HOW TO protect yourself from Scammers

[GeckoTrader]

One of the best things to do to avoid ICO scamming is to learn and back read all information about that ICO. As they always say " More knowledge is power" Secondly, The team should have been communicating to the community. Thirdly, always they should have an update from their company. If you sense something fishy do not hesitate to ask question from them. In that means you can confirm whether they are legit or just a bunch of scammers.

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[redpillorblue]

Amazing feedback guys. Just to let you know, I have been updating the main thread, compiling all the wisdom in this thread in one place for us to use.

Any ideas on how to prevent yourself DNS hijacking?

[Dudeperfect]

I believe that doing research before taking any decision is the single best option to stay safe. I have saved my thousands of dollars just because I read the topics about the particular investment option when I was about to invest in it. I realized it multiple times that there is something wrong with it and in most of the cases, those sites were exposed and investors lost their money. When it comes to crypto, it is all about self-responsibility and we deserve as per our actions.

[CryptoTamer]

I agree with various opinions on this thread, personally I use this way to protect myself from scamers;
-, check or do research before starting investment, transactions, etc
-, keep your privacy for example: personal data, private key of your wallet, password, etc

some cases of fraud occur because the victims are careless, SO keep calm and be carefull

[ellapurity]

Is just being careful with your private key and your confidential documents.

[joebrook]

In my years of experience with bitcoin there is only one effective way to avoid scammers. In joining ICO even if you do your research you will not know that they are scammers until the ICO is over. Even if how many preparations we do or make in the end we still end up being a victim to scammers. The best way to avoid scammers is to no invest your bitcoins. Just hold it in your wallet and hold it for a long time and when the price is right you can sell them and you will have a good profit.

It’s actually simple as that instead of giving your bitcoins to some scammer just hold it into your wallet and see your profits increase or if you are experienced in trading, you can trade crypto currencies and make some money or even when you lose it you lose it on your own volition instead of being tricked by someone.

[Vertex_ICO]

This is a very interesting and useful thread.

[Thian778]

The best way to scam people is to offers the most sugary word with the things people want! Easy money, easy rich, getting rich by sending money and someone will send back the money in much more, this are the things scammer uses, "What people wants in the most easiest way" so in order to avoid them is to know really your needs and work for them.

[Reid]

To make it short this people wants easy money in a short period of time so you can easily catch them off guard.

They want money and you want guarantee. It will be a fight of patience. When you are asking too much they tend to go away and will never return to you even if they create new accounts.

All of that scam can be seen thru that except the one in ICO's. If they are good at faking the team and the product then it will be a research to go their deepest files.

[kauban2018]

As what I've knew, scammers are those people who do dishonest acts like stealing of something else with value from the others. So, for you to keep yourself or your account safe form the scammers first thing you need to do is to ensure to lock down your password you need to create and strong and good password security to protect your account from scammers. Second, you need to ensure the security of your connection. You must open your account only at home for your safety. You must not open your account in any other cafe due to account sensitivity. Third, in order to know if there are scammers who attempted to open your account you must set-up account alerts. There must be a signal or notification that you may be notified every time your account will be opened. Fourth, avoid phishing scams. Lastly, you must practice yourself in being a vigilant. You must always pay attention, knows how to catch small problems earlier.

[miss.M]

For me, my only reason is, if someone encourages you to join in something that they have a points that they earn from inviting others it is mostly a scam. Because if it is not, then why they offer it to increase popularity?

[ajoygb]

Protecting yourself from scammers is the one of the hardest thing to do because of its ability to pursued you and make believe that it is true and very convincing especially now a days that they are using names of good investment in the market. So one of the best thing to do is investigate used your ears, eyes, mouth  or in other word your senses and asked all the necessary questions to be asked and go further to investigate them.

[jerrison]

If I was to be asked by anybody on how to protect myself or anyone else form scammers I will say the best way is to avoid clicking phishing links and always login to your accounts from the valid secured websites as stated by the projects or the wallet producer. Thanks

[Keyboard PC]

I think the information you provide is very helpful but for now there are so many ways fraudsters to deceive the investors so as to make what is available on the website as real and as convincing.

[yabutzxc]

think before you do and also review before you make any decisions, and dont trust other website

[shainasaz]

There are many ways how to protect yourself from the scammers. Avoid uneccesary thing such as clicking phishing websites and links and always log-in in a secure and protected websites. Don't trust anyone because if you mistaken even a little bit everything will be gone so if you want to avoid this used it in a safety way.

[Dmitry.Vastov]

I was making a list for my team on how to stay away from Crypto scammers, and thought I would just share it here as well.

Here are the type of Crypto scammers that I have encountered

Type 1. ICO as a SCAM - (More info contributed by: tosindesign)
There are ICOs that are only designed to get your money. Once the ICO is over then the pages are taken off the net and the makers of the ICO disappear with the money. The last case we reported was LoopX, but this is not the only case.

How can you protect yourself?
1. (by: tosindesign) Generally there is no 100% protection here. A good indication for a scam is there is no team mentioned on the website or whitepaper. Although everything is very superficial and promised a lot, but after reading the white paper is not clear how that should be possible.
2. (by: GeckoTrader) One of the best things to do to avoid ICO scamming is to learn and back read all information about that ICO. As they always say " More knowledge is power"
3. (by: GeckoTrader) The team should have been communicating to the community.
4. (by: GeckoTrader) Always they should have an update from their company. If you sense something fishy do not hesitate to ask question from them. In that means you can confirm whether they are legit or just a bunch of scammers.

Type 2. Scammers who sell FAKE COINS (name / coin code is same but coin generating contract is different)
How to protect yourself: Check the contract address of these coins, if it came from the same contract address

Type 3. Social media scammers - Would post like "I will send you 50 ETH if you send me 5"
How to protect yourself: This is an easy one, they all are scammers. Dont even respond.

Type 4: Identity theft scammers - These guys will contact you as CEOs of ICOs or Social celebrities, usually banking upon the names of a famous person
How to protect yourself: Try pinging them from an another ID of theirs (say if scammer pinged you from Telegram, drop them a message over their facebook ID) and ask them to check that message. This would work as a Two-Factor-Authentication for that personality.

Type 5: Malicious code Trojans - Like Wordpress or Chrome plugins, that would use your machine to mine for crypto currencies, using your machine for the same
How to protect yourself: Try not to do plugins or replace them with cloud powered services, OR, Install only trusted plugins, with loads of reviews maybe. I wont be surprised if these trojans take shape of free downloadable games or cracked softwares downloadable for desktop or your mobile.

Type 6: Online Seed Generators (contributed by: tosindesign)
For some wallets (eg the IOTA Wallet) you have to set your own seed. In the case of IOTA, this is an 81-digit password that must consist of uppercase letters and at least one 9. Since some did not want to generate a password themselves, they resorted to online seed generators. These generate you by mouse click an 81-digit seed. However, as it turns out later, a few of these seed generators also stored the generated passwords, The stored seeds were then later used to steal the assets of the investors concerned. You have to know that the seed is something like the master key that allows all credits to be transferred. A thief does not even have to have access to your computer on which the wallet is installed. The seed is enough to access your balance on another computer.

How can you protect yourself?
Never use an online seed generator! When generating an 81-digit seed, all you have to do is push 81 random keys on your keyboard.

Type 7: Phishing website attempts (contributed by: tosindesign)
Scammers would copy exact replica of the websites (wallets, exchanges) and try to get you to login, thereby recording you password. For example, the page Blockchain.info was copied to get the logins. You have to know that Blockchain.info also offers a wallet service where Wallet could save your bitcoins. If Google users searched for “Blockchain info” in some countries, they ran a Google ad that led to Blockchaina.info, a cheat site that has nothing to do with Blockchain.info. The site was a 1: 1 copy of Blockchain.info and was only designed to get login information from users. There are also similar attempts to MyEtherwallet.com and other sites.

How can you protect yourself?
Never click anywhere on a link to a page where you want to log in. The best way is to bookmark the pages and just go over the web pages. In addition, you should always look for the SSL encryption. There will not be a page that stores important data from you and is located at http: //. All pages should now be encrypted SSL and have a https: // domain (although the pages can also be accessed at http: // they will redirect to https: //). The SSL certificates will also show you every browser, for example by a small lock symbol.


Type 9: Used Ledger Nano (contributed by: tosindesign)
At ebay and in other marketplaces there are always offers to buy the Ledger Nano a bit cheaper. This is particularly interesting now, where the Ledger Nano S is sold out and will be available again in one month. There have been cases in the past when users bought a used ledger on ebay and the seed from the ledger was already filled out. Anyone who has not owned a ledger to date will hardly register the difference. Of course, the previous owners have also noted the seed in these cases, which then allows them to get access to the crypto currencies that the new owner stores on the Ledger Nano S.  

How can you protect yourself?
If you want to use a hardware wallet like the Ledger Nano S, buy it directly from the manufacturer and make sure that it is still original packed. The enclosed note on which you can write down the seed should never be filled.

Type 10: Airdrops that ask for personal information (contributed by: StarKay)
There are hyped up airdrops that may ask for KYC information, that may end up being used by scammers / hackers.

How to protect yourself:
Think of your personal information as an investment as well. Research who you are giving your information to and why that ICO will need it

Type 11: Identity theft via Social Media - (contributed by: darkangel11)
You have to realize what they want from you. In the end it's always your money, while in the process they may want some personal data, a phone number, whatever they can get into.

How to protect yourself: Never willingly give anything. Don't share your real social media accounts with random people, keep your email addresses to yourself and if you have to use them make sure to have burner emails. What are burners? Not necessarily emails created for every forum and project. Just emails that don't contain your personal data and that you're not using for online shopping, banking and so on.

Please add more below, or share your story.

I think the best way to protect yourself from scammers is that keep your private keys very secure and confidential. As bitcoin transactions doesn’t involve any third party seizure and provides users anonymity so it is very very difficult to reverse your transactions so once your bitcoin has been stolen its next to impossible to get them back and moreover bitcoin is not even legalised in many countries so u can’t even do police complaint so be very conscious with your private keys.

[Ajeng07]

Usually the scammers ask for our bank account or credit card details by way of example calling or emailing, to gain access to our cash. More sophisticated fraudsters have typically found a way to hack email accounts so they can send messages that seem genuine to require funds to be transferred to the bank accounts they control. Our way to protect ourselves from scammers is not to panic, do not give any information about our card or bank account to strangers on the phone, do not hurry, do not let greed be better than us, and do not engage in things related to illegal .

[Sarastiche]

Do not invest before you research about the project, take your time to investigate details about the past record of the team behind the project, do not invest hastly in a project base on the bonus giving and deadline. It is better to be patient to invest than to loss eager

[Mymikagab]

First of all to avoid scams do not give up on this huge amount of money in exchange for your investment because of this much scam.all will do a scammer cheat and then one should not believe especially in the easy money offered us.I'm avoiding these things because i do not want to lose those things and i dont believed in the strangers