HOW TO protect yourself from Scammers

[Jossy111]

thanks for these information, i learnt from it and i also see it as an eye opener. although you have said it all ... there is no 100% precautions that proof safety when it comes to internet fraud but we just have to be care in all our dealings to avoid scammers.

[angeltee]

Scammers are everywhere now especially for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and other coins have more enemies than friends. Developers and programmers are really taking advantage of the novice in this industry. The best way to guide against them is to keep your private key and wallet id and password from the public. With this you can be safe from scammers and fraud.

[creative-raju33]

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.

Thanks for your suggestion. It is very useful for me...

[jonsky05]

There's a lot of kind of scammer but the  same is they want is to steal your money so we need to be extra careful in any situation.  Because once you fall in their trap you cannot scape and you lose everything.

[Yarsk]

The only effective way to secure your assets against scammers is by holding your information away from them, never store any thing like secret keys online or backing it up in an email, and also stop being greedy because that is the only thing that will drag you into being scammed.

[Earthwood]

The only effective way to secure your assets against scammers is by holding your information away from them, never store any thing like secret keys online or backing it up in an email, and also stop being greedy because that is the only thing that will drag you into being scammed.

There are many ways to protect your cryptos. One of the most basic to secure your assets is to keep your personal information and account private. Second, learn how to read. It’s very simple instruction but many of us are blinded by these scammers with their flowering words by promoting false information. And lastly, learn to be realistic at all times.

[paparexon0414]

Nice information for the newbies. I want to give some opinion regarding this.
1. Some of the icos really are a scam, even you are just doing campaign it is still a hard work so read carefuly their projects and their plans. If no spreedsheet dont apply for it.
2. Fake coins? They use same name of the known coins so you better reqlly check their contact address when buying.
3. Most of the scam are in the social media. Check their account if its new. Beware of that. Dont be lured by it.
 And for the rest, just be careful. Some People who are in tgis wrong doings will do all the strategies just to have our money. If you are not smart enough to differentiate this scam, its very unlucky to you to loss all your money to nothing.

[mia khalifa]

to be able to protect myself from scammers it seems like I need some experience so should be able to avoid it, the way I use it is I have to search for very clear and deeper information, and do not believe it by doubling the bitcoin easily.

[Polkadott]

You should always be careful every time you transact online because scammed is currently very smart so be careful with them. And the most important thing you must have to avoid a scam is to bring enough knowledge to determine if the person is a scanner or not

[Hautkopfsalat]

Never ever share your private key!!! Not even to anybody who says he's from the support or anybody ever!!

[Yadstiker]

to protect yourself from scammer,keep your etherum wallet,keep all the password and dont share with anybody

Well i didn't say i don't agree with your opinion but scammer is everywhere even though you don't share your personal password and even if you didn't tell anybody about it but still scammer's have a way like using online site's, there are some reports in transferring funds that most of the site's now are not trusted.

[fcf1081]

Scammer and hacker now a days are smart they will do everything to get what they want that is why we need to doubled our security to protect our wallet and we need to be knowledgeable or wise enough so that they will not be outweigh by the those scammer. 

[TheGreatUnknown]

Thank you for sharing that wonderful statement of yours and I hope it will come to handy someday.
It is true that there are a lot of ICO who are just scam, but in my experience in cryptocurrency what I do is to avoid scam is to buy it when it is already available in the market, ICO phase is something I don't trust completely and this is my way of protecting myself to some scamming incidence.

[Juggy777]

This is a very nice initiative but you forgot the most important one common sense and logic, if it's to good to true then it's false. People often fall for those catchy ads and fake generators saying they'll get one btc or they fall to simple tricks like giving away their seed and password which is so dumb. I hope you can add common sense and logic also to your list.

[SingAlong]

There are many ways to protect ourselves from scammers but the major tips to avoid scammers are being knowledgeable in the world of cryptocurrency because if you know everything no one can fool you and you can detect or analyze what is true and not. Just be aware and dont make decisions without thinking.

[clarkey2013]

I think that the best protection for hackers is your own care! Do not store money on the exchange, use double authentication and do not store your passwords in an easily accessible place.

[Krabat]

Scammers are everywhere now especially for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and other coins have more enemies than friends. Developers and programmers are really taking advantage of the novice in this industry. The best way to guide against them is to keep your private key and wallet id and password from the public. With this you can be safe from scammers and fraud.

It is best to trust proven solutions in this industry. Already a long time ago there are hardware wallets. You can buy yourself such a purse and do not worry about your private key more than ever.

[Xising]

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.

I agree. That's my main way of determining scams too, but mind you, it's easier said than done. Scammers nowadays are also becoming witty and smart, they know how to hide their tracks, and you wouldn't even see it until the very end of a project. Therefore, I would say that even if you get scammed, you should accept that it's part of this market since there are only a few safeguards that are put up to actually protect users, the only one you can rely on is yourself.

[shadowduck]

First of all, you must protect your money, which you already have. If you are not trading, transfer all your money from the exchange to the purse, use two-factor authentication, do not store passwords in an easily accessible place and do not tell anyone how much money you have.

[tanjiran]

First of all, you must protect your money, which you already have. If you are not trading, transfer all your money from the exchange to the purse, use two-factor authentication, do not store passwords in an easily accessible place and do not tell anyone how much money you have.

Using wallet exchange untum to store assets is very risky, so use a wallet exchange when trading only. Additionally linking with emails and providing complicated passwords can improve your aet security. Last suggestion, avoid website phising.