Contacted via Telegram for bounty program

[Serena_M]

I was just contacted by a project by DM in Telegram asking me to join their bounty program because they have seen me participating in other bounties. Is this even "legal"? I mean, aren't all of ICOs and projects supposed to not message first? A probable scam?

[1714832807]

1714832807

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

ICOs are mostly in a less than grey legal area, so there is nothing surprising there. Nevertheless, it may well be an impersonator/scammer who may lure you in, using the bounty program as a pretext, and you eventually end-up providing information which you will later regret.

[Korkorjkk]

There are telegram campaigns in which people are paid on the groups of people in telegram.  There are some too that pay based on referals made, that is why people pm others to join their telegram groups.   

[Hivalley]

On a normal note,and projects I work for,the bounty or the managers do not message you first and I've never experienced this,a direct pm to join a bounty,i think you ought to be careful with it
The only rampant one is being added to multiple telegram groups without your consent,which I most often report spam and exit the group,i haven't ever been contacted by a direct pm

[3acaga]

Do not, under any circumstances, enter your wallet via the links provided to you in a telegram, e-mails or anywhere else.
Scammers use this to lure you to a phishing wallet site and find out your details.

[Stedsm]

I was just contacted by a project by DM in Telegram asking me to join their bounty program because they have seen me participating in other bounties. Is this even "legal"? I mean, aren't all of ICOs and projects supposed to not message first? A probable scam?

That's probably a part of "false advertising" and I guess we don't have a DND - "Do Not Disturb" button for such bullshit projects who steal other ICOs' members' details from those groups and then add them in their own channel. Don't do anything, just tap over "Report Spam and Leave", Telegram will take care of the rest. Neither they be called scammers, nor they be said genuine because no one tested them and as bounties are a part of an ongoing ICO, we consider it the beginning phase, so judging them at such period is not possible.

[Potato Chips]

You could always rely on the red flags op, one should always know when to stay away.

In this case, we can think of the following possibilities: a). the project can't gather enough bounty participants through usual methods b). the project chose not to use those methods c). As DdmrDdmr said, the bounty could just be a pretext. Either way, its all bad ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Do Stedsm's suggestion and report them! and I'm actually encouraging everyone to do it everytime you receive unwanted messages, most especially if you're a member of any crypto groups as you're most likely to receive one.

[kingpin4321]

One thing with telegram is the easy in which one can be added to a group by another person even without there consent although just above you would see a report spam.

Well I don't think any genuine project manager would contact you privately to partake in any bounty excerpt that they are a scam project you should not let greed get the best of you do not even think about it do the needful and report it

[Pmalek]

If you use Telegram you should disable the option that anyone can just randomly add you to any telegram group they want. Do that by going to Settings > Privacy and Security > Groups > And select My Contacts.

If you get PMed by someone asking you to participate in a bounty program, check who the user is. Find the telegram channel that he claims he is the admin of (if he makes such claims) and check if it is the same username and if he has the admin tag. Click on his name and select Send Private message - if the window leads to the same PM you already received then he really is an admin of that group.  

Although most PMs over telegram are different types of scams not all of them are. Here is an example.
If you are a translator or content creator (video, graphics, audio...) a bounty manager might have seen your work somewhere and would like to appoint you to take part in his bounty as well. Like I said you need to make sure that you are talking to the right person and that such a bounty exists.

Imagine if the bounty manager needs a document translated into French. He can just go to the French subforum and check some of the translations he sees there and contact the translators he likes. All the data is public anyway (google sheets, posts on the forum etc).