Bitcoin Forum

Hi guys, I wanted to seek advice on how to recognize scams and avoid them on this forum. How do I determine if something is trustworthy or not? By this I mean any kinds of offers, campaigns, or deals with other users.

1. Do some research, put a name into a search engine. No rep is bad rep, bad rep is bad rep and good rep from a trustworthy source (like different levels of users here) with little bad trust may mean the company is less likely to scam.
2. Check if the Ann thread is locked or self moderated and the thread you're on if they're different. People shouldn't make a self mod thread for this sort of thing and you could tell them about the rep they'll build for themselves by doing this....
3. If it sounds too good to be true and they can't gain much then it normally is...

Untrusted feedback is sometimes more important than you might think. It's worth checking it out in case DefaultTrust members have not flagged or tagged the account with negative trust to indicate evidence of a scam. It is, however, important to distinguish between genuine feedback and "rage" feedback wherein it's usually a retaliatory negative tag, so checking the source of the feedback is also important.

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If you want an example of scam, take a look at the Investor-based games (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=207.0) section.

There's no way to guarantee if something's a scam or not, but, you can take extra safety precautions.

1. Only transact with really reputable people(especially with using PayPal).

2. If possible, use middlemen.

3. I'd say stay away from most bounty campaigns in the first place. Especially those with altcoins. They're either going to be worth next to nothing, or they aren't going to pay you anything.

4. "If it's too good to be true, it probably is."

There are discussions before related to your subject so if you have some time, you can freely browse at these threads to feed your mind and add some knowledge.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3518451.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5169646.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4687975.0

Using our common sense is the key to avoid scam but there are really times that even an experienced will fall on the trap.

As much as possible, Always DYOR = Do Your Own Research before dealing in any site. Make a habit to search for any reviews before using a site especially when money is involved.

The link provided by harizen is good enough to learn to recognize scams in crypto.
Or maybe you can also learn about the characteristics of fraud suspected in the following thread:
[140+ SCAMMERS EXPOSED] SCAM LIST by witcher_sense (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5143166.0)
SCAMS of our bitcointalk (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4701035.0)
ICOEthics - scam list 2018-2019 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5110020.0)

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In some instances, in addition to checking the trust feedback, see also the flag that appears on the profile of individual members in this forum before you trade with it.

Most of the scams that can happen here is probably caused by ICO's where lots of people invest in a project which eventually is just another vaporware that does not solve any real life problems. The link below can also help you determine/ investigate whether the project is well-founded or not.

[1] Guidelines, how to spot a scam ICO & report effectively. ✔ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5004397.0)

I would like to share and base on my experience, some of those platforms I already know a scam and just trying to prove to other this is a scam but why do I still make it even I lose my money just to warn them even I lose a small amount of money.

From the previous months, I always see on different pages on a social media platform that they are promoting their application and software because they think it is more efficient to gain more users attempt to scam on the first banner always tell

• It is secured.
• No investment.
• Can double or triple your money.
• Just a single or couple of weeks you can get your funds.

Those are the common things they always told on their banner so as a user does not have a knowledge enough on this kind of platform they are easily encouraged to make an investment on this and now after meeting their requirements for the minimum payment or payout this is the time scam happens because they didn't pay their users also some of them are wanting to get the PIN code of your wallets.

I just want to share my experience so newbies can be aware too.

It looks like the linked thread that you specified is different from the title listed—the link direct to the SCAMS of our bitcointalk thread:
(https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4701035.0) - Juliya_D (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1368314).
Maybe what you mean is the following link:
Guidelines, how to spot a scam ICO & report effectively: (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5004397.0) - Coolcryptovator (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1980983)

Collection of comprehensive guides on identify and avoid scam projects (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5125435.0)
Scammers on Youtube. Don't fall into this scam trap and lose money, guys (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5198456.0)
Youtube scam channels. Please spend your time to report them and take them down (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5254315.0)

Welcome to the community. Scams are something we see from time to time around here but you should try as much as possible not to be a victim. Here's my favorite quote:
I've always had this quote in my mind and it helped me stay safe from phishing attacks and other scam techniques including ponzi schemes, scammy deals, insecured activities. Even pyramid schemes too.

You might have heard bitcoin would make you rich, It will but it's by no means a "get rich quickly" scheme. To succeed here, you have to put in the work whether you're a trader, and investor or you offer your skills for payments. If you operate with this mentality, it'll keep you safe 99% of the time. The 1% of the time which isn't covered is the part where both your intuition and common sense play a vital role. Both are great tools. Use them well and you'll thank yourself that you did.

The No. 1 rule to avoid the scam is to "Do not Trust on anyone for granted". No matter how much a person is trusted, you should always use escrows and other precautionary measures.  This will help you avoid a lot of easy scams in the first place.

If someone approaches you, and offers you to make money by investing your money, it's 100% a scam. Con artists will do anything to convince you to send them money - they'll offer you trading signals, high returns of investment, fixed gambling opportunities and so on - but the moment you send them your money, you won't see them ever again.

Every time you are about to send someone your coins, make sure to carefully verify their reputation, and keep in mind that user reviews can be faked too.

How to recognize a scam easily?

If you see these lines on their promotion banner

1. I can double your money.
2. A small amount of investment.
3. It is secured.

Those are the common things that happen to the scamming platform and also this is the line why people got encouraged easily but still making research and effort to make knowledge is worth it than being dependent on others opinions.

The most effective way to identify scams is to stay away from new sites Whenever you see a new site or link try to stay away from it Also, sites that hope to double profits are new scams. No one will ever give you anything for free That's why I don't work on that site I have to work by checking and selecting well One thing to keep in mind is that no new currency in the market will ever give us much profit with a small investment.

5. don't easily believe positive reviews, especially from newbies. Account ownership here is not restricted, scammers can make as much as they want and make convincing fake reviews.

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If offers are published in this forum, scammers are more easily recognized. Not infrequently they are caught thanks to other more senior members.
The problem is that if you accept the offer through PM, there is no other way unless you do independent research or ask the opinions/advice of other members who you think are experienced to check it.

For campaigns, check the team behind the campaign to make sure they are legit. Some ann thread are fake and they have been using other people's identity to fool investors if ever those investors did not make much research. For transactions, use escrow which will hold your payment before the person you have transaction with pay you whatever you have bought. Make sure you use the legit escrow which in this forum have and there are also reputed forum members here who offer escrow service for free.

Before creating an account on a new website or before buying something from a new online store or making any kind of payment on a site or doing any kind of work on a new site, check the user reviews of that site. If you do a little research on Google by entering the name of the site or the domain, you will get many user reviews of the site. If you do a Google search by typing the domain of the site and the word Review next to it, you will find numerous user reviews about that website in different links in the search results. Go to these links and forums to see what other users are saying about the site. Check if anyone has been cheated on this site before. If the site is fake and has been scammed before, then you can find out from these user reviews. If you get positive reviews about the site after seeing a lot of user reviews, then use the site or make a payment on the site. But if you get negative reviews, you can be sure that the site is fake or scam.

Yes , never trust any one in terms of any transactions you want to do here . We have many reputable escrow here if you want to make your transaction became successful you can hired them mostly if you plan to transact large amount.

For campaign it really hard to know which is scam and  which is not  to avoid being involve  of the scam project don't participate in any of the bounties .

Many scammers hiding on professional profiles and act like a good sheep but ended deceiving us when they see an opportunity to strike us so best not to trust anyone unless you know him very much since we might gonna end up messing all things if we get compromised.

As well for the campaign evolving right now its hard to determine on which of them is paying or not since most of them shows some goods graphics designs and other tools to make their self legit.Just prepare our self and accept that sometimes we will not get paid so that we will get used and will not get depressed if our they will not paid us for our efforts.

You may do some research first before trying the website, just read carefully he reviews of the website and if you see that there are much good feedbacks on it then basically it is a legit website. There are websites that are really look as legit website so be careful with that, you may identify if it is fake website once the source link has wrong spelling, you can also identify if there are "not secure" om the source link, if you see that on the source link then you better avoid the website. If you also see that most of the text on the eebsite are gramatiacally incorreect then it is probably a fake websits.
Well said and if they are really pushing you to try their website with the words that your money can double for only a few days. That is literally scam.

If you are referring to deal in this forum or as you said offers, campaign etc, look at the feedback page of the user and read all the feedback. Of course make sure the feedbacks are originated from trades if positive. If you want to deal big amount, use trusted escrow service because their are a lot of scammers farming feedbacks to scam other.

Well, most of the time if someone approaches you giving you a good offer there is always a big percentage that it is a scam because offers that you cannot decline probably big profit as promised.

Probably you cant really always recognized a scam when you don't really know a lot or know hot it work especially newbies, I think its more like of an experienced and knowledgeable about how the market works when you're already exposed to it you already know how it works your not going to fall to it easily and probably never again.

But these easy-to-spot scams aren't the only scams, there are also scams that look quite legit at the first glance. For example, there are exchange services that process smaller transactions without problem, and as the result they get real positive reviews - but then some unfortunate user makes a big transaction and the exchange scams them. Or take exit scams - when a legitimate business suddenly disappears with all the user's deposits. Or exchanges that can scam users by pretending to be hacked.

Prevention scam is depend on your intelligence. If you are talking specifically about forum scam then just use forum escrow service which would prevent you from scammers. You are able to check every user's trust page and you might get primary knowledge about a user although all feedbacks aren't 100% accurate. If you are talking about campaign which means bounty campaign as well then its totally depends on you. No one would save your funds except you. Don't forget to deal with forum PM rather than third party messaging apps. It would save you from fraud and scammers sometimes. You can ask about any members if he/she is trusted on Reputation board if necessary in case you are going to make big deals.

Use your common sense, don't do anything which is look greedy and shady. Don't go against your common sense. For example some website offer double your bitcoin within 24 hours, you should use your common sense here. Because if someone have such as way then he will not ask you to make deposit there instead of make double his own money. If you have enough time then you may read these two post list on my scam list (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5053066.msg47031266#msg47031266) to avoid potential ICO/bounty campaign scams.

There are a lot of detectives on this forum who take apart the project into small details, check the team, technical document, site creation time, and many other little things. Therefore, if you regularly visit the topic “Scam Accusations” without even having your own experience in detecting fraudsters, you will be warned to some extent.
And if you want to protect yourself from scammers who engage in financial transactions, a trust system can help here. Always look at the reviews of people who have made any transactions with this person.
But in fact, neither one nor the other will help you to the full, since an independent understanding of how not to fall into the trap of scammers is much more important. Your experience will become your assistant over time. Try to study and read as much as possible in order to find out all kinds of ways to recognize fraud on the Internet.

To detect scam especially in this forum then you have to more active and have to read more (scam accusation, reputation section), you can achieve some way to find a scam. Some suggestions to you about how you stay safe from the scammer in this forum.

For trading in this forum:

1. Always see the trust score of any use when you want to trade with any user.
2. Avoid red trust user ( no excuse, just ignore them)
3. Always try to trade by using escrow
4. Don't trust them if anybody contacts you outside in the forum (telegram, twitter,Fb, etc) and says he is the bitcointalk user X. In this case, you just say him to contact through bitcointalk PM.

For Bounty project :

1. Try to read all information about the site.
2. Read the whitepaper and confirm that it's unique
3. Investigate about the team members and confirm they are real.

If you follow these maybe you will not be scammed and after some days/months you will know more how the forum work. Best of Luck

There are already a lot of example about justify any scam. All experienced users shared here.So you should now lock this topic to avoid further spam posts in this topic.You can find lock topic button at the bottom of left side in this page.

There is plethora of guides already regarding recognizing of scam of any kind, so it is better to google before investing or participating. Moreover, you probably should give up your desire of making free money with zero effort, you may end up with zero money in your wallet instead. I want to add just one convinient way to check if project you want to invest has been reported as scam or not. Before depositing or giving away your money anywhere, please check deposit address on https://scam-alert.io/. This website will tell you if any particular address was reported recently. When I found this way to report, I started reporting all malicious addresses I know and they were added there to warn investors. Interestingly enough, every time scammer address receives any funds, this is being announced on Twitter:

https://i.imgur.com/sEdtCCz.jpg

I do not think blocking this topic would be the right solution. Yes, there are many ways to determine, but we must remember that scammers do not standstill. Their actions are improved daily. Where we think we know how scammers will work, we may face completely new fraud.
Take at least witcher_sense post. After all, such advice was not higher.
Therefore, in the fight against scammers, all the tips are good. The more often and more people will participate in such discussions, the less likely there will be to scammers to fool gullible investors.

IMHO, you can't really spot a scam so easily without someone getting scammed. That's because, in most cases, someone gets scammed for sure and then tells people not to fall for it. The reason why other still possibly fall for the exact same thing is because either nobody reports (due to many reasons) or that the reach to the audience is not that huge, so those unknown of such scams still fall for them. The "too good to be true" and "get rich quick" schemes definitely should be avoided because none of these will actually deliver anything to you and you're most likely to end up losing everything that you invest.

This kind of fraud also happens a lot. Promoting their initial users with cheap discount transactions, some even free. Then the user gives positive feedback. It will be used by them as bait to catch other users very easily and of course with larger transactions, when they get a lot of money, they will just disappear. Pretending to be hacked and having trouble is a classic reason they always use.

The easiest way to detect scams is:
1. Sites that want to give more profit without any effort.
2. More and more protection in terms of investment.
3. If you share new links.
4. Also, if you want the key or password of your wallet, we should always avoid these sites.

Indeed. The best way for you to know if it is a scam if it offers things that are too good to be true that you can earn a good profit without making too much effort. You can also know if a project is a scam if no one gives any good or positive reviews or feedback about its site or its project. You can also encounter some people who will DM you just for you to invest your money in them.

On their announcement thread check if there is a flag created for that announcement, check the trust feedback of the member who created that announcement, and also check the scam section if there are reports about a person or the project, that's the obvious sign another thing to look for is the whitepaper and the platform do check if the whitepaper is not a copy from an old and dead project so do the platform you need to dig deep on these two. if you find something wrong do post and ask people for feedbacks.

You'll see a few exchanges or casinos do this, where they'll provide a bonus upon deposit and then just prevent you from withdrawing.

Honestly, though? I would much rather learn from being scammed for a small amount than to have never been scammed and to have never educated myself on preventing scams. Of course, it's possible for many people to avoid scams their entire life, but since they are dynamic and develop constantly as people learn to avoid them, I think it's better to familiarize yourself with the structure of a scam and then learn to overcome that. Learn the scammer mindset, and keep your money tight.

After all, any time you're not sending out money or downloading something external, the risk of losing money is pretty much nil.

Personally, there are words from scam projects that will give a red light against their projects. Though these red lights often show but those investors won't see and reason with the reviews. Scammers still succeed in their defraud against investors; is the amount of lazyless we have with our investors.  How possible will it be for your investment to double up? Sometimes triple up: don't be greedy with your hard earned money, scammers are ready to take your breath if given the chance to do so. 

To be honest, its hard to identify whether the website is a scam or legit especially if you are a newbie in the world of crypto, there are many fake websites offering good return for your investments most of them are scam especially if they offer to double your money for only a few days.

I just want to share to you my experience way back last 2 months when I get scammed, I was scammed before to the investment website, they offer to double my money for only 24 hours, I waited for so many days but still, nothing happens, there are many websites like that, just remember that there is no legit website that will double your money for only a few days, that is literally scam, I have learned my lesson now.
Indeed, that is the common information that you will see for some fake website, its hard to find the legit website, just invest in that website that has many users and well known by many people.

The most popular tactics from scammers are attractive offers, stay away from any too good to be true offers like giveaways and airdrops that ask or may ask you for deposits first, you need to do research if you are into new projects, most times some use case won't work out because they aren't needy in crypto space

They usually employ the same thing in ICO fake whitepaper fake team copying other projects on gambling sites they gave you huge money as bonus but you need to deposit first before you can withdraw the funds and after you made a deposit they are gone, you can check out the scam reports and see and learn how they scammed people.

Almost all of the things and a way of scamming have already posted above. And that all be enough to say if that is scam or not coz eventually, they are pretty obvious to look at compared to the legit one.

However, I'm wondering why because there still a lot of people get scammed, I don't know if they listening to us or bothered to read any thread concerning about scamming. Or most likely they never changed their mindset but completely just a fool person to think about quick returns, instant millionaire or whatever it is which makes them blind to see it was a scam and they are already been scammed.

Do not get blind of good offers. This is how the scammer works most of the time and that is their bait. If you will met someone offering you like this then you should start wondering.

Other way of scamming is all about technical like letting yo disclose important details of your account. So whenever you visit a link and ask for your important details like your wallet address, private keys and etc. then do not attempt to disclose it. The scammer will just be able to access your account after you disclose it to him/her.

Beware also of the fake sites. Do not forget to bookmarks sites you can access it easily.

From my experience,  many people are just to desperate.
They need money because of some urgent needs and they are under stres and can't think in normal way.
Such people are often victims because they "wants" to believe all this "big promises " from scammers.

Many of them (scam victims) aren't on bitcointalk so they may not be reading this threads, giveaway scams for example are mostly posted on youtube and twitter, users on btt get to see threads about them cause a member of this forum saw the scam, reported it so the post will be taken down by those apps and also posted here to warn other members when they visit those apps/site. But that being said, doesn't blot any blame off them, if they were more curious to check/search, they'd prolly even see many threads warning about cryptocurrency scams without being a registered user on the forum.

It is very difficult for us to know if the villain or the person is fraudulent or not and we will be able to know everything about him when working with him only, but we can avoid fraud by staying away from anything unknown and unreliable