How do we deal with all the disgusting snake oil salesmen?

[KonstantinosM]

They use bitcoin and crypto as a blanket to make themselves look better and peddle the same get rich quick schemes. They usually try to get people to pay for newsletters and other nonsense.

I don't usually watch ads due to adblock but I watched some YouTube videos on my phone and there was an infinite amount of such malicious ads. It's fair to say that there's going to be people who buy into the nonsense.

It's easy to recognize one of these but they wouldn't be profitable enough to buy so many ads if they weren't successful. These aren't spam e-mails that cost nothing. They are hour-long YouTube video ads.

I think the quickest way to get to people is to make parodies of these people and ads and memes, but I don't have the inclination or creativity to do so right now.

Teeka Tiwari, he can be painted as the tick he really is. And he kind of looks like a tick.

In one of these ads there was Sarah Palin. She was the governor of Alaska. This is kind of nuts.

Recognizing a scam like this is easy. The most common red flag is the promise of crazy returns, and they do it in steps, where the promises get crazier and crazier. That tactic might work, like they're trying to convince little by little over the course of the ads. Another red flag is their pandering to people's emotions. This money could mean a vacation home, creating priceless memories, blah blah blah. Then there are the obvious fake stories of starting from being poor and knowing what it was like and that's why they want to help people or whatever.

[hatshepsut93]

If there's too much "snake oil salesmen" aka scammers, the platform will just blanket ban any mentions of crypto. Facebook already did something like that. Other social medias have banned crypto ads. This just shows the laziness of these companies - they would rather lose ad revenue and users instead of developing more selective tools that only target scammers. Why? Because crypto is such a small market to them.

I think the quickest way to get to people is to make parodies of these people and ads and memes, but I don't have the inclination or creativity to do so right now.

Memes only work if they are popular, and most people, even in crypto sphere, never heard about those scammers, so memes about unknown persons won't stick.

[7788bitcoin]

They use bitcoin and crypto as a blanket to make themselves look better and peddle the same get rich quick schemes. They usually try to get people to pay for newsletters and other nonsense.

In one word just avoid them altogether. There are many self proclaimed cryptocurrency experts and advisors and i usually avoid social media simply because of that as you will be bombarded with hype projects and theories about how their speculation could give you the desired profit and so on. The worst is always the new projects that shill through paid advertisers .

[Darker45]

I think the quickest way to get to people is to make parodies of these people and ads and memes, but I don't have the inclination or creativity to do so right now.

The sad truth is that there are always people who are inclined to take risks on easy-money or get-rich-quick schemes. I dunno, they're probably lazy enough or perhaps they just prefer to take short cuts in life. Honestly, I'm not sure if memes and parodies will sway them to decide otherwise. If there is a scam ad and a meme on that scam itself beside each other on a single page, these people might end up more interested in the former rather than the latter.

I have a friend who was a victim to a crypto scam. I tried to convince her why it was a scam. She didn't listen and, worse, even resisted. She's even turning the table and ended up the one explaining to me why the scam is legit. Well, I'm not one who would reason out against someone who is already consumed by something. I'd say my piece and let her decide to take heed or learn the lesson the hard way.

[mk4]

Unfortunately, there are snake oil salesmen inside and outside the cryptocurrency space, and educating people through whatever means can only do so much in preventing them from falling for these promotions. While I still advocate for educating people, most people are simply going to learn the hard way.

[pooya87]

Unfortunately, there are snake oil salesmen inside and outside the cryptocurrency space, and educating people through whatever means can only do so much in preventing them from falling for these promotions. While I still advocate for educating people, most people are simply going to learn the hard way.

The problem is that the "education" is already found on the internet with hundreds of similar cases and not just in bitcoin! Majority of scam methods used are oldest tricks in the book, but some people don't want to bother ever spending a little bit of time to do some research and find that "education". So in the end it doesn't matter (for them) how much effort we put in warning them.

[Wexnident]

Nothing you can do at this point except to report. Honestly, the internet has been out for so long that scams and the like have been so apparent already, and yet people still fall for them. Scammers are always there no matter what, you can't really erase/eradicate them since most of them have "legal" fronts, and they are numerous, which makes it hard for platforms to handle them specifically. Add that to how Humans have this basic notion of not my problem so I don't care attitude, you'd really just have to let them experience things the hard way. Letting them know is one thing, but them learning about it is another.

[zanezane]

Nothing you can do at this point except to report. Honestly, the internet has been out for so long that scams and the like have been so apparent already, and yet people still fall for them. Scammers are always there no matter what, you can't really erase/eradicate them since most of them have "legal" fronts, and they are numerous, which makes it hard for platforms to handle them specifically. Add that to how Humans have this basic notion of not my problem so I don't care attitude, you'd really just have to let them experience things the hard way. Letting them know is one thing, but them learning about it is another.

Most reports do not deter this people, trust me I did it already, they are like the Greek monster hydra. The best solution I have learned from dealing with these people is by simply ignoring them, if everyone someday ignore these types of people, there will come a time when they will all die down because there are no gullible people to sweet talk, everyone thinks for themselves. I have to agree with you regarding experiencing the scam but there is a better way to do than that, and that is to listen to the other scam victims testimonies, remember that wise learn from the experience of the other.

[avikz]

The "Snake oil Salesman" AKA scammers will never cease to exist from crypto space, that's for sure! Crypto market is unregulated and that's what is giving these scammers a power to pursue people for their wrong agenda and get rick quick schemes! It's almost impossible to get rid of them! The only thing that can help is "Education", a proper crypto education where people will understand the cryptocurrencies and how they function. This way they can quickly understand that crypto is not a "get rich quick" scheme in any way!

To educate common mass all we need to do is to follow the saying - Charity begins at home! Start educating your friends and family to stay away from any scheme that offers astronomical returns in the name of bitcoin because bitcoin is not an investment! Remember that a simple act of caring creates an endless ripple! Start from today!

[20kevin20]

For YouTube and all those other platforms.. the solution sits into the company's hands, hence why I always say moving away from YT and other corporation sustaining scams is the best thing we can do.

After all, if you really think about it, people who fall to these kind of scams are quite immature honestly and they'll likely fall into other traps at one point anyway. It's pretty much more than logical that "get-rich-quick" schemes are going to end up being scams; I'm pretty surprised that even ponzi schemes sometimes still work tbh.. And unless YT or Twitter or whoever else allows their ads give a damn, discrediting them is almost next to impossible.

[ChrisPop]

I think that in one way or another avoiding scams is a necessary skill for any wanna-be investor. Getting scammed is a great lesson and teaches people to look objectively at the pros and cons of an opportunity.
Personally I would not spend time watching a video/parody of scammers, but beginners in online investing might find it useful, though.

[mk4]

The problem is that the "education" is already found on the internet with hundreds of similar cases and not just in bitcoin! Majority of scam methods used are oldest tricks in the book, but some people don't want to bother ever spending a little bit of time to do some research and find that "education". So in the end it doesn't matter (for them) how much effort we put in warning them.

True. Like I said, majority of people are going to learn the hard way. Though the ratio of exerted effort to percentage of people educated is really bad, I personally still prefer at least attempting to save those really small minority from losing money.

[romero121]

When we find it to be a scam approach what needs to be done is ignore it. Scam approach happen through different means and the snake oil scam is one of the oldest that is still existing. People are getting educated, and the same could make people get rid of scams. Apart from this I've come across an oil which is advertised for hair growth and it is mentioned, obtained from Amazon forests.

[irixo10]

In my own opinion, I still maintain the mindset that what attracts people into all these fraudulent schemes is greed. This is because, the rewards will always attract them while making them blind to ask themselves questions like how genuine is this, why this huge reward and if they are giving such rewards, what will be the gain of the team and so on. Therefore, so far there are people who are easily enticed by all these high returns, scammers will keep advancing their skills and tactics to get more. In addition, another reason why the scammers seems to progress is the fact they hide under crypto just like you said, thus using the genuine nature of crypto to get to their targeted users. Lastly, most times it is easy to identify scams, but most people are too glued to their quest to make quick money that they fails to point out a scam project or fraudulent schemes.

[KonstantinosM]

Advertising a legitimate product is okay, but when you're advertising a scam, and earning money from it, you're in some way guilty as well. Maybe YouTube should be forced to run, some anti-get rich quick scheme PSAs, or at the very least there should be prominent warnings at the beginning of all such ads.

[_Miracle]

You already have the right idea...

They use bitcoin and crypto as a blanket to make themselves look better and peddle the same get rich quick schemes. T

Recognizing a scam like this is easy. The most common red flag is the promise of crazy returns

this you tube video (and reading posts on bitcointalk) stopped me from a Butterfly labs preorder.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jYNMKdv36w&ab_channel=FratorityLife

[Zionatin]

People who fall for these type of scams are true idiots. Noone is trying to help you get rich. I don't know why people fall into the fallacy that some a hole out there want to make your rich. It doesn't even make sense.
Scams are obvious. As soon as you see expensive cars, pictures of money, hot women and yacht. Promises are the next give away. No one can make promises no one is a fortune teller.
Always ask how the person you are giving money to is going to make a profit off of you.

Then it's down to blind greed & desperation. If you making investments with desperation you are probably going to lose your money.

[KonstantinosM]

You already have the right idea...

They use bitcoin and crypto as a blanket to make themselves look better and peddle the same get rich quick schemes. T

Recognizing a scam like this is easy. The most common red flag is the promise of crazy returns

this you tube video (and reading posts on bitcointalk) stopped me from a Butterfly labs preorder.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jYNMKdv36w&ab_channel=FratorityLife

Butterfly labs! A blast from the past, I did have a pre-order, what a shitshow, I did get 3x+ ROI through mining but what a waste of time. I only did okay because I was one of the earlier suckers rather than the later suckers so I actually received shipment earlier than a lot of people.

There was a thread warning people, before I actually ordered but I never read the thread This is the thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110805.0

I wanted to mine a lot of bitcoin and hold it but since my rig got so delayed that I could only mine a relatively small amount (I think about 0.2 BTC per day  for the first few days) (Using the 600 dollar rig) I got discouraged.

I didn't even bother mining after a while when my returns got pretty low. A pretty bad decision considering where we are now.

If I had gotten the rig on time I could have mined a lot of bitcoin and I would have held on to a lot more. It was a particularly painful wait because the first halving came and went.

I knew I was taking a giant risk and I still wired them the money. They could have easily run and not shipped a product at all. I consider myself lucky.


Edit: My BFL order pre-dates my Bitcointalk account. Kind of crazy to think of.
The order took 10 months and 11 days to ship, just under 10 months from payment to receiving the product.