Have You Been Scammed?

[Cyberczar]

I just came over from the 'Investor Games' subforum (hope I got that right). A guy there said he came across a site asking to double his bitcoin, he paid in $20 and got $40 the following day or so. He then went for a higher plan of $300 hoping to cash out $600 but they asked him to pay in another $300 before cashing out. He got confused and was asking for advice.

I think I've been there before. Before I became a forum member. I once came across one of those scam sites promising to generate bitcoins. Thought it was real, but when they asked me to pay some transaction fee, I was stuck. I had no money to pay the fee. With the benefit of hindsight, I know I'd have sent them the 'transaction fee' had I had the coins to send them.

Now, what have been your experience with internet scams?
How do we help people not to get scammed?

[sensei stupid]

no one knows exactly where the scam and what is not, except maybe he has the 6th sense may be hehe, the point back to dirikita each, we do something we really understand and we know. my advice is more careful, because it all depends what we do as well. yes so lah I never experienced it because I myself was not careful.

[OffHold]

I did but when I was younger, playing a video game called MU, nowdays I  exchange using trustwhorty websites or individuals.

[KKaruchis]

Yeap here in bitcointalk when I came here on 2016, had a transaction on pokerstars and they freezed my account and return the money to the account owner, down 200$

[btc_angela]

I just came over from the 'Investor Games' subforum (hope I got that right). A guy there said he came across a site asking to double his bitcoin, he paid in $20 and got $40 the following day or so. He then went for a higher plan of $300 hoping to cash out $600 but they asked him to pay in another $300 before cashing out. He got confused and was asking for advice.

I think I've been there before. Before I became a forum member. I once came across one of those scam sites promising to generate bitcoins. Thought it was real, but when they asked me to pay some transaction fee, I was stuck. I had no money to pay the fee. With the benefit of hindsight, I know I'd have sent them the 'transaction fee' had I had the coins to send them.

Now, what have been your experience with internet scams?
How do we help people not to get scammed?

I will say that almost all the members here have been scam one time or another, specially at the beginning of their journey. I was also a victim of HYIP, I invested few satoshi's before and it was paying at the start and I was so happy with the result.  Was even looking at the calendar to see how much bitcoin I will get. Then I re-invested, but unfortunately one day the site went offline and I was late, I have been scammed. Just a simple research of the website will help you identify a scam and of course this forum is the biggest help. Just ask around for opinions before investing.

[sharm2121]

So far No because im not investing money in a lot of investing company, and im carefully joining in other links or site. Im afraid that all of my money for my hardworkings will gone.

[Shamie1002]

The scam I have experienced is from Sebeum signature campaign. 3 weeks no pay for us. And I thought it was a good campaign and team updating every week. He even notifies us about what we are missing.
Then suddenly he's gone.
I don't know if it was because of greed. Or about the project mainly. It's roadmap is a bit shady, also the profits. More or less I think if it's not the campaign manager, it was the fault of the project team.

[Bitcoinjheta]

I just came over from the 'Investor Games' subforum (hope I got that right). A guy there said he came across a site asking to double his bitcoin, he paid in $20 and got $40 the following day or so. He then went for a higher plan of $300 hoping to cash out $600 but they asked him to pay in another $300 before cashing out. He got confused and was asking for advice.

I think I've been there before. Before I became a forum member. I once came across one of those scam sites promising to generate bitcoins. Thought it was real, but when they asked me to pay some transaction fee, I was stuck. I had no money to pay the fee. With the benefit of hindsight, I know I'd have sent them the 'transaction fee' had I had the coins to send them.

Now, what have been your experience with internet scams?
How do we help people not to get scammed?

I will say that almost all the members here have been scam one time or another, specially at the beginning of their journey. I was also a victim of HYIP, I invested few satoshi's before and it was paying at the start and I was so happy with the result.  Was even looking at the calendar to see how much bitcoin I will get. Then I re-invested, but unfortunately one day the site went offline and I was late, I have been scammed. Just a simple research of the website will help you identify a scam and of course this forum is the biggest help. Just ask around for opinions before investing.

Good thing I have not experienced being scammed and thanks to this forum necause it is here I was able to learn more about about bitcoin. It is important thay you know very well the other party you are transacting with to avoid losses of money or coins. Always search websites that accepts investments.

[pooya87]

these are called HYIP if i am not mistaken. they are more like a gamble with a high risk of losing and a terrible odd. imagine a dice game when you are only allowed to roll on 2x multiplier but you have 1% chance of winning and 99% chance of losing! that is how these are.
they ask for a deposit and say some funny stuff about how they are doubling your coin in 2 days, 1 week, 2 weeks,... amount of time and when they get some money from newbies they run away.

[Latviand]

I just came over from the 'Investor Games' subforum (hope I got that right). A guy there said he came across a site asking to double his bitcoin, he paid in $20 and got $40 the following day or so. He then went for a higher plan of $300 hoping to cash out $600 but they asked him to pay in another $300 before cashing out. He got confused and was asking for advice.

I think I've been there before. Before I became a forum member. I once came across one of those scam sites promising to generate bitcoins. Thought it was real, but when they asked me to pay some transaction fee, I was stuck. I had no money to pay the fee. With the benefit of hindsight, I know I'd have sent them the 'transaction fee' had I had the coins to send them.

Now, what have been your experience with internet scams?
How do we help people not to get scammed?

In the bitcoin world theres no doubt that it attack it by the many scammer because we know that the bitcoin is a digital currency and have a similar used to the money. It is uaed to buy everything but in online only but if yoy change it in to the fiat money rhe value of the bitcoin is still impressive and expensive, anf i am happy that i dont have any experience about scamming because ill be careful and think about what might come happen if the scammer is targeted me.

[Kamote_1102]

I have been scammed too.but not here in bitcoin.but in a home-based job that i used to work with. I didn't invest money but I worked for them for three without getting paid. At first they promised a good salary for a campaign.but after a week they changed the campaign and said we don't a basic salary.only a commission bassd salary. And the Manager that we're working with at that time was using a different profile picture on his skype account.to make the long story short, it's too hard to trust someone from the internet. It takes a lot of risk to invest into something especially in online businesses.because they can use a fake information about them and they will convince or promise you something which is too googd to be true.so be careful in investing into some online business,especially in bitcoin. I have heard that there's so many scammers in btcoin.but, of course there are a lot more legit and trustworthy people here too

[Singwala]

Let's just teach ourselves to not invest in such investing companies. Because when we invest, we definitely need referrals so we can earn more. And here we begin to refer people without knowledge of this trend. So let's start with ourselves about avoiding what we know about scam investment. So that we no longer have to deal with other people.

[endlasuresh]

As per your gaming it is purely a scam doubling money is almost scams. I haven't invested in any of the sites, but thought recently to invest in Betting however the site it itself closed, else I would have got scammed.

It's all our luck since we keep our money in unknown person hands and we need to wait until it returns into our hands.

[wiser]

I got scammed out of a half a Bitcoin (around $50 worth at the time) by an outfit called Mining United. The idea was that you sent them your BTC for a few days and then they sent it back to you with a generous interest added. The returns were ridiculous for banking but not knowing any better I figured that was reasonable for mining. I got paid a few times and kept putting funds in, and then the site disappeared. I looked up the outfit and found my way to this forum because a forum thread on Mining United came up on my search query. I chose the handle "wiser" because after having been burned so early on I hoped that I was wiser and I was determined to learn as much as I could so I wouldn't get scammed again like that.

My advice: avoid any site that claims to double, triple, or quadruple your Bitcoin. Avoid any site that claims 100% profit in less than a year. You know the saying, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Avoid any site that does not thoroughly explain how those crazy profits are made. You know those sites that say you can get rich from selling a breakthrough product but they never actually tell you what the product is? Well, the Bitcoin version of those sites will tell you how they exploit some bug in mining, trading, or pick something that generates unheard of returns, but they don't give you specifics (because there aren't any).

With that said, you can make some crazy returns legitimately in cryptocurrencies, especially if you happen to have bought a new coin, held it, and then it went to the moon. So... too good to be true doesn't always cut it, and people do get lucky. But you should at least understand how the legitimate returns happened.

Another check that has served me well: if you find a site that looks interesting, wait a while. A legit site will still be there in a month or so. Many of the scam sites go away in less time than that. Bookmark it and come back to it. Odds are good it won't even be there. If it is, then apply above rules. You can always ask about it here (don't use affiliate links in this case, just use the straight site and ask if it's legit or seems scammy). Experienced people are usually more than happy to check it out and weigh in.

In general, you're not going to get rich by sticking your Bitcoin into any kind of black box and raking in a high return from it. It's not going to happen. You're going to have to put in some work for your profits. It may be less than working a minimum wage job to pay the bills, but there is no free ride, not even in cryptocurrencies.

And I learned that the hard way. If you have already been a victim, know you're not alone. Try to learn as much as you can from the experience and don't give up.

[senin]

You just need to learn the proverb that free cheese is only in a mousetrap. Therefore, one must be very wary of all sorts of proposals that promise significant financial benefits without apparent logical reasons. With the development of the Internet, and especially the crypto currency, fraud schemes divorced very much.

[audaciousbeing]

I just came over from the 'Investor Games' subforum (hope I got that right). A guy there said he came across a site asking to double his bitcoin, he paid in $20 and got $40 the following day or so. He then went for a higher plan of $300 hoping to cash out $600 but they asked him to pay in another $300 before cashing out. He got confused and was asking for advice.

I think I've been there before. Before I became a forum member. I once came across one of those scam sites promising to generate bitcoins. Thought it was real, but when they asked me to pay some transaction fee, I was stuck. I had no money to pay the fee. With the benefit of hindsight, I know I'd have sent them the 'transaction fee' had I had the coins to send them.

Now, what have been your experience with internet scams?
How do we help people not to get scammed?

This should be in the reputation section of the forum. If you see people commenting on threads that have to do with cloud mining, investment platforms that promises only ridiculous income and they do that with so much vigour, its because they have been bitten one way or the other.

I also had my own share of being a victim at the point I don't know what ponzi scheme is all about. I just stumble on a site with this nice graphics and interface with mouth watering returns, I checked people giving positive reviews on Facebook, I just join in thinking in 5 days I would be a richer person, but alas, I was poorer never again would I be part of something like that.

[TheGodson]

No.

Anyone who promises to double your money should be an automatic red flag. That is very sketchy. Just buy, move them to a private wallet, and hold.

[Colorblind]

no one knows exactly where the scam and what is not, except maybe he has the 6th sense may be hehe, the point back to dirikita each, we do something we really understand and we know. my advice is more careful, because it all depends what we do as well. yes so lah I never experienced it because I myself was not careful.

I would slightly modify this advice. Assume that any offer is a scam by default. Make them persuade you otherwise. Think about worst case scenario, and make a decision only knowing that you will be ok if the worst thing will happen.

[Kakmakr]

It works like this. Most people will test their claims first with a small deposit on the first try and they will get those returns. This activates the greed in people and these sites knows this. The second deposit will be much bigger and this is where it become tricky to get your money back. If they have enough money <from other people they scammed>, they will even pay out the second deposit to bait you into depositing even more money. < On the 3rd or 4th deposit, you will start to experience problems to get your money out >

Some Ponzi schemes run for years, before they collapse. ^grrrrrr^

[slyfox]

I just came over from the 'Investor Games' subforum (hope I got that right). A guy there said he came across a site asking to double his bitcoin, he paid in $20 and got $40 the following day or so. He then went for a higher plan of $300 hoping to cash out $600 but they asked him to pay in another $300 before cashing out. He got confused and was asking for advice.

I think I've been there before. Before I became a forum member. I once came across one of those scam sites promising to generate bitcoins. Thought it was real, but when they asked me to pay some transaction fee, I was stuck. I had no money to pay the fee. With the benefit of hindsight, I know I'd have sent them the 'transaction fee' had I had the coins to send them.

Now, what have been your experience with internet scams?
How do we help people not to get scammed?

I was scammed once, it was before crypto but it was in one of those HYIP, I only lost 20 dollars and while I'm sad I lost those 20 dollars that has been one of the best lessons of my life because I have been able to see scams before it hits me and I have been able to avoid them and as such I have kept most of my money intact.