Bitcoin Forum

Almost every day I read a topic of someone been scammed out of money. Well, this is a course of life and scams will exist as long as exists human race. What makes me laugh though is methods scammers use lately. Nothing inventive, not even an attempt to make it look legit. "Successful trader will make you 50% in an hour". "BTC refund department". "BTC doubler". And dozens of others so obvious one has to be a newborn baby to fall for. I wouldn't be surprised if  soon there will be messages from "BTC Support Department" or anything along these lines. How can anyone sane fall for this?

I received a call from my "bank support line" a while ago. Now these people were real con artists, they had all my data, used correct chat scripts etc. It all sounded so legit I almost missed the moment they asked me for SMS confirmation code, at which point I realized it's a scam. Not being sympathetic to these guys but at least they were highly professional and inventive scammers, unlike those I mentioned above.

First of all, crypto is a whole new area that people don’t know much about.
Maybe they read somewhere about the big profits that some people made in crypto and that encourages them to get involved, especially if they are in financial trouble and looking for an urgent solution.
Lack of knowledge and experience, along with haste and naivety, usually lead to disaster.
Worst of all, such warnings usually don't reach the people for whom they are intended.

I don't think does who falls for this scam are in sane, I really don't blame them, but the news outlets, and other real professional who claim to do so much in very small time, these scammers are just seeing what the real professionals are doing and what's on the news, then activate greed in those that are looking on there page, channel or account, the format may look cheap but these guys can really have fake proof, statements to work on those who contact them.
Sophisticated or not, scammers are everywhere and anyone can be scammed, everyone has to bundle away greed and deadly curiosity without research.

There is one I heard of recently, the scammer will call you, telling you about the school of your child, the scammer will be posing like a worker from the school. It will tell you there is a parents teacher (PTA) meeting going on, that it is very important. He will tell you that you will receive a code that will be sent to your mobile phone number, that you should tell him the code so that he can be able to link you to the meeting going on online. I have seen people saying this has bee used to scam them in my country.

Somw people falled for this scam just because it doesn't want to look like scam until they are scammed, even if the call is from the school, the person need to use the official school number to call the school before proceeding doing anything.

Some of the victim said they later called the school, telling them if true about the meeting, but the school will tell them there is no ongoing meeting. But because the code has bee sent, they scam is already elicited and successful, this is done in a way money is withdrawn from the victim's bank account.

Although, this is not totally crypto related, but it is worth knowing, that we should not click on any of such message, not to talk of telling the caller the code received.

You rightly pointed out that fraud will exist for as long as humanity will exist. Fraudsters are far from lazy, if they can deceive someone once, they will do it again until it ceases to bring them profit. Cryptocurrency is decentralized, it is difficult to create and prove that someone has been seriously cheated. More and more countries are accepting cryptocurrency with the condition of using it at their peril and risk. Therefore, scammers feel unpunished.
On the Internet, every user must understand that his security is completely dependent on him.
Again, people are greedy, and as long as their greed obscures their eyes, they will be deceived.

Don't be surprise on those repetitive schemes since they are not target those old pals, they try to hook newbies who's been hyped on tradings for sure the scammers will show some good results in terms of return of investment and mostly thats how newbie fall. If there's good guidance about how to start righfully and how to avoid scams for sure newbie will not get scam of these useless scammers.

Those scams are obvious to you because you have spent a lot of time in Bitcoin community and is aware that there are so many scammers here. People who just joined it have absolutely different perspective, they send money to doublers because they believe that some millionaire whale could easily give away money to fellow crypto enthusiast. They fall for trading-related scams, because they really think that someone would share secrets with them, because they don't know what is crypto community like.

The answer to your question is pretty simple, and it comes down to the following - if I can scam someone in a simple way, why would I use some complicated methods? Simple methods are sometimes very effective, and you yourself have noticed that it is true.

On the other hand, it is no lie that cryptocurrencies have allowed rather stupid people to place various simple traps by using social networks like Twitter or Telegram, literally without knowing any hacking methods or having advanced computer skills. If we turn the whole problem into just one sentence, I would say it this way - Stupid people cheat even stupider than themselves.

They'll fall for this cause they do not fully understand the theory of "being your own bank" and everything it entails, and then again, the media is not doing any good to newcomers, the whole success story thing and testimonies of people that were lucky with one coin or the other causes a rise in level of avarice amongst crypto investors, making them a liability to scammers. Everyone has been faced with one form of scam attempts or the other, what that means is that scammers must make the move, it doesn't matter the method of their operation cause people are still victims, it's only through adequate crypto knowledge that one can avoid being victims of crypto scams.

There are always be a noobs at any kind of things, so...

You kind of remind me of scambaiters in Youtube like Kitboga, Pierogi and Jim Browning. :D
Though the scammers that they're playing with are mostly refund scams which is non-crypto related, but you mentioned that they're even claiming to be "BTC Support Department"? Oh no.

Now that you mention that they're also claiming to be from "bank support" and you received SMS confirmation code?
That ain't confirmation code to confirm they're serving the right customer but that's the code to reset your bank account so they'll have full control of it. Disgusting isn't it?

Some will also claim to be from a reputated companies like Microsoft, Norton, etc that'll convince you that you subscribe to something and you have the option to refund and when you do, they'll want you to login into your bank account and would ask your input for how much was to be refunded only to be claiming that you typed extra zeroes (eg: you typed $500 and they added another zero making  it $5000), then you'll see that you have that amount in your bank account which was just HTML-edited. They'll guilt trip you that they'll lose their jobs and would like you to send them that extra money through gift cards/hiding money in a FedEx package.

This pretty much would be a bit off from crypto but people should be aware at least.

Well we can't blame those new in this market since they were here for only one thing and that is to gain some money. They will always learn the hard way if no one teach them how to do their own research when dealing with investment especially in cryptocurrency. And the fact that they want crypto so bad they seem to fall to most typical scam because of their lack of knowledge.

More and more people are going to be a victim with these typical scam we've seen these days. So only if crypto is being taught at school it might be useful to some of us at least teach them to do their own research first before putting any money for investment.

Don't blame the victims because crypto is new to many and whatever offers they are giving it's easy to think the offer is legit, the mistakes that newbies always find themselves in is lack of doing their own research first which I believe can reduce the risk of falling into a deadly trap from scammers, every newbies want to make money first but none want to learn first

Not really. Replace "BTC" with "stocks", "paypal" ot anything else and you'll realize you've seen it all before.

From what I have seen when reporting scams on this forum and hunting for them, scammers have become lazier. Hard to say if that is a result of them being dumb but yeah, they might be targeting even more naive people because some of those scams actually do get some people. Funny and sad at the same time.

Scammers rely on two things to trick people: Greed and speed. They are looking for people who want to take short cuts to wealth and are either too naive or simply too ignorant to understand that they are being tricked. The suspension of logical thinking in return for belief in whatever lies the scammer will tell them is crucial. Many people will have intelligence "blind spots" to overcome or require painful learning experiences before they will be able to spot scams in future. Greed can be another big driver, because again - sometimes people can put aside any rational thought process if they have the idea of obscene riches dangled in front of them. It's worth distinguishing between dumb scams (e.g. bitcoin doublers) and more sophisticated fraudsters though, because high tech scams (e.g. targeted calls or text messages) can sometimes be very convincing and it is how you treat them that is important - by default always go directly to the URL you know or call back the company number listed on their website.

In recent years, as technology has made instant access to millions of consumers easier and cheaper than ever before, scam has evolved into a global criminal activity.
This is the only crime that has such a wide reach to people across all ages, races, and geographical locations. Technology has also made it much more difficult to identify and catch these criminals.

Why do so many people fall for fraud schemes so easily?
It is almost always the result of ignorance, lack of experience, and naivety. Cryptocurrencies are new to most people, and not everyone knows much about them.

The only way to protect yourself from such scams is to be sure to research who you're dealing with. Do not respond to an offer that sounds too good to be true and do not give out personal information.

These guys has probably access on your jan formation either captured from a malicious site or they have an insider on banks or any firms that you previously associated for example ICOs that you've joined and signed up before.

There are so many people that can do much more realistic approach just to scam and steal money. I remember a call also last 2 years ago and inquiring about crypto which I don't remember I did joined, so I said wrong number but they keep insisting that Ive changed my number for that.

None of these methods are new. In fact these are some of the oldest methods to scam people on the internet dating way before bitcoin was created. They rely on people's greediness and how some people trust anything they read on the internet specially if it is promising them big returns.
You also missed on of the stupidest ways where they tell you that you've won something big but in order to receive your prize you first have to make a deposit to cover the cost of them sending you that prize!

For me, this is become normal, even if you research history. Even in the earliest days of the world, there are already lof of scammers and being scammed all over the time, most are the same method but different implementation.

This generation is just more prone to scams, because of the Internet of course, easy to contact every one and it could lead you to more close-on scammers. It's just sad that for those people who are in need and they are also the most victim of these scams.

I think not just you who received a call from your bank support line because I got a message from someone I do not know.
She offers to invest in her program, giving me a profit of $100/day.
I reply that the message telling is good to be true, and I say that I am not interested in her offers. But she was still trying to convince me that she and her partner will play safe, so I blocked her number just to make sure that she does not disturb me again.
In the next moment, I conclude that a scam program will always try to search for a simple method that most people do not think is a scam and in the end, they can trick that customer into giving their money.

I dont think that scammer are dumb or people are naive. Scammers are actually very creative and try to come up with new ways to cheat. What really matters are their skills of social engineering and persuasion. Their best weapon is people laziness. People want to do everything quickly and easy. Just try to remember how many times anyone of you clicked first google given link to download something or take info there as a legit faq/hint/walkthrough/guide. Remember when we need something, we just search, download, run, accept everything.

Well, they just look dumb to you because probably, you're more knowledgable now. Their targets are not those that has lots of experience and knowledge about crypto. Remember that most of their targets are those newbies that has less and, some that doesn't have enough background for it. That is why they look dumb.

That's a variation of infamous "nigerian letters" which have been around for... well, as long as I remember LOL

There are always greedy newbies in this space, that's what these scammers fish for, greed blinds the man.

For sure scammers are dumb because they are just making crime which have a huge and worse consequences in their life.

Stealing or fooling people will not make them rich enough because investors are getting wiser and well-informed about scams day-by-day.

As they are targeting ignorant people, their victims will surely become aware about that and avoid them.

If you are scamming, period, then you are dumb. It doesn't matter how sophisticated your scam is or how smart you think you are. You are dumb because you are risking your livelihood on a business that can be taken from you. You can lose everything, and most of the time you WILL. And even if you get away with your scam, you have damaged your MIND, because instead of finding the true path, you are conditioning yourself to look for shortcuts.

If you were smart, you would invest in skills and income that is sustainable and legitimate so you can prosper. No one can take that from you.

The majority of scammers will always target the "low hanging fruit" and simply understand that it is a numbers game. They don't expect to fool everyone, they might not expect to fool more than 1 out of every 1,000 people, but if the one that they do scam is substantial you could call it winning the scammer lottery. The worst and most dangerous are ones who have adapted towards this type of industrial scale and it works much like call center scam operations in many respects. There are so many varieties of scam it can be overwhelming and sometimes the scammers come armed with information gathered before they call you, which can add a level of credibility to their story. Frankly you should ignore anyone unless you have specifically reached out to a company (via phone) or logged into their website to communicate with them. It's important to remember that it is possible to spoof (fake) the sender via email and phone calls, so don't trust that to verify people either.

All the technique used by scammer these days are not new and it just the recycling of old strategies but the BTC doubler, support department scam are easy to spot out because they are always after the newbies in crypto investment that the reason why their victim is always newborn baby.

Problem is that their target/s are the ones that have not read yet on what majority just said in here.
Most of it were seniors. They aren't knowledgeable that much in technologies these days.

Scammers these days especially those targeting the noobs coming into the cryptocurency space due to the hype it has been receiving in the past months as a result of its astonished increase in value compared to other assets (stocks, commodities etc) put their success on lucky. They don't have to stress themselves been all convincing with their tricks, etc. They're just targeting those that aren't informed and would fall easily to their tricks.

I watch YouTube videos this day more often as I tend to engage myself more in the community than just investing by buying into project, I tend to know what's the latest trend so I have subscribed to various crypto update channels. What's funny is there's a particular kind of ad that pops up in-between all the videos I have watched on different occasions, that has to do with trending coins, Elon, Tesla and doublers.

You might think coin doublers are old tricks but don't be surprised when noobs still fall for this scams mainly because they're not informed and they're impatience to learn before earning instead hunger for quick money.

Nothing inventive you say ? No they are but you may have become use to such lines and wouldn't waste time to take to your heals when such lines are given to you.

If you are in the space with the high taste for getting rich quick, you will fall for such. If you fall once then there is possibility that you may not again except the person is extremely greedy.  Most culprit here is the newbie who are totally new to scam because they believe totally what they see on the space but they never knew it is the more you look, the less you see.

Personally, I don't consider doubling money from somebody that I didn't work for or make contributions to his or her life. I consider if it were possible for him or her, then they would double their money by themselves but you see someone falling for another person's trap of scam even when it is clear .

One big reason people get scammed is greed. When you want to double money with someone, you just know it is not possible.

This type of scam is more common in my region  I don't know how these people are able to get our information data from the bank, they know so much that if you are not a security-conscious person you will fall for their tricks and before you realise your account balance is wiped out in a sec, .
It takes a lot of courage to to avoid been scammed

It has happened in the past that some banks have shared creditworthiness data with third parties. Therefore, it is possible that scammers are able to access data from the bank in this way. For example, when I was having trouble paying off my bank loan, I started receiving offers from other banks to reschedule my debts despite the fact that I never asked them to do so. There was no doubt that the banks shared information among themselves. Also, some bank employees who lack adequate training may accidentally divulge your bank information to third parties.

Scams in real life and scams in crypto are two different things. Maybe scams outside crypto are more deemed to be dumber compared to what we have in crypto. Newbies can easily be tricked specially by those who are smart enough to make ways on how they can zip the deal with someone they are stealing from. Scammers in crypto are improving unlike in real life situations, their schemes are too repetitive that only a very small percentage gets scammed by their ways. Just be aware and wise still even though we all know how scammers play their games, precautions are better than regrets.

Yes, the scammer victims aren't knowledgeable much about the cryptocurrency technology but that doesn't mean only the seniors are the people that fall into this category cause I was once a victim of crypto scammer and I was in my 20s which automatically lack of knowledge is what make people victim of scammer not age.

Actually, the scammers commonly use the classic ways to scam, but sometimes it is likely modified like a new method (but actually they are the same).
And actually, the victims are the same, newbies and also greedy people.
Newbies don't know about exactly going on when being scammed and they think that this is a normal method in cryptocurrency to earn money from that way. Not all newbies follow this forum and also read news about scammers. And sometimes, most of them don't know about scams.

And for the greedy people, they may be newbies and also old members in crypto that really eager to have and earn high profits instantly. So, they are always interested in certain investments or programs with high profits.

This is classic, but many people are still scammed.

I am sorry to hear that.
Somehow now that you remind me. I was almost scammed in a giveaway, to be specific I was almost baited in a phishing site of my custodial wallet, in Facebook. The only cue that I know it was a scam was due to the domain name.
These scammers are just seemingly popping up in every social media platforms. I am kind of dreaming of scambaiting like those I watched in Youtube as to raise awareness, but I think it is kind of risky just yet.

Well, perhaps this will be the fact and as we can see, most of their victims are those greed people. Just notice this, scammers are now getting evolved too, they are getting smarter day by day and they always have strategies and tricks on how to scam people that new in the crypto space. Naive and greed will always a favorite target of these scammers people should know this from the start. However, even though we already warned them but the case of those who have been scammed was increased. That is a sad fact.

Social media is the venue where alot of scammer operated and make search for the victim, this is the reason why this forum don't support the habit of a service provider or a buyer making service discussion off the forum and every investment make by stranger should be ignore.

This is the best time to be a scammer now! The crypto appears more and more in the news and so on, people keep talking about it non stop.
Look, if there are still people who just give out their bank details online, via phone or on random websites, nothing surprises me. I have heard so many people try and get into some pyramid schemes etc. It is beyond me why people still believe these scams. If getting money would be so easy, everyone would be rich. Plain and simple.
Here in crypto there are unbelievable amounts of people who invest not knowing how it works, what it does or anything at all. Of course they are a very easy target for scammers. People are so desperate to become rich and get in on crypto, that they seem just too easy to take advantage of.