Crypto scam increasing on social media

[_act_]

New analysis finds consumers reported losing more than $1 billion in #cryptocurrency to scams since 2021
Social media blamed for $1B in crypto scam losses in 2021

What has the government doing so far to regulate social media like they are regulating exchanges, despite that people that are using social media like Facebook, Instagram and many others do not have privacy, scammers and illicit actors still make use of the same social media to scam people. From just 2021 to 2022 first quarter, people have been scammed over $1 billion on social media. Federal Trade Commission (FCT) found that Instagram (32%), Facebook (26%), Whatsapp (9%), and Telegram (7%) were the top platforms used for crypto scams. Twitter, the social media platform widely adopted by the crypto-community, was not mentioned despite being littered with spam and scam bots touting fake crypto-giveaways.





The funniest to me is that scam is not new on social media, but it is becoming commoner and the scam on social media regard crypto is increasing, definitely all other scam are increasing on social media. When social media is not a place of privacy, why not require for ID documents for better KYC procedure than focusing most only on exchanges

[mk4]

Unfortunately that's how it is — scams will continue to exist as long as it's profitable and people get tricked. Social media sites can add the best scam/spam filters they want, but they won't be able to totally out the scammers as they will always have newer ways of twisting things to get through the filters. People in general simply just needs to be not careless and delusional.

[lovesmayfamilis]

I'm going to sound cynical, but I don't care at all that the scammers managed to scam someone on social media.

We, who have gone through a bunch of scams, will probably never stop at offers of any distribution or the promise of good profit. But the higher the popularity of cryptocurrencies, the more often scammers will manifest themselves. Nothing surprising.

Surprisingly, people want to profit. They believe in social networks, but why are they so naive? After all, there are very few cases when someone wins or makes a big profit. But we see eccentrics who believe in a miracle from the Internet.

Social media is just evil. In addition, we fully provide the authorities with information about ourselves and our relatives and allow ourselves to be deceived.

These people are stupid, and their stupidity is rewarded in every piece of spam that promises wealth.

[Daniel91]

Financial fraud has always existed, only the ways and methods have changed.
Given the growing popularity of crypto, it was expected that the number of frauds would increase, and not only on social networks.
What is the solution? The solution is what most of us do not want to hear, greater regulation and control of state authorities.
Whatever our wishes, regulation will eventually happen, and as far as I hear the EU is already actively working to pass a law on greater regulation of the crypto industry.
Yet the best defense against financial fraud is not in state regulation but in common sense 

[cryptoaddictchie]

Im sure it will double or triple in the next few years. Why those keep gaining on people, maybe we need to remind ourselves that there is no shortcut to becoming rich and those scammers propaganda is quite simple. Join it and youll rich in no time! A common statement or tagline scammers are fond of.

We should always be vigilant of whats to expect when we do risk and gamble on some freebies out there cause only few literally giving free money and maybe 99% of it are just fake one and scam.

[Maus0728]

Aside from the kinds of people wanting to be wealthy in just like 30 days, some of the people I have known who uses social media are mostly middle-aged people who have little-to-no idea of how Facebook works. Fortunately, these people who happen to be my relatives always consult me whenever they wanted to buy something from an advertisement.

I am not saying that Facebook advertisements are scams, it's just that crypto has taught us to improve our OPSEC and not trust something that randomly appears on the internet.

[Mpamaegbu]

If we're going to blame social media for the prevalence of scams this day, then we ought to blame radios and televisions for vices before the advent of social media decades ago. From the way I see this, I really don't want to solely blame social media for this, victims should also share in the blame too. Greed has always been the driving force why people fall prey to scam. Scammers know this, and latch on it. What do you expect when people want to reap where they didn't sow?

There is an ongoing one someone introduced a few people I know to. Though it doesn't require money (at least at this stage), they say it's mining of a phantom token called BTCS. I jeered at them and told them to jettison that idea that it was a bid to steal their identity. Those interested are asked to provide passports/national ID numbers with facial proof of ownership as verification. The token isn't even listed 😂😂. I told those who tried talking me into it that it was an identity theft type of scam but they argued with me. Went behind me to register. The project is so shameless that it's even using BTC logo. So, tomorrow, when it becomes clear to them that it was a scam all along; is anyone supposed to blame SM for that? Nah, of course.

[Lucius]

The biggest guilt is in those who do not understand how wrong it is to use social networks for any investment, especially when it comes to Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general. How naive you have to be (not to use a harder word) to believe in a business opportunity "send me 0.01 BTC, I'll give you back 0.02 BTC tomorrow", or, "your wallet is in danger, visit this link and enter your seed for wallet update"?

I’m not saying there are no social media responsibilities with unstoppably growing scams, but young people need to be educated in time on how to protect themselves from all the dangers that exist online. As things stand now, this kind of news only encourages other people to try to take their share of crypto cakes by trying to easily reach someone's crypto assets.

[_act_]

I'm going to sound cynical, but I don't care at all that the scammers managed to scam someone on social media.

You are right about all what you said and including this one too, but if exchanges and many other places are to forice their customers to do KYC why are social media not force their users to do KYC? Social media are full of scammers. Anyone on social media are their not to have privacy, requiring them to do KYC will be better if exchanges are to forced their customer to do it.

Information is important in life, people that have knowledge about scam can say people that are scammed on social media and dating sites are foolish, they are foolish but the government can try and reduce this through KYC document requirements.

Although it is truly foolish to intentionally send money to someone that you do not know and that you know he has nothing to lose if the person is gone with your money.

[Jawhead999]

As most people didn't want to spent their times to understand about Bitcoin and altcoins, crypto scam will always increase since not all people understand about it. It will reduced after they're learn a hard lesson, they choice will be either leave crypto space or will learn more.

When social media is not a place of privacy, why not require for ID documents for better KYC procedure than focusing most only on exchanges

Because it will lead demonstrators against their social media and migrate to another one, so instead of clearly asking a ID documents, they're asking you another thing and can be used to take your privacy e.g. phone number, email, verified photo, etc.

[cheezcarls]

The disappointing part of it is that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc., are paying less attention to these scammers and hackers who are impersonating various personalities, brands, companies, etc. Coz' no matter if we just simply ban these scammers and hackers from our respective pages and report them, they would keep coming back to scam and hack again with their different email addresses, etc.

We can't stop these scammers and hackers right now, but we'll just simply put a disclosure to make our followers aware regarding these tactics and to prevent being victimized in the future.

[Upgrade00]

What has the government doing so far to regulate social media like they are regulating exchanges,

The campaign against cryptocurrency has never been about protecting the public or saving the environment. It has been about challenging the usage of Bitcoin as it threatens the centralized control the government has over finances, hence the incessant and most times baseless attacks.

Social media regulation does not really benefit governments, they can already get as much data from users as it is.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

And if those figures sound largish, let’s bear in mind that the data only corresponds to reports made to de FCT, thus not including an estimate for those crypto scams that are not reported, and subject to a delimited geographical scope (USA).

The FTC’s report also indicates a couple more details:

-   Overall, the data corresponds to those scam payments made in crypto, being around 25% of the total, but crypto (taken as a whole) represents the most implicates payment method.

-   The median (not average) is of around 2600$.

-   Payments were made mostly in BTC (70%), Tether (10%) and ETH (9%) (I’m pretty surprised to see Tether above ETH).

-   Half of the people that were crypto-scammed had their point of contact in an Ad, post or message on social media. The other 50% are not detailed (I figure they must be direct landings, articles and such).

I would have figured Telegram was the top social networks used to commit these scams. The data states that Instagram stands out as the top social media network used for these scams, which is not the perception one has when reading cases on this forum. I miss YouTube on the list.

[stompix]

And if those figures sound largish, let’s bear in mind that the data only corresponds to reports made to de FCT, thus not including an estimate for those crypto scams that are not reported, and subject to a delimited geographical scope (USA).
~
I would have figured Telegram was the top social networks used to commit these scams. The data states that Instagram stands out as the top social media network used for these scams, which is not the perception one has when reading cases on this forum. I miss YouTube on the list.

Some of the red flags consumers should watch out for include:
a love interest who wants to show you how to invest in cryptocurrency or to send them cryptocurrency.
Romance scams are a distant second to investment scams, with $185 million in reported cryptocurrency losses since 2021

If all the scams had been reported you would have seen Tinder making the top 5 also 
And unfortunately, it's not a joke, it's reality, I've seen numerous claims here on this forum about guys being scammed large sums of money after meeting somebody on Tinder, and on Instagram, usually the rich trader girl who is looking for an old friend in your city but she can't find it but since you're her type she will let you one a secret on how to make a ton of money!

I already know the whole story when a victim comes in and says someone he found on the internet has told him to, I've got so used to these I don't even have to listen to the what he says, I know all the steps beforehand. I think that these are the most under-reported scams, I don't see more than 1% of the scammed person going to the police station and telling the officers, I saw a sexy girl on tinder and I decided to send her 10k euros to invest in crypto, especially if the poor guy is married and was looking for an affair.

I miss YouTube on the list.

Scams on YT happen far less often and have little variations, is basically a video sending you to a website.
Instagram and telegram come with a lot of talk between the scammer and the victim, allowing for more scenarios and for more "intimate" conversations. 

[Luzin]

I already know the whole story when a victim comes in and says someone he found on the internet has told him to, I've got so used to these I don't even have to listen to the what he says, I know all the steps beforehand. I think that these are the most under-reported scams, I don't see more than 1% of the scammed person going to the police station and telling the officers, I saw a sexy girl on tinder and I decided to send her 10k euros to invest in crypto, especially if the poor guy is married and was looking for an affair.

I think the most deceived are the people who have just started crypto. Their ignorance and carelessness make the deception even more intense. This is interconnected with the increasingly large market volume. Of course, many bad guys have seized this opportunity. So be a selective and conscientious person. Don't be easily attracted by huge profits. Be careful to post whatever it is related to your money, assets, family and all your assets. All of that they can use to benefit from you.  I think your key is only one, don't believe anything that's on social media before you find the real evidence and facts.

[Hyphen(-)]

I would have figured Telegram was the top social networks used to commit these scams. The data states that Instagram stands out as the top social media network used for these scams, which is not the perception one has when reading cases on this forum. I miss YouTube on the list.

I had the same thought, hoping to see Telegram take the lead because scammers frequently use Telegram as their home base for scamming people. Nonetheless, almost all of these social media scams are the result of greed, with many individuals wanting quick money for which they did not work for, which always leads to us beginners being scammed.

[Ziskinberg]

New analysis finds consumers reported losing more than $1 billion in #cryptocurrency to scams since 2021
Social media blamed for $1B in crypto scam losses in 2021

What has the government doing so far to regulate social media like they are regulating exchanges, despite that people that are using social media like Facebook, Instagram and many others do not have privacy, scammers and illicit actors still make use of the same social media to scam people. From just 2021 to 2022 first quarter, people have been scammed over $1 billion on social media. Federal Trade Commission (FCT) found that Instagram (32%), Facebook (26%), Whatsapp (9%), and Telegram (7%) were the top platforms used for crypto scams. Twitter, the social media platform widely adopted by the crypto-community, was not mentioned despite being littered with spam and scam bots touting fake crypto-giveaways.





The funniest to me is that scam is not new on social media, but it is becoming commoner and the scam on social media regard crypto is increasing, definitely all other scam are increasing on social media. When social media is not a place of privacy, why not require for ID documents for better KYC procedure than focusing most only on exchanges

I think even if the government will create precautionary measures about it, it won't be able to stop scamming, although i believe it might be minimized somehow. The best way for it to be controlled is to create more awareness on the people so they can be more careful and never easily trust strangers found online as they can be the source of scamming. Social media is the trend right now so it will be hard for the people not to have an access on them but atleast they should always seek for legalization whenever transactions are done online.

[AakZaki]

They will not be able to cope on their own. Remember how many millions of videos there are on Youtube, they have the limitation of keeping an eye on it all. It seems like they need our contribution to do a report on a video that has content to deceive. I think it's not just youtube all social media there is, we just need to be careful with everything we post.
I think this increase is also based on an increase in the number of crypto followers. Because the chance of cheating is to a new person, although not all happens to new people. I think don't trust foreigners who offer business through virtual media. So your assets must be in your own control.

[Markinzo]

Asking the government to regulate the social media is more like asking for the regulation of people's right to freedom of speech and interaction globally.

It's left for people using social media to be self aware of how they make use of the media.

[Coyster]

The funniest to me is that scam is not new on social media, but it is becoming commoner and the scam on social media regard crypto is increasing, definitely all other scam are increasing on social media. When social media is not a place of privacy, why not require for ID documents for better KYC procedure than focusing most only on exchanges

Social media users can't be expected to fulfil stringent KYC protocols before creating an account on a social media platform, similar to procedures required when creating an exchange account. Social media platforms are by design for interaction between people, and not necessarily a high-risk platform for trade/where money can be lost, i know quite a lot go on in our social media today, but that isn't its purpose, it is just that, as people interact with one another, there is also a high chance they would talk to a scammer sooner or later, and if they are not shrewd, they would lose funds to that person, but as a result of their own folly.

An Exchange is an area of trade, it is a platform where quite a lot of money goes in and out of, it is only necessary that KYC and AML policies and stamped in such platforms, it is by design a high-risk space where people can lose funds/get scammed. Social media doesn't really need these, people need to just get less greedy and actually think before attempting to make some fast money for themselves.