Your stupidity is opportunity for scammers!

[The Cryptovator]

I don't know how may people's have realized that our stupidity is oppurtunity for scammers. I think most of scam happening due to our stupidity. It's not easy task to hacked or scam peoples. But due to lack of knowledge scammers taking easy money. It's true few scam happening unfortunately, like exchange hacking. But lot of scams happening due to our greed and stupidity. Let's discuss few of them.

Free coin offer:
Usually we always try to earn free money. This is our greedy nature. And scammers are using this as a opportunity. They will get your details then after few days will ask for verification. At the same time they will ask for private key. It has happened with lot of users. So is it not our stupidity? How can we trust someone with our private key?

Sign a message :
Just forgot the thread, I have noticed few days back that a guy got scam by signature. Someone gave few code to him for sign a message from his wallet. Code was request for payment. After sign message his fund was transferred to hacker account. Is it not a stupidity? Why should we sign with unknown code? Obviously it was happened due to lack of knowledge.

Invest on fake ICO & PONZI scheme:
This is the common scam nowadays. The reason is greedy behaviour. We always try to find out quick rich method. And this method throw us to scammer. Are we not really stupid that still now believing to ponzi scheme and we don't bother to do diligence before invest fake ICO. Our lazy behaviour and stupidity is responsible for this kind of scam.

Lazy behaviour & phishing:
During make any transaction we just copy paste address. But we forget to double check before conform the transaction. In a result, sometimes fund goes to some other wallet. How this would be happened? Easy answer, hacker successfully hacked your keyboard or device. On the other hand, hackers first attack is phishing link. This is very easy for them stolen your fund and whole wallet. We are really not care enough about phishing links. Before submit your details on any important website related with fund we should reconfirm the web address. Especially if you are using Google search. Otherwise when you will loss your fund no one could say. This is our lazy behaviour and how we got scam.

There is many more similar things how scammers are making us fool. Just we need learn more as much as possible. Most of scams are happening due to lack of knowledge. So we should be more careful before handle our funds.

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[whotookmycrypto]

The stupidest one would probably have to be sending a small amount of bitcoin to a scammer so as to receive a larger sum from them. Have to give the scammers credit though cause they do put in the effort to make it look legit. Believe the scam got so prevalent that guys like Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin spoke out against it.

If you step back to think about it. Why would they even need you to send them crypto? Can't think of any logical reason for this other than greed and stupidity.

[codehtcmail]

It is not just our stupidity, it's also the fear of missing out too, let me explain:

Free coin offer:

This has been confused with airdrops many times, forks and other forms of promotions made by new developed coins, an example is the free airdrop made on Byteball where you link your Bitcoin address to receive Byteball.
The scammers exploited the lack of knowledge to defraud people.

Sign a message:

This one I myself never thought possible, but I always signe a message from an address  which is empty, even temporarly at the time of signing.

Invest on fake ICO & PONZI scheme:

Again fear of missing out on a good ICO like in the past with Litecoin, Ethereum, Startis, makes people do bad choices, they've seen some make it big with an ICO that made 10000% returns and they want to chase the next golden opprtunity.

Lazy behaviour:

This one is a common thing among people who fall for scams, but don't forget that scammers don't want people who are alert so they make easy mistakes and they will know the person that didn't remark it is an easy target.

Scammers get sophisticated everyday, I exposed a scam on the lending section where the lender will only send to a gdax.us wallet to make you fall for it. They offered an up to 2 BTC loan without collateral the only catch is that you'll get it on gdax.us address.

[Lakai01]

I wouldnt call it stupidity. Scammers nowadays act very professional, they know exactly how they may lure their victims. I saw a lot of people fell for scams, some of them are PhDs, some Masters in engineering and some of them house wifes caring for the kids. This has nothing to do with stupidity in my opinion bit most of the time lack of knowledge about a specific topic or being too gullible.

[Erickan]

The stupidest one would probably have to be sending a small amount of bitcoin to a scammer so as to receive a larger sum from them. Have to give the scammers credit though cause they do put in the effort to make it look legit. Believe the scam got so prevalent that guys like Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin spoke out against it.

If you step back to think about it. Why would they even need you to send them crypto? Can't think of any logical reason for this other than greed and stupidity.

The advice for newbies to avoid scams is to always doubt everything for free, someone you don't know but that gives you the opportunity to make money. We would rather miss the opportunity to earn money than lose money, which is the most valuable lesson against fraud.

[logfiles]

People with a get-rich-quick attitude are most likely to be scammed as they can easily be convinced by any profit making opportunity that is too good to be true.
The excitement of making so much money in a short period over shadows their reasoning capacity when a scammer presents them with a deceptive opportunity, and they end up spending all their money and life saving without any thoughts of things going South and the end result is loosing everything to the scammers.

[Ciscopro2000]

People have been scammed for centuries, since the beginning of time.  Just as PT Barnum said, there is a sucker born everyday. 

[Becky666]

The topic should  have read "Greediness is opportunity for scammers" many victims are scammed as a result of greediness on their part and not stupidity. How do you compare stupidity and Greediness? Many victims are not stupid rather they are greedy which landed them as opportunity for the scammers to exploit. Avoid greediness is a way not to be feasted by scammers.

[Kakmakr]

Most people who fall for these scams are not just stupid, they are greedy too. A Ponzi scheme targets people who wants higher than average interest on their money and most of the times these interest rates are MUCH higher than what they would get from any other type of investment. They get baited by the regular payments and they re-invest some of the interest they get and gets pulled in deeper into the scam.

If they were not greedy, they would have taken the proceeds regularly and reduce their own capital investment until they break even or until the make a good profit. <not re-invest and lose everything when the whole thing collapse> 

[sheenshane]

Too much direct to the point but is really true. Being stupid is a sign of being vulnerable to a scam. Free coin offer is always a thing that the scammers are using to catch stupid persons who think they are the one who is taking advantage but is really not.

One of the scams that I was really having fun about is the fake ICO and Ponzi as well. I still remember the days where people are investing in the ICOs that is promising them to be one of the potential bitcoin beaters and are so much proud about it. Guess what happened? They became depressed because they were scammed and the developers vanished out of nowhere.

[Harlot]

Invest on fake ICO & PONZI scheme:
This is the common scam nowadays. The reason is greedy behaviour. We always try to find out quick rich method. And this method throw us to scammer. Are we not really stupid that still now believing to ponzi scheme and we don't bother to do diligence before invest fake ICO. Our lazy behaviour and stupidity is responsible for this kind of scam.

This one is what I really hate on all the things you gave. Once the stupid person gets victimized buy a ponzi they'll still try to join another one anf the worst part is they'll try to recruit other persons for the referral comission. The way I see it is the victim becomes a scammer itself since they always see is money and that's what I hate as it always bring out the greediness from them. Instead of stopping and trying to avoid obvious ponzis they'll try to be the first one to join in order to recruit the most. They obviously became more stupid and downright wrong just by doing that to others.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

Nice write up OP.  The biggest challenge is human nature's greatest weakness.
Too much greed for money. There have been attempts to sensitize people here and there and all over the internet but still people fall into the scammer's traps.

Personally, I have friends I have warned against getting into Ponzi schemes but funny thing is that they think I am are a hater and do not want them to progress in life and get rich. Some have even gone ahead and invested in such schemes and got their money burned. Guess who always has the last laugh.

[btcdevil]

This is the known fact of the Scammers are still able to scam as they know their are lot of users who are always greedy and in this stupidity they lose their funds and then cry. Even they have read lot of information about scam but still some of them fall for the scam trap as they try to act smart and fall for their trap.

Even their are lot of information on how to invest in ICO but still lot of them invest in ICO in initial stage as they give big bonus but in the end that ICO whether dont get their target and just scam it or they just prolong the project progress and give all false commintments and after some day just run away with what ever funds they got in ICO.

So what OP said is the true fact that The Stupidity of the users is only giving the Scammers chance to scam them.

[r1s2g3]

Stupidity?  ,No.

It's pure greed. What about fake ICO /ponzi promoters (but not the creators themselves.) They are helping the scammers for few pennies .(I doubt whether they get that pennies from those scammers).

[HellDiverUK]

Stupidity?  ,No.

It's pure greed. What about fake ICO /ponzi promoters (but not the creators themselves.) They are helping the scammers for few pennies .(I doubt whether they get that pennies from those scammers).

Crime is not only because of the intention of the culprit but also because there is an opportunity, ignorance and greed open the door for scammers ...

[acharias]

I'm seeing a lot of new scam bots on Twitter lately. They're promoting a new trading bot or something like that. Anything that sounds too good to be true is a scam by default.

[hugeblack]

I think the main reason for Scam is curiosity rather than greed.
The methods you mentioned will succeed in reducing stupid scams, but over time these scammers will discover new ways.
Thus, the less curiosity about quick profit or getting money without fatigue, the less cases of scam and thus more effort for these scammers.
We can not stop it, but at least make things harder for them.

[tranthidung]

I think the main reason for Scam is curiosity rather than greed.

Maybe you were wrong, hugeblack. Greed is the basic stuff of scam. Both of people who scam others and people who get scammed starting with greed, not curious.
Scammers created scam projects to scam others due to their greediness, not curiousity.
People who get scammed make their decisions to invest due to their greediness, they want to have huge profits from their capital, so they choose to invest into scam projects, that looks more profitable, more promising than unscam projects.

[bittraffic]

Stupidity is the result of not having the knowledge what exactly you are doing, like signing the message for a code which is actually request for payment. I have never heard of that, someone please give us the link to this thread.

Private key of course is like a password, giving this away is giving them the access to your wallet. It would be strange if you have not know about this yet after you buy BTC. Not just strange but indeed stupid because BTC is a currency and completely money alike. And when it comes to money its all about greed, that's when you try investing to profit.

I think the main reason for Scam is curiosity rather than greed.

Maybe you were wrong, hugeblack. Greed is the basic stuff of scam. Both of people who scam others and people who get scammed starting with greed, not curious.
Scammers created scam projects to scam others due to their greediness, not curiousity.
People who get scammed make their decisions to invest due to their greediness, they want to have huge profits from their capital, so they choose to invest into scam projects, that looks more profitable, more promising than unscam projects.

Greed sometimes is good though specially if you have 10 mouths to feed. Becoming greedy will make your ambitions higher, you will aim for bigger profit, quality education, nice office job or good business. But if you scam someone because of your greed that's when it gets bad.

[DrDoctor1234]

Blind greed and stupidity is why ICO's are going the way of the dodo. No one believes the hype anymore following the 2017 boom/bust cycle with ICOs where most have failed or are slowly failing.

A handful of ICOs are still going ok, but you'll notice that most of the community driven/nameless 'teams' just don't exist anymore.

I'm all for institutional investment and professionalism through STOs for tokens/altcoins. For actual Bitcoin, decentralization and transparency can remain at the forefront, and anyone who wants something different should take their greed to the gambling forum