HOW TO protect yourself from Scammers

[tegarp90]

The most important thing is to not trust everyone whose giving away some money, how can you trust that ? everyone is need money and then you trust with people giving away money ?
And also if you will have a 2 people transaction with someone, make sure u're using escrow, so you won't get scammed easily.

[Ann Impas]

If it's too good to be true, then it might be false. Don't put your details on something that is not trustworthy website or phishing site. Plus don't just upload any application that could affect your computer security. Specially keep away you private keys.

[kerjakuat]

If it's too good to be true, then it might be false. Don't put your details on something that is not trustworthy website or phishing site. Plus don't just upload any application that could affect your computer security. Specially keep away you private keys.

yes you are correct bro. Never trust blinded to unknown peoples outhere. What ever they say just stay away to give your identity or private keys. Always beware on what you downloads and always make a vault for your main source account. that way you will not lose all if hacker manage to break in..always make plan B.

[hatshepsut93]

This is a good post, I think you've covered most of the scams, so I just want to add that people should be extremely careful with their cryptocurrencies in general - there are no intermediaries and no chargebacks, it's like handling cash to a stranger, so people should think carefully about every transactions that they make.

Also you should cover one of the oldest scam - the exit scam. It's when some online service that keeps coins of their customers, like an exchange, decides to suddenly close and run away with all the coins. This has happened many times in the past, so people should never hold more coins online than they can afford to lose.

[Vart4varta]

So, when checking the ICO project on "scam", you need to carefully study the information on the token, the team, the mission of the project in Whitepaper, check the founders' pages in social networks Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, be as curious as possible in order to ask questions in such soc. channels like Slack or Telegram.

[Larva14]

That is so easy to answer. Being knowledgeable will be the main factor to avoid those scammer. Scammers tend to victimize all ignorance when it comes to this field.

Scammer tend to victimize all ignorance  person and person with lack of knowledge about in cryptocurrency. If you are knowledgeable person you know how to secure your crypto. Scammer they have full of techniques to get some information only we do is make sure our personal info are safe secure and our password are always secret.

[thetruth123123]

I think that there is no 100% guarantee for that, because we have as for example the projects which appears to be great and turned to be a scam then.

[aryaadikariyansyahsuwarto]

be a smart and selective bitcoin hunter in choosing, because now there are so many scammers. so be alert and be careful.

[kangbasir]

By learning how to recognize the signs of a scammer, you can protect yourself from fraud.

[wiser]

ICOs are a huge problem. 97% fail regardless of intention going in. Many are scams from the beginning, but there are plenty where the project leaders sincerely intend to follow through once they raise the money but they can't deliver for any number of reasons. Additionally, governments all over the world are cracking down on ICOs because most of their tokens, probably all of them, actually are securities and their not registering as a security is a direct violation of the law, and not just in the United States. Trading platforms which support ICO tokens that are actually unregistered securities are also facing increasing scrutiny, as they could also be breaking the law if they provide markets for unregistered securities. This means that even if the ICO you invested in was run by honest people, and even if those people had the skills to deliver on their promises, there's still the issue that they have broken the law by not registering their security. This means that the government in the country they operate could shut them down any day and that would mean you lose your entire investment as well.

On a technical level, ICOs could be a great way for legitimate companies to raise money, but it has to be done legally and with investor protection in mind and a legal pathway has not been established anywhere.

Because of all this, my advice would be to simply avoid all ICOs. Don't invest in them.

[yoseph]

be a smart and selective bitcoin hunter in choosing, because now there are so many scammers. so be alert and be careful.

Most of the scams going around can be exposed if people are diligent enough to make research and ask questions about whatever they are thinking of investing in. Most scammers are unable to give straight answers and you will find them contradicting themselves.

[Flagship11]

Very good thread thank you for posting this.
My rule of thumb is:  don't trust anyone on the internet that you don't know in person.
Its way too easy to impersonate and make people think you are someone that you arent.

[hhk1045]

Thank you for your work, it is very beneficial, especially for newbies. According to my experience, people should double-check what he is doing and the person that he trades with. Double-check is crucial for avoiding from scammers.

[Yarsk]

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.

This is a very important information and write up but just to add a little to what you have already written, in other to stay away from being scam one need to stop being greedy because it's greed that lead to over trust on what is impossible.

[warning_btc]

Only one way to protect yourself: its zero trust for any one expect yourself.
Specially dont trust for anyone who want make you richer for nothing

[miyaka26]

First of all, you should able to understand the basic functionalities of wallet and applications and their securities protection and responsibility before engaging in something, If things are new to your knowledge then you better have the basics learned before engaging, you will be scammed and hacked for sure if you are dumb to enter crypto with minimal awareness, unbelievable return on investments in just a short period of time can be a potential scam.

[James andrew]

Scammers are everywhere so I don't show my password in social site and I should be protected it

[neliawesome]

I notice that lots of people whom I dont know are sending message to me in telegram.I have read lots of comments here in forum that never give your email address or anything to someone and I did follow their advice to be safe and secured.Lots of people are sending messages in telegram and said they are an admin but every platform I joined I read first the pinned messages and it said that beware of scammers because admin will never give personal messages unless you plead to them.So thats something suspicious why I received messages and told me that he/she will give a helping hand and propose something, so its very unusual right.The best way to protect yourself to scammers is be aware of everything.Never trust anyone easily and lastly try to read more in this forum like what I did coz its really a big help coz you will learn lots of ideas and can help you for all your decisions whether your doing right or not.

[YNAGS Team]

I personally dont participate in many of them, so I have less risk of scam, but I always study project hard, ask devs a questions and then only join.

[anggada18]

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.

the best way in this case is to take risks ..
bitcoin because of the large group community as well as other ICO projects ..
here's my way to invest:

1. avoid investing outside the bitcointalk.org forum
2. start investing on coins / tokens that are already available in the top 100 coinmarketcap.com
3. if you succeed at the second point you can start to invest in ICO.
4. ICO analysis:
a. read wp and roadmap
b. identify the team and its advisors whether it is a real account or not.
c. see the community and interests of bounty hunters in the forum or in the telegram group.
d. admin is on
f. social media is always updated.
g. reasonable allocation of funds.