

There is also this thread, Bitcoin Black Friday 2020 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5289209.0). So at least if you wanted to buy using our bitcoin you can buy on that store. Huge discounts from hardware wallet to hosting/VPN.

In any case, good to see this kind of reminder specially newbies in crypto as they might be tempted to buy in an unknown store because of huge markdown because of Black Friday.

Scammers are taking advantages of anything even without special events so, cautious should be practice at all times and do not bring down your guards and always be on alert at all times whenever you are online, some people got scam and hacked on times they are not paying attention and when it's already late, be sure to be mindful, even if you learned a lot but not paying attention to details you'll get in trouble.

Indeed. Scammers do not depend on special events or holidays to take advantage of their victims by offering fake-free giveaways of cryptocurrencies in exchange for sending them cryptocurrencies as well to register. It is why we need to stay cautious about the fact that scams exists and always know who are we dealing with, so we could protect personal information and assets at all cost.

I learned this lesson the hard way. If you ever get hacked and the get your password the hacker can access all of your things if you just use one password. Having different passwords for different website is key to security when being online. It doesn't even have to be a complete new password, just changing a few numbers can make already the difference.

During Black Friday I would just go shopping on bigger known websites.

I’ve been looking around to see if there are any crypto related Black Friday 2020 scams around, be it in relation to the product itself being crypto related, or the payment method. So far, I haven’t managed to find any reports, although there are bound to be some out there by now. Perhaps the mayor hatching will happen on Friday itself.

We won’t just be seeing scams, but likely phishing sites trying to get hold of our credentials. No wonder, with an alleged minimum of 2 million phising sites lurking around in 2020 to date (https://atlasvpn.com/blog/google-reports-over-2-million-phishing-sites-in-2020-ytd). I'm sure we'll read some sorry stories in the coming days on the matter...

Edit: worth a quick read: https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/black-friday-scam-website-research/

The better move you can do against scams. But still, be careful. Because scammers are getting smarter and smarter as time goes by. They always do their very best to create a website which looks like almost the same with the original one. So aways check the domain of the website you are entering. But you know what's the best? Resist shopping as much as possible since fraudsters are also active during these days. The discount you can get means nothing compare to the risk of getting hacked :D.

It's useless to look for the SSL because it's being offered free online to any websites

Verify these emails, if you did not opt in then click the spam button, you should not entertain unsolicited emails

You cannot do that all the times especially to exchanges that you are trading, just go for the sites that have a good reputation

This is a big must you can use keeppass to create and store your passwords

You cannot go around here without the basic knowledge about how to secure yourself and your coins, you will eventually fall to scammers.

Even not on Black Friday there are a lot of people starting to scam when the price of the bitcoin increase and another coin there are a lot of members give and posted a thread which is a duplicate or a possible phishing application. It's better to make a double check and verification of the application and website. Well, it doesn't matter if you know on yourself that you are already aware of the possible harm to you and your funds.

Many people are very fond of sales and specifically, look forward to Black Friday. To protect yourself from all sorts of troubles, you need to be prepared for this day.
The first thing to do is to allocate a separate card for purchases. Since we provide card data. And also allocate a limit on expenses for it. Don't trust all sorts of advertising links that promise incredible discounts. It is better to find a link to the official online store in advance and add it to your bookmarks. Also, check the registration date of the site where you decided to purchase something. The scammers are very "hardworking" They can prepare the site right for the day of worldwide discounts.

Simply put, on this day, only the one who "saves" on purchases, but does not lose his head from discounts, wins.
Otherwise, the proverb will work, which says: "A miser pays twice. "

This warning is really necessary as Black Friday is approaching because scammers are really active during that event.

That's right, always check the website or the link if it is legit and it is the original website of the product that you are browsing online. Don't fall for those discounts and good website layout of interface because it is really easy to copy an original website.

Especially if it is an obvious scam, they will make a much larger discount that will attract more people to buy on their website and scam their money out.

People say "did not spend means earned". Think about it when spending during Black Friday.
Always remember that days before Black Friday, stores knowingly increase prices and most of the thing you buy, you don't really need or can buy it with same sweet price before and after Black Friday also. All these discounts will be countered with VAT or increased shipping price.