Have you ever been scammed ?

[Becassine]

Of course, there are many forms of scams, and scammed people have different profiles. At first I thought people who were scammed were too naive or too greedy, but in reality scams are diverse. Perhaps we could list the different forms of scam and, if need be, tell our own story to help others protect themselves. Don't forget to report scammers in the dedicated topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0). Don't hesitate to tell me or correct me if I've made a mistake in my list.

1. There are the naive scammed, who haven't read enough about how to protect themselves and will simply give their private keys to a stranger who claims to help them.

2. There are the CEX scammed. MtGox, FTX etc ..., they can be beginners or experts.

3. Greedy scammed. Those who were promised crazy returns without doing anything. (Bitconnect for example or Madoff in TradFi))

4. Romantic scammed. A "nice" meeting on the Internet, some nice promises, and the romantic scammed are relieved of their funds.

5. The tired scammed, drunk, drugged or simply distracted by the kids doing bullshit next to him/her. A bit out of his depth, he won't realize that he's on a phising site for example.

6. The betrayed scammed. Whether a beginner or an expert, the betrayed scammed has trusted someone (friend, colleague, lover...) and lost his or her funds.

7. The shitcoin scammed. He/she bought lots of shitcoins on an obscure Pump and Dump group.

8. the sim-swap scammed (https://www.businessinsider.com/credit-card-phone-theft-sim-swap-identity-theft-investigation-2023-4?r=US&IR=T). Beginner or expert, the victim is deprived of all access from one minute to the next. The ease of the hack seems to depend on the country.

9. The clipboard virus scammed. In that case LoyceV explained that (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5190776.0) :

How it works
1. You select a Bitcoin address, and press CTRL-C.
2. The malware changes the address to an address owned by the hacker/scammer.
3. You press CTRL-V and lose any funds you send.
Even if you check part of the pasted Bitcoin address, chances are the first few characters are the same, and you still won't notice the address was changed.

10. The social media scammed. A friend has his twitter account hacked and asks all the victim's contacts for money. Or a VIP has his account hacked and promises a giveaway (it's like you send me an ETH and I'll send you 2 back, it sounds crazy but some people believe it).

11. The scam application scammed. (it's getting a little weird my inventions of words  ). Victims, attracted by the fear of having to pay a fine or attracted by a supposed gift, will scan a QR-code or click on a fraudulent link (classic phishing). Then, if the victim downloads a fraudulent application and validates the authorizations, then the scammer will take control of the smartphone and possession of the wallets and bank accounts. => https://upgradedtamilan.com/an-ordinary-cup-of-tea-cost-a-woman-from-singapore-1-5-million-rubles/

Am I forgetting any?

Has this happened to you or someone you know ?

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[FrozenBit]

2, 3, 7 is what I've been through.

And I was also scammed by an impersonator of a relative, I remember when that person stole my friend's social media account and texted that he wanted to borrow USDT to pay fees, of course on a close level with me took absolutely no precautions and sent the money to the wallet address in the message, even though it was a long time ago but it helped me learn a big lesson not to be too quick to believe things on the internet, and now being exposed to certain terms like deepfake it makes me even more wary.

[Nwada001]

First, this topic is not best suited for Bitcoin discussion as it's not entirely related to Bitcoin. To me, it's either on beginners and helping them reach out to Newbies easily or on scam accusations, where everything relating to scams is being discussed.
 
I have only been a victim of what you called the "shitcoin scam." I have a lot of the rug-pulled tokens in both my BSC and ERC-20 wallets. Those were when I came in new to crypto, and I literally bought anything that was newly listed or recommended by anyone because I believed one of them was going to pump and I was going to cash out huge, but all were just mere imagination, which made me invest my funds wrongfully.
 
I believe one of the most common scams right now is romance. Where we have a lot of impersonators online pretending to be who they are not and going after their selected gender victims, convincing them into a romantic relationship, building trust with them I don't know how they do it, but it's common these days, and when they have convinced the person enough, that's when they will, in one way or another, start scamming the person out of their hard-earned money. This romantic scam also leads to some sort of investment scam. When you trust someone enough, they will use that trust to their advantage and introduce you to some sort of investment plan where, out of trust, you will have to hand your money over to them. The exploit will continue until the victim realizes themselves and separates themselves from the scammer.

[Becassine]

2, 3, 7 is what I've been through.

And I was also scammed by an impersonator of a relative, I remember when that person stole my friend's social media account and texted that he wanted to borrow USDT to pay fees, of course on a close level with me took absolutely no precautions and sent the money to the wallet address in the message, even though it was a long time ago but it helped me learn a big lesson not to be too quick to believe things on the internet, and now being exposed to certain terms like deepfake it makes me even more wary.

I hadn't thought of this last way of scamming  

@Nwada001 : I sent a DM to the mod to put this thread in another place if necessary.

[ImThour]

Yes, I have been scammed once for $5,000. I was paying from my Ledger Hardware Wallet to Exchange for a quick P2P Withdraw and I realized I sent it to some address which has exactly same first 5 characters and last 5 characters similar to my Exchange Deposit Address. The attack which was done on me was Address Poisoning. I just copied the address from my Recent Transaction History on Ledger and sent $5k USDT. I still feel ashamed of that as I have kept myself safe from every other possible scam attack.

[bayu7adi]

3. Greedy scammed. Those who were promised crazy returns without doing anything.

My neighbor is a retired civil servant, no longer young in age. There's a little story about both him and myself, where I might feel guilty about my presence in his life.

So, when the pandemic struck, my neighbor suddenly came to my house carrying a smartphone and showed me that he had bought some coins and stored them in a wallet on his phone. Being unfamiliar with the name of the coins he purchased, I tried to ask him. "Where did you buy those coins, uncle?" Then he replied, "There was a well-dressed person who offered me to buy these coins. He said that in 2 months, the price of these coins will skyrocket."

I was immediately taken aback and suspicious of the prevalent scam methods during that time. I delved deeper into these coins' details. And it turned out that my suspicion was correct, the coins purchased by my neighbor were from a scammer. The scammer was very clever, targeting elderly people. The scammer invited the victims to have a meal together first. In the midst of these dining activities, the scammer offered his fake coins to the victims.

[Cantsay]

Has this happened to you or someone you know ?

One way or another we might have been scammed, while some have lost huge amount of money to scammer that affected their lives some have only lost pennies to scammers.

For me, I was scammed back then before I even dreamed of becoming a member of this forum from which I learned how to spot and prevent such stupid scams. I remember paying $2 - $3 back then to register for a site that pays out some of its users if they successfully refer others to the site but on the day of the withdrawal (the did set a particular day in which everyone will get paid, which was the first red flag of the site) after requesting for withdrawal and waiting for sometime without any response we contacted the admin and received an excuse from them claiming that the delay was due to the traffic and after a few hours the site went blank.  

Mine falls under the ignorance on how to conduct proper research.

[Becassine]

Yes, I have been scammed once for $5,000. I was paying from my Ledger Hardware Wallet to Exchange for a quick P2P Withdraw and I realized I sent it to some address which has exactly same first 5 characters and last 5 characters similar to my Exchange Deposit Address. The attack which was done on me was Address Poisoning. I just copied the address from my Recent Transaction History on Ledger and sent $5k USDT. I still feel ashamed of that as I have kept myself safe from every other possible scam attack.

Could you please explain me how it functions please ? Thank you

[Dunamisx]

Scam can come in many forms by the scammers, but what i may not take as scam is when we from ourselves rent out our private informations to them for hack, if you're using a centralized exchange, you're not safe and are prone to two categories, the exchange itself may try to scam us or the exchange got hacked by external hackers, though I've never been a victim of either the hack or exchange scam before and don't think i will ever had such an experience of loosing my asset for some unserious gangs of hackers ready to steal away our fund.

[Hatchy]

Has this happened to you or someone you know ?

I agree with the issue of scams on social media. It's unfortunate that scammers have come up with different ways to trick people and take their money. Just last week my friend's WhatsApp account got hacked, and the scammers used his account to ask all his friends for money. Some of them fell for it and it's sad to see how common these scams have become.

I think the largest targeted medium for scam is the social media, and a lot of other means including crypto scams.
We all need to be aware of these scams and be careful when using social media or engaging with unknown individuals, always  staying informed and cautious so we can protect ourselves and our loved ones from becoming victims of these schemes

[sunsilk]

The #3, in the form of a ponzi and pyramid scam.

Its existence has been there even before bitcoin has been made. When I was younger I was scammed by it once and I was naive not knowing that it's a typical scam.

This is like even your friends that have joined these ponzi's wouldn't care about you to be victimized by them just to get a commission and have their money back before the collapse.

[Vinaa77]

So far I myself am still in a safe position and the assets that I have saved so far, because of this I tend not to research Altcoins or similar tokens too much for use in trading or investing, so far I often choose Altcoins that have developed good and safe.
Maybe one of our colleagues has experienced some of the above points, and in that case he didn't really think about the risk of loss, because his thinking when using some of what you mentioned like shitcoin and others was just to try and research.

[Zaguru12]

2, 3, 7 is what I've been through.

And I was also scammed by an impersonator of a relative, I remember when that person stole my friend's social media account and texted that he wanted to borrow USDT to pay fees, of course on a close level with me took absolutely no precautions and sent the money to the wallet address in the message, even though it was a long time ago but it helped me learn a big lesson not to be too quick to believe things on the internet, and now being exposed to certain terms like deepfake it makes me even more wary.

I hadn't thought of this last way of scamming  
 

I would say this type of scam mostly happens on the Facebook social media platform. Before many people use to have their contact numbers as their passwords and their accounts usually get hacked easily. The hacker will now read all your messages and detect those you might be close with or those that you have done business with one time or the other. Then he will start asking the person for loan stating some pressing things he is going through. This loan is this in form of crypto since you can’t dictate the owner of a crypto asset like you will do in bank transactions. You end up sending funds to him.

The easiest way to beat this type of scam is to through to communicate the account owner through another means, effectively through calls. This way you will hear directly from the person.

Am I forgetting any?

I can’t see the telegram exchange group own: this one happens locally where you are invited into a group and then you will see them buying and selling cryptocurrency coins and tokens with a much better price than almost all exchanges then due to naivety and greediness you end up buying or selling to them. The group will have fake people in it and a self claimed escrow. They will ask you to send to the escrow first and once you do that you will just be instantly removed from the group.

[CryptSafe]

Hahahaha!
Very funny mate. You did justice to the topic. I have had such experience and I belong to number 7. Shitcoin rugpulled from a scam pump and dump group that suck mate. I got lots of scam shitcoin token stocked up in my wallet for years now during my early years as a newbie. Men I lost funds to those mess as I did not doy due diligence on the pump and dump shitcoin group. Although I learnt my lesson since then and never Will I make such mistake again.

[JeromeTash]

7. The shitcoin scammed. He/she bought lots of shitcoins on an obscure Pump and Dump group.

I have never been scammed in most of the other way listed. Maybe the way I got scammed was through a shitcoin that promised to have higher gains. I held bags of the shitcoin and it just kept dumping and dumping until I just exited at one point  

The other way I was scammed was speeding my time doing tasks for a project, and they just didn't pay. I value my time, once it's wasted, it's similar to losing money

[Hyphen(-)]

2. There are the CEX scammed. MtGox, FTX etc ..., they can be beginners or experts.

6. The betrayed scammed. Whether a beginner or an expert, the betrayed scammed has trusted someone (friend, colleague, lover...) and lost his or her funds.

I believe these two are supposed to be in the same category of betrayed/betrayal scams because both of these scams occurred as a result of betrayal from someone you trusted, and the same is true of exchanges whom we trust and leave our coins with; thus, if they run with our money, they betrayed us, which can be exactly the same as the person you know and trust to betray you.

Has this happened to you or someone you know ?

Yes, I was duped in a Telegram group by some people claiming to be from Binance Exchange. I wanted to buy USDT from them because it seemed easier because I didn't have to do KYC before buying USDT from them. There were so many screenshots of good testimonies and successful deals between the members of the group that they had, no idea they were all set up to swindle newbies. That is how I trusted them and paid the money to the escrow person in the group.

Since then, I've avoided Telegram since I no longer trust anyone on the network; moreover, I no longer trust anyone when it comes to cryptocurrency transactions.

[Ever-young]

Am I forgetting any?

I think we clipboard virus should also be included as that's where I have been a prey to which made me created the thread above . This kind of scam is also worth adding to the list since it's not just done by users mistake but as a result of hackers manipulation using different means from pirated software's and O's which is the most common way and that of phishing link.

[Taskford]

3. Greedy scammed. Those who were promised crazy returns without doing anything.


6. The betrayed scammed. Whether a beginner or an expert, the betrayed scammed has trusted someone (friend, colleague, lover...) and lost his or her funds.

7. The shitcoin scammed. He/she bought lots of shitcoins on an obscure Pump and Dump group.
 you or someone you know ?

Experience this and totally sad that I lost a lot of money way back them from this before since 3)  I thought before that those ponzi platforms are genuine and they can give good profits in return but end up getting scam. 6) Got scam by I thought my friend and let me down just for his greed of money. 7) Experience a lot of this since frequently trading either old or new but the awful part is when ICO craze is so hype since been scam by some of it and never go back to invest on any new launch and now only grabbing some when they are officially landed on exchangers.

[lionheart78]

To answer your title, yes I have been scammed a lot.  I believe most of us here are victims of the shitcoin scam where a certain group offer crowdfunding and then right after the launch the project owner runs with the fund without even putting their cryptocurrency on exchanges.  I also experienced lots of rugpulls during the NFT craze and Pay to Earn trends.  

While in real life events, I also encounter people who are agents of scam companies taking advantage of the naivety of people new to cryptocurrency by offering them promises that are too good to be true.  Many of my known friends fall to this kind of trick and never listened to me when I warned them about the possible scams of these kinds of schemes.

[Becassine]

2. There are the CEX scammed. MtGox, FTX etc ..., they can be beginners or experts.

6. The betrayed scammed. Whether a beginner or an expert, the betrayed scammed has trusted someone (friend, colleague, lover...) and lost his or her funds.

I believe these two are supposed to be in the same category of betrayed/betrayal scams because both of these scams occurred as a result of betrayal from someone you trusted, and the same is true of exchanges whom we trust and leave our coins with; thus, if they run with our money, they betrayed us, which can be exactly the same as the person you know and trust to betray you.

I don't think it's the same thing. In fact, almost from the very beginning of our apprenticeship, we learn the famous phrase: "not your keys, not your coins". So we know that if we leave our coins on a CEX, there's a risk. In addition, there's the experience of the past.

Being betrayed personally by someone you know is different: it's your trust that's shaken. You can't expect that. It's a disappointment that can be profound and go beyond the loss of funds. Not to mention that for CEXs, there's a tiny hope of recovering funds.