How to smell fraud in projects and detect Ponzi schemes from far as a Newbie

[SmartCharpa]

If there is anything simple that I have learned in crypto, is nothing but to be less greedy, this is what some people lack being a crypto person and as long as there is money in a particular place, scams will never cease to exist that particular place, they will keep coming in different forms in different trends and no matter how expert you have been around here, you will come across them. However, it's not everyone that has this sense of smell to convert it easily as a red flag, these scams come and go in every trend but there is always a catch in the way they present them if you carefully take your time to observe, criminals always live evidence behind and that is what I'm going to share with you.

A scam is not limited in any form in crypto, they could be criminals that manipulate people into having their privacy and securities, scammers that generally steal a wallet or drain the wallet of people but the scams I want to share are limited to physical appearance, things you can look from far and detect that you are in the wrong place, some of this red flags are easily detectable but as I have said, greed is what makes many of us into places we are not to be which result to regret of being in crypto in the first place but I will share you some of the ones I have learned so far. Come with me as I share:

High APR and APY: These two are used as a form of reward for people that love staking their coins and tokens, and in return, they are given interest for a period of time, the two are different, APY stands for Annual percentage rate and APY stand for Annual percentage yield and the difference is that APR is compounded and APR are not compounded, so technically APR will be slightly higher but not much gap. The lesson is not about the difference but the percentage these projects gives which are ridiculous percentage as high as 100% to 1000% in other to make people stake their tokens to reduce inflation but they are scams mechanism.
When you lock your coins in any platform that promises high yield is always a trap for people to lock their coins and when the market is going down, you wouldn't be able to sell and whatever the APR they gave you wouldn't be able to compensate you for the loss, they are either scams to prevent you from selling or to take away your coins, no real projects offer high yield, you should be cautious of this when it exceeds 3-5%

Team: There is no good feeling like knowing the people around what you have in your portfolio, it may not be a guarantee of the success of what you buy to hold but knowing that people that are working behind what you invested in reduce the risk of scams and teams running and abandon what you have wasted money on. There are times projects go anonymous for projects like DEFI that are high risk as they always new and test, they do that for disclaimer purposes in case it failed which is the intention is clear. However, there are some projects that hide their identity by using fake ID are always scams because that's impersonation to give an impression of what they are not, this is one of the red flag people should detect during personal research, nobody will tell you this but you alone and the signs are there when they use fake ID from google and Stock images for impersonation.

Plagiarized and Lazy structure of the contents and website: A man that doesn't have time to think will lack tangible art to present and Ponzi schemes don't lack this from their master plan, they lack idea, they also lack reasonable solutions to problems, the only thing they know is to think out of the box to plagiarize another work and promise to do better in the original work so that people will think they are the real deal breaker, while in the process of doing this, they don't do it from scratch, they present the old idea and change the name and places that will looks similar to their scams. Oftentimes, you could see this from their websites, their documentation and whitepapers are copies of another idea and these are the signs to always check in any projects.

Under pressure to rush things: Real project will do their work at their own convenience without procrastination, they don't give into pressure, they take time to build and when they deliver or make announcements, they make sure they meet expectations and don't disappoint, they always work with the road map and keep people along the timeline with the mission they promise from the beginning but Ponzi and scams are easy to detect right from when they do crowdfunding and public sale, always in rush to make money so they can run away with people money without valuable result for the people, sometimes in public sale when they don't hit their scam target, they keep increasing the time over and over to continue their fraud until someone expose them of their scam.

Unregistered company and short time website duration: Another red flag to look out for is when a company that claims to have a project is not registered, a real company will be registered and fully recognized with a registration number to prove they are real and not fake individuals to avoid any doubt that will raise any form of suspicion. When they have their website registered in under a month and will expire in the following year is another thing to avoid, most of them do this to clean their tracks after scamming people with their Ponzi schemes.

Ponzi schemes and scams are everywhere and they will continue to exist but they can be avoided, you just need to be extra careful and sometimes look for the red flags, you will get one or two pieces of evidence to avoid them if you are not greedy, remember a safe investment is a safe mental health and safe future.

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[hatshepsut93]

In crypto anything can be a scam, because crypto made scamming incredibly easy and safe for scammers. You create a coin, you sell it to people - you legally don't owe them anything, you're not obligated to make it profitable, to make it work. You're just selling a digital asset created out of thin air. Governments can go after ponzi schemes, because they break contracts by not delivering profits, they can't go after crypto because there's no explicit violation of trust. So it doesn't matter if a coin has transparent team, endorsed by experts and so on - they can take your money and legally not owe you anything for it, because you are not investing, you are speculating.

[OcTradism]

As newbies, no need to smell fraud in projects which are altcoins, shitcoins. Because if you only invest in Bitcoin, it's safe and you don't have to smell fraud in any project.

You only have such needs if you are greedy and want to invest in altcoins, shitcoins, chase for very high promising profit. If your intention is like this, you will fall into fraudulent projects sooner or later as you can not smell fraud projects correctly all the times.

In general, don't invest in altcoins and shitcoins, you will be safe.

[Gladitorcomeback]

Beside OP list the ponzi scheme has also eye catching reward for referel (10%-30%) which attract greedy people to invite family, relatives and friends. High apr is most common factor used by scam project. Not only crypto project but I saw many other invest based project giving daily 1-2% of capital investment. Regret to say that many newbies are not investigating any project and just look for reward and after some days nothing left with them.

In general, don't invest in altcoins and shitcoins, you will be safe.

Bitcoin investment is very safe so far from any altcoins. I am agree with you to some extent but there are still some good altcoins we cannot say that it is scam or ponzi like Ethereum, bnb and many others but newbies will not buy these coins too and will looking for memecoin or token with high volatility with thinking to rich them in some days.

[izanagi narukami]

I've been got scammed and yes these point that you mentioned become the sign of ponzi scheme.

But I still joined anyway, why?
In my case , my friend refer it. You trust them and its easier for you to join the ponzi scheme even You know its risk.

Why again?
There's human nature called greedy IMO

[philipma1957]

If there is anything simple that I have learned in crypto, is nothing but to be less greedy, this is what some people lack being a crypto person and as long as there is money in a particular place, scams will never cease to exist that particular place, they will keep coming in different forms in different trends and no matter how expert you have been around here, you will come across them. However, it's not everyone that has this sense of smell to convert it easily as a red flag, these scams come and go in every trend but there is always a catch in the way they present them if you carefully take your time to observe, criminals always live evidence behind and that is what I'm going to share with you.

A scam is not limited in any form in crypto, they could be criminals that manipulate people into having their privacy and securities, scammers that generally steal a wallet or drain the wallet of people but the scams I want to share are limited to physical appearance, things you can look from far and detect that you are in the wrong place, some of this red flags are easily detectable but as I have said, greed is what makes many of us into places we are not to be which result to regret of being in crypto in the first place but I will share you some of the ones I have learned so far. Come with me as I share:

High APR and APY: These two are used as a form of reward for people that love staking their coins and tokens, and in return, they are given interest for a period of time, the two are different, APY stands for Annual percentage rate and APY stand for Annual percentage yield and the difference is that APR is compounded and APR are not compounded, so technically APR will be slightly higher but not much gap. The lesson is not about the difference but the percentage these projects gives which are ridiculous percentage as high as 100% to 1000% in other to make people stake their tokens to reduce inflation but they are scams mechanism.
When you lock your coins in any platform that promises high yield is always a trap for people to lock their coins and when the market is going down, you wouldn't be able to sell and whatever the APR they gave you wouldn't be able to compensate you for the loss, they are either scams to prevent you from selling or to take away your coins, no real projects offer high yield, you should be cautious of this when it exceeds 3-5%

Team: There is no good feeling like knowing the people around what you have in your portfolio, it may not be a guarantee of the success of what you buy to hold but knowing that people that are working behind what you invested in reduce the risk of scams and teams running and abandon what you have wasted money on. There are times projects go anonymous for projects like DEFI that are high risk as they always new and test, they do that for disclaimer purposes in case it failed which is the intention is clear. However, there are some projects that hide their identity by using fake ID are always scams because that's impersonation to give an impression of what they are not, this is one of the red flag people should detect during personal research, nobody will tell you this but you alone and the signs are there when they use fake ID from google and Stock images for impersonation.

Plagiarized and Lazy structure of the contents and website: A man that doesn't have time to think will lack tangible art to present and Ponzi schemes don't lack this from their master plan, they lack idea, they also lack reasonable solutions to problems, the only thing they know is to think out of the box to plagiarize another work and promise to do better in the original work so that people will think they are the real deal breaker, while in the process of doing this, they don't do it from scratch, they present the old idea and change the name and places that will looks similar to their scams. Oftentimes, you could see this from their websites, their documentation and whitepapers are copies of another idea and these are the signs to always check in any projects.

Under pressure to rush things: Real project will do their work at their own convenience without procrastination, they don't give into pressure, they take time to build and when they deliver or make announcements, they make sure they meet expectations and don't disappoint, they always work with the road map and keep people along the timeline with the mission they promise from the beginning but Ponzi and scams are easy to detect right from when they do crowdfunding and public sale, always in rush to make money so they can run away with people money without valuable result for the people, sometimes in public sale when they don't hit their scam target, they keep increasing the time over and over to continue their fraud until someone expose them of their scam.

Unregistered company and short time website duration: Another red flag to look out for is when a company that claims to have a project is not registered, a real company will be registered and fully recognized with a registration number to prove they are real and not fake individuals to avoid any doubt that will raise any form of suspicion. When they have their website registered in under a month and will expire in the following year is another thing to avoid, most of them do this to clean their tracks after scamming people with their Ponzi schemes.

Ponzi schemes and scams are everywhere and they will continue to exist but they can be avoided, you just need to be extra careful and sometimes look for the red flags, you will get one or two pieces of evidence to avoid them if you are not greedy, remember a safe investment is a safe mental health and safe future.

This is a pretty good post.

High unrealistic interest = Ponzi = 90% true or even higher.

also all POS = piece of shit even if they are not a Ponzi they are not backed by energy.

Most exchanges that offer high yield staking = fail

There are under a dozen POW coins with good gear and solid network backing.

1)BTC buy and hodl or mine and hodl
2)LTC/Doge mine and hodl

basically that's all I do  1+2 and nothing else.

[Mayor of ogba]

If there is anything simple that I have learned in crypto, is nothing but to be less greedy, this is what some people lack being a crypto person and as long as there is money in a particular place, scams will never cease to exist that particular place, they will keep coming in different forms in different trends and no matter how expert you have been around here, you will come across them. However, it's not everyone that has this sense of smell to convert it easily as a red flag, these scams come and go in every trend but there is always a catch in the way they present them if you carefully take your time to observe, criminals always live evidence behind and that is what I'm going to share with you.

A scam is not limited in any form in crypto, they could be criminals that manipulate people into having their privacy and securities, scammers that generally steal a wallet or drain the wallet of people but the scams I want to share are limited to physical appearance, things you can look from far and detect that you are in the wrong place, some of this red flags are easily detectable but as I have said, greed is what makes many of us into places we are not to be which result to regret of being in crypto in the first place but I will share you some of the ones I have learned so far. Come with me as I share:

High APR and APY: These two are used as a form of reward for people that love staking their coins and tokens, and in return, they are given interest for some time, the two are different, APY stands for Annual percentage rate and APY stand for Annual percentage yield and the difference is that APR is compounded and APR are not compounded, so technically APR will be slightly higher but not much gap. The lesson is not about the difference but the percentage these projects gives which are ridiculous percentage as high as 100% to 1000% in other to make people stake their tokens to reduce inflation but they are scams mechanism.
When you lock your coins in any platform that promises high yield is always a trap for people to lock their coins and when the market is going down, you wouldn't be able to sell and whatever the APR they gave you wouldn't be able to compensate you for the loss, they are either scams to prevent you from selling or to take away your coins, no real projects offer high yield, you should be cautious of this when it exceeds 3-5%

Team: There is no good feeling like knowing the people around what you have in your portfolio, it may not be a guarantee of the success of what you buy to hold but knowing that people that are working behind what you invested in reduce the risk of scams and teams running and abandon what you have wasted money on. There are times projects go anonymous for projects like DEFI that are high risk as they always new and test, they do that for disclaimer purposes in case it failed which is the intention is clear. However, some projects hide their identity by using fake ID are always scams because that's impersonation to give an impression of what they are not, this is one of the red flag people should detect during personal research, nobody will tell you this but you alone and the signs are there when they use fake ID from google and Stock images for impersonation.

Plagiarized and Lazy structure of the contents and website: A man that doesn't have time to think will lack tangible art to present and Ponzi schemes don't lack this from their master plan, they lack idea, they also lack reasonable solutions to problems, the only thing they know is to think out of the box to plagiarize another work and promise to do better in the original work so that people will think they are the real deal breaker while doing this, they don't do it from scratch, they present the old idea and change the name and places that will look similar to their scams. Oftentimes, you could see this from their websites, their documentation and whitepapers are copies of another idea and these are the signs to always check in any projects.

Under pressure to rush things: Real project will do their work at their convenience without procrastination, they don't give in to pressure, they take time to build and when they deliver or make announcements, they make sure they meet expectations and don't disappoint, they always work with the road map and keep people along the timeline with the mission they promise from the beginning but Ponzi and scams are easy to detect right from when they do crowdfunding and public sale, always in rush to make money so they can run away with people money without valuable result for the people, sometimes in public sale when they don't hit their scam target, they keep increasing the time over and over to continue their fraud until someone expose them of their scam.

Unregistered company and short time website duration: Another red flag to look out for is when a company that claims to have a project is not registered, a real company will be registered and fully recognized with a registration number to prove they are real and not fake individuals to avoid any doubt that will raise any form of suspicion. When they have their website registered in under a month and will expire in the following year is another thing to avoid, most of them do this to clean their tracks after scamming people with their Ponzi schemes.

Ponzi schemes and scams are everywhere and they will continue to exist but they can be avoided, you just need to be extra careful and sometimes look for the red flags, you will get one or two pieces of evidence to avoid them if you are not greedy, remember a safe investment is a safe mental health and safe future.

Another way of detecting a Ponzi or scam project is when there is a giveaway of 30% off if buy their token. They are only giving the 30% to attract investors to sell their Ponzi or scam tokens and run away with people's money. This is why it is good for newbies to only invest in Bitcoin to avoid falling for these Ponzi or scam projects.

[cryptoaddictchie]

Sometime we already know its a ponzi but still we are going for it. Why? In crypto being risky is a very common ground especially for shit worth looking projects. All the info you said is correct and thats what everyone should be focusing. But if the project has certain traction, some people even intelligent one forgot the purpose of the project and as long as they see money printing about this one they join it. Regardless if theres a cross check on the points you provided.

[lovesmayfamilis]

OP, there is a very good tactic for newbies who have no idea how to spot a scam from a real project. Just don't trust the default. Only Bitcoin is trustworthy. If there is even an ounce of doubt, a person is not mistaken. How can you determine the identity of a person who posts their information as a team member, when today there are thousands of ways to create fake photos that are not detectable by search engines? The site design itself and the technical document can also be created on AI tools with some changes, and it is also difficult to prove whether they were created by people or robots.
Therefore, if a person does not want to take risks, can control his greed, and knows how to wait, you need to trust Bitcoin. Everything else is at your own risk.

[Fiatless]

These are all important ways of checking scam projects but there are still some of them that look so real and clean. In recent times we have seen many crypto firms rug pull making their clients lose their money. One attribute they have is overhyping. Some of them engage in expensive advertisements to attract victims. They go to the extent of getting endorsements from celebrities and hiring reputable advertisement managers.

Sometime we already know its a ponzi but still we are going for it. Why? In crypto being risky is a very common ground especially for shit worth looking projects. All the info you said is correct and thats what everyone should be focusing. But if the project has certain traction, some people even intelligent one forgot the purpose of the project and as long as they see money printing about this one they join it. Regardless if theres a cross check on the points you provided.

Some people believe that if they invest in a scam project when the company is still new they might escape being scammed. It is assumed the Ponzi scheme will honor the contract with the first set of customers to attract more people. But this is not always the case because many people have lost money with this perspective.

[Doan9269]

Under pressure to rush things:

That's true, most of the scam projects tends to make offers in haste to people who will jump into their investment without making a proper research also, they will be so quick and fast about it in convincing you to rush in your decision knowing that we are desperate in making an investment that is profitable, it they take it slow or give you enough breathing space, you might have been hint about them to be a scam and have a change of mind.

Unregistered company and short time website duration:

When looking out on this, we need to be very careful because some scam projects will also take the commitment to register their website to convince you the more, most of the passed experience on scam aren't only from the unregistered platforms alone, what they tend to steal from their illicit means from investors is far better than the cost they will render in getting their registration approval.

[Abu-Naim]

Ponzi schemes and scams are everywhere and they will continue to exist but they can be avoided, you just need to be extra careful and sometimes look for the red flags, you will get one or two pieces of evidence to avoid them if you are not greedy, remember a safe investment is a safe mental health and safe future.

The scammers are always developing their scamming process to an advanced level in order to convince newbies and the public to fall into their trap. That is why they go around and copy some Ponzi schemes that succeeded and change some things that will make them look real and encourage people to join and invest with them.

OP You have arranged vital information that will be helpful to prevent falling victim to Ponzi schemes. Even though we cannot be 100% safe if we continue to believe in altcoin, and sometimes greed is what is pushing us to get scammed, I believe with these signs and red flags you listed, if they are properly taken into consideration, the scam will be minimal.

[nakamura12]

The scammers are always developing their scamming process to an advanced level in order to convince newbies and the public to fall into their trap. That is why they go around and copy some Ponzi schemes that succeeded and change some things that will make them look real and encourage people to join and invest with them.

That's correct and some scam websites even looke like made by professional and having legit team when the truth is that the team doesn't exist or copied from other legit crypto projects or also from scam projects. If th scammers won't make it like what yiu have explained and what I explained then they won't be able to scam so much money or doesn't able to scam at all. Yiu can say that they are desperate to have some money either through scamming or not.

[ImThour]

High APR and APY is surely something which makes it a complete scam and fraud, I have seen that's the only thing which attracts users to buy shitcoin and then stake it for like months.
And within days, the developers are on the run with their money and the funds are still locked in a stake. This is a common trap and the most used way to scam people with tokens in Crypto.

[qwertyup23]

High APR and APY is surely something which makes it a complete scam and fraud, I have seen that's the only thing which attracts users to buy shitcoin and then stake it for like months.
And within days, the developers are on the run with their money and the funds are still locked in a stake. This is a common trap and the most used way to scam people with tokens in Crypto.

I agree with your statement.

As someone who used to report ponzi-schemes and scams across this forum, majority of these threads are poorly made and their website lacks all the necessary information that can make it genuine. In addition, high interest rates in a ridiculously short amount of time can spark the curiosity of others but this is 101% a scam.

Beware, however, that there are certain threads that promote various projects that may look genuine on its face but a scam on its heart.

For example, some threads that I previously reported show a seemingly complete list of a full team with matching pictures and linkedin profiles. Unfortunately, what they have posted are fake pictures that are AI- generated. Though this may look obvious to me, to some who have yet to encounter this kind scheme may surely be tricked.

[robelneo]

Ponzi schemes and scams are everywhere and they will continue to exist but they can be avoided, you just need to be extra careful and sometimes look for the red flags, you will get one or two pieces of evidence to avoid them if you are not greedy, remember a safe investment is a safe mental health and safe future.

Ponzi schemes and scams can easily be detected by using common sense when they guarantee profit without a sustainable source of income when profit is too good to be true, try investing in top companies by buying shares and ask can they guarantee you 10% profit every week I don't think they can, and on scam, if they trying to prove that they are not scammers chances are they are, and when they tell you that you are going to make this figure, actually its the other way around, the scammers are the one going to make profit at your expenses.

All you have to do is to simplify things, moderate your greed and use your common sense and you are safe and good to go.

[Queentoshi]

Ponzi schemes and scams are everywhere, and they will continue to exist but they can be avoided, you just need to be extra careful and sometimes look for the red flags, you will get one or two pieces of evidence to avoid them if you are not greedy, remember a safe investment is a safe mental health and safe future.

Strangely people will see all the red flags an indication of a Ponzi scheme but will still choose to try it out. Greed is very uncontrollable to some people and there is also the believe that if you are one of the early investors in a Ponzi scheme, you will be a part of the first benefactors before the Ponzi fails. Ponzi schemes will always repackage themselves and always come back with enticing offers that will lure the greedy.
Ponzi will always have victims, It will always have people who will fall for it.

[sokani]

Thank you op for this great insight on how to spot a fake project, I must confess that you're spot on. I've also come across the two staking parameters you made mentioned of, but your explanation was really glaring. Now back to the to the topic, crypto journey is a learning curve and I've been a victim of some of these fake projects in the past but I believe mistakes come with learning and I've learnt the hard way.

You did a good pointing out these flags but scammers are also very smart. Everyday they are coming up with new deceptive ploy to defraud unsuspecting individuals of their funds and newbies should always be on the lookout for these red flags.

[Renampun]

never believe words like this "our project has high ROI and minimal risk" or "our project is the next bitcoin bla bla bla, invest your money immediately, don't miss it"

scammers in crypto take advantage of the psychology of newbies who are hungry for profits from crypto while knowledge and experience have not yet supported these newbies to invest, so what is the first step that novices should take to avoid scam projects, of course many ask more first to the seniors and ask them to share the experiences they have had while being investors in a cryptocurrency project.

often asking seniors about things unknown - avoiding the trap of high ROI - the legality of the project and also the professionalism of the team behind the project are steps that must be taken by beginners before making investment decisions in crypto projects.

[erep]

Strangely people will see all the red flags an indication of a Ponzi scheme but will still choose to try it out. Greed is very uncontrollable to some people and there is also the believe that if you are one of the early investors in a Ponzi scheme, you will be a part of the first benefactors before the Ponzi fails. Ponzi schemes will always repackage themselves and always come back with enticing offers that will lure the greedy.
Ponzi will always have victims, It will always have people who will fall for it.

There are two possible causes for them to become victims of the Ponzi project, first they do not have the expertise to review the potential of the project and they are greedy to buy Ponzi project tokens because the project's popularity is increasing like other altcoin meme trends, they think they will get high profits when the team releases information about it. listing top exchange tokens, but if the predictions are not as expected then they incur high losses without price recovery because other investors have anticipated losses as well. Avoid greed in investing in any coin/token and prioritize investing in top coins and if investing in a new project then make sure you have analyzed it first so you invest in the right project.

[_BlackStar]

The general point about ponzi schemes is that the returns are extremely unrealistic. Usually they offer high returns as the main scheme to attract investors – of course you can know from the start where their project is going. Moreover, ponzi schemes are easy to identify through several other points such as recruiting new participants or referrals – these points are seen in almost all ponzi schemes so far.

So the conclusion is that a ponzi scheme is easy to identify from the start - but of course investors need to do an in-depth analysis so they don't get tempted in such a project. Some projects don't look like ponzi schemes - but they are scam projects that have no intention of developing after getting the investor's money.

[AakZaki]

never believe words like this "our project has high ROI and minimal risk" or "our project is the next bitcoin bla bla bla, invest your money immediately, don't miss it"

scammers in crypto take advantage of the psychology of newbies who are hungry for profits from crypto while knowledge and experience have not yet supported these newbies to invest, so what is the first step that novices should take to avoid scam projects, of course many ask more first to the seniors and ask them to share the experiences they have had while being investors in a cryptocurrency project.

often asking seniors about things unknown - avoiding the trap of high ROI - the legality of the project and also the professionalism of the team behind the project are steps that must be taken by beginners before making investment decisions in crypto projects.

also don't trust new people on telegram or other social media. Usually they will contact their victims and offer whether to buy tokens or ask about the tokens being purchased. scammers have many ways now and it continues to grow, so we also need to be careful and update about various kinds of scammer attacks. If you have a senior who understands crypto in more detail, then he can be your mentor

[Hyphen(-)]

If there is anything simple that I have learned in crypto, is nothing but to be less greedy, this is what some people lack being a crypto person and as long as there is money in a particular place, scams will never cease to exist that particular place, they will keep coming in different forms in different trends and no matter how expert you have been around here, you will come across them. However, it's not everyone that has this sense of smell to convert it easily as a red flag, these scams come and go in every trend but there is always a catch in the way they present them if you carefully take your time to observe, criminals always live evidence behind and that is what I'm going to share with you.

Sure, not everyone has the sense to detect some red flags of a Ponzi scheme, but the majority of people who fall victim are people who are greedy.

Greed is what always pushes us to scam; sometimes, we do believe that some of these promises will be fulfilled, whereas we know that no company has free money to double your investment or give you a high interest return, but we keep going in every day, and scammers keep benefiting from us, which is why they do continue.

They will use similar methods to the ones we knew, and still some of us will fall victim due to greed and determination to make quick money, which is very wrong, and if we do not stop being greedy, we will always fall for these Ponzi scheme scams.

[Victorik]

These days, even the OGs are falling for these scams and not just newbies. These scammers are employing new tricks and tactics in defrauding unsuspecting victims. So sometimes, no matter how careful you are, you can never be careful enough.

[Alpha Marine]

One thing people should stop doing is stop rushing into every new project that comes around. All that glitters is not always gold.
People always want to follow the trend and do what is trending. This leads a lot of people into various scams. What's worst is people don't even try to research to find out what they're going into.

In my country, there's this project that came out about 2 or 3 years ago. I think it's an exchange. They have their token also but it has not yet been launched.
People were using the project a lot and they got really big. They started sponsoring big TV programs in the country. Some people tried to warn about the project but they were termed "haters".
Recently, the exchange somehow converted every customer's asset into their token without even consulting the customers.
That's not the worst part, the worst part is, the coin has not been launched and we don't even know if it will ever be launched, and even if it will ever be launched as they claim, I don't think many people will want to buy that token. So for now we can assume that all those people have been scammed of their money.

[icalical]

Ponzi scheme is simple, you don't need all of those, if a project is more focus on getting more people rather than improving and developing their product then it's a Ponzi Scheme. Fraud on the other hand is much more complex, the High APR-APY might be the easiest way to detect fraud, not just High but an unreasonably High APR-APY, if it's too good to be true, then it's too good to be true.

[tvplus006]

These days, even the OGs are falling for these scams and not just newbies. These scammers are employing new tricks and tactics in defrauding unsuspecting victims. So sometimes, no matter how careful you are, you can never be careful enough.

If the organizers of the ponzi scheme are not too greedy at first, they can attract a lot of people to the pyramid. In this case, if the APR-APY is not too high compared to real figures in the banking sector, it will contribute to the fact that people will perceive it as a successful business, and not as fraud.

[Dzwaafu11]

Great op! It's nice to see all this you mention. I like how you arrange the method of detecting Ponzi schemes, These can be useful not only for newbies but for any other person that wants to invest in cryptocurrency, as these scammers are very smart and they easily convince people with a little reason. However, it's really nice that we can be able to detect the scam project by using these methods you proved, and it's true that they pressure people to invest so that they can attract many people to invest in their project.

As newbies, no need to smell fraud in projects which are altcoins, shitcoins. Because if you only invest in Bitcoin, it's safe and you don't have to smell fraud in any project.

These are not only for newbies but for any other person, even though the OP mentioned beginners. I think he did that because he is also a beginner, and he assumed other forum members had knowledge of what he brought up, which is not the case. The OP is not talking about only bitcoin, as we are not investing in only bitcoin. However, it’s true, as you said, that bitcoin is safer, but we didn’t invest only in bitcoin, and that’s why we need to take precautions when investing in any coin, not only bitcoin.

[Mpamaegbu]

High APR and APY:

No one needs to research on any project to know it's a ponzi once those two items are involved. I may not have the dexterity of perusing team members and the inscribed wordings in the White Paper to check if they're plagiarized or not, but once I find unrealistic yield plan I conclude it's a scam waiting to happen. I haven't been wrong on this. The few places I saw such, they all ended in scamming people. Most people who got scammed this way knew what they were getting into beforehand. It's greed that makes people want to risk it with the aim of cashing out before the scheme collapses.

2)LTC/Doge mine and hodl

How convenient is it mining those ones? Can they be mined on mobile phones?

[Baghdad]

Op provided relevant information that'll help us get to know what's happening on a site, but I'd like to add how to go about the info he provided.

In addition to the spelling errors, check if some phrases on their writeup appears on other websites. You can copy a phrase or sentence, then insert a quote on it and search on google, for example We are the only binary options broker that truly places emphasis on you

Whois is also a nice tool in detecting fraud website - if the website was registered few months ago and the team claims to have 10 years experience in the business, that's a lie at first sight.

Streetview on google Map helps to find a physical address if the site claims to have one, check your google map for the address provided on the website, if it directs you to a wooden house or some place where an office shouldn't be, it's a fraudulent association. They lie about their physical address.

If the site claims to be registered in the UK , visit this website https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/ insert their registration number, if details don't tally, it's a scam, also, check the last time the site was filed, does it show as inactive etc.

Check this link for more tips https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/98743/how-to-tell-if-a-cryptocurrency-exchange-or-trading-platform-is-trustworthy/98744#98744

[CryptSafe]

OP your article is very much exposing and educative but funny enough not everyone would still hid to advise and be able to put in play the knowledge gained in reading and learning about scams and how they occur. One thing I have come to realize about scams is that their victims are the desperate ones who do not have patience and time to really see the abnormalities in their offers. They are so blinded that they not really have the self conviction to decipher if what they are about going into is real or a scam.

The scammers too take advantage of their ignorance and promise them with lots of high yield returns and lots more which are not feasible and I wonder if this scam of a thing is ordinary or these scammers use something else to do their dirty jobs on their victims that they do not remember themselves while engaging or dealing with them not until they have successfully been scammed that is when they realize that they have been scammed and by that time it's already too late as the scammers have already made away with the funds.

[Porfirii]

OP your article is very much exposing and educative but funny enough not everyone would still hid to advise and be able to put in play the knowledge gained in reading and learning about scams and how they occur. One thing I have come to realize about scams is that their victims are the desperate ones who do not have patience and time to really see the abnormalities in their offers. They are so blinded that they not really have the self conviction to decipher if what they are about going into is real or a scam.

-snip-

In psychology, it's often said that people see what they want to see and hold to that first, immediate and impulsive thought. There is a keyword that refers to this idea: WYSIATI (meaning "what you see is all there is"), back to that blindness you were talking about.

It is common sense that if something is too good to be true, you should be wary. But common sense is the less common of all senses, and it is extremely difficult to learn or teach otherwise.

[hugeblack]

Greed is an emotion, being less greedy may mean less profit because man is created by nature to like to get more money, how to control this emotion is what makes it a catalyst for you to achieve more profits.
The best indicator that you can trust is if the project does not provide an actual service or there is a product that can make this project valuable. All projects that promise you free, fast and guaranteed profit without explaining the risks associated with this project or where the profits will be generated from and what is the possibility of loss, all of them are indicators.
Finally, learning, intelligent questioning, and continuous research are your weapons.

[SamReomo]

Ponzi schemes and scams are everywhere and they will continue to exist but they can be avoided, you just need to be extra careful and sometimes look for the red flags, you will get one or two pieces of evidence to avoid them if you are not greedy, remember a safe investment is a safe mental health and safe future.

You're absolutely right those Ponzi schemes and scams will pop-up everywhere and we must have to get proper awareness in order to be safe from their trap. I've personally got so many scan mails and messages, but as I was aware of their scamming tactics I avoided them and never replied to their mails or messages. Sometimes I replied to their messages in a way that they may consider me a mediocre who doesn't have proper knowledge about such scams, and the technique worked as most of them did their best to convince me that they are going to pay me a lot of money if I send them a fee for their service. I don't think that those scammers can manipulate the ones who have proper awareness and have been in the world of internet for a long time, but yes the ones who aren't aware of their tactics may get trapped easily.

Looking for red flags is the most important thing to avoid being trapped by those scammers and I agree that if we aren't greedy and we give proper time to learn things about an asset then that way we can be safe from the traps of those scammers. I'm more than sure that knowledge and awareness is the most powerful weapon against such scams and Ponzi schemes and all of their tactics fails against someone who has proper awareness and knowledge about such things.

[LogitechMouse]

A good post that's been put on Beginners & Help section, and this thread will at least help those beginners out there on what thing should they avoid when they're investing.

TBH, aside from the videos that I'm watching on Youtube regarding tips, and tricks to know when a project is a scam or not, this forum also helped me a lot especially with these kind of threads. That was back when I was a newbie in investing, and it's still good to see some users sharing tips and tricks to other newbies. These are only some of the things that we need to watch out for whenever we are investing, and there are many more factors.

~
you will get one or two pieces of evidence to avoid them if you are not greedy, remember a safe investment is a safe mental health and safe future.

Whatever happens, there will, and will always be people who will become greedy especially when it comes to money. That's why even though we are constantly giving warnings, advices, tips and tricks, and signs to these investors, it will all be useless when they become greedy. There's a famous quote that says "When Emotions are high, Intelligence is Low." Sometimes, these investors aren't thinking anymore whenever they see a project that's giving high APR to the investors.

I just want to say thanks to the OP for saying the text that I bolded. I have been experiencing many problems on a daily basis like most of the people out here, and I don't want to add investing into my problems that's why I'm focusing more on safer investments than those risky ones because I don't want investing in general be another problem for me. Maybe me experiencing being depressed is also one of the reason why I want to focus more on safer investments since I want to focus on my mental health more.

[CryptSafe]

OP your article is very much exposing and educative but funny enough not everyone would still hid to advise and be able to put in play the knowledge gained in reading and learning about scams and how they occur. One thing I have come to realize about scams is that their victims are the desperate ones who do not have patience and time to really see the abnormalities in their offers. They are so blinded that they not really have the self conviction to decipher if what they are about going into is real or a scam.

-snip-

In psychology, it's often said that people see what they want to see and hold to that first, immediate and impulsive thought. There is a keyword that refers to this idea: WYSIATI (meaning "what you see is all there is"), back to that blindness you were talking about.

It is common sense that if something is too good to be true, you should be wary. But common sense is the less common of all senses, and it is extremely difficult to learn or teach otherwise.

Truly seeing is believing hence they are curious about what they had showed them in the course of deceiving them to invest in their  scam projects. Like you have said about common sense, it is indeed not common as not everyone reasons well when they are in such position. The hunger and desire to make fast money is what they are just after and would not likely hid to advise from anyone at that moment until it dawned on them that they have been scammed of their hard earned resources.

Nevertheless, they say  "experience is a teacher" after getting the first hand experience of being scammed some learn their lessons while others seek further to gain more knowledge and some cry foul and call it a scam.

[Nheer]

Nice work OP, I think there would have been a topic like this before, therefore it is extremely great of you to bring this to our attention once more.

If there is anything simple that I have learned in crypto, is nothing but to be less greedy, this is what some people lack being a crypto person

Greed is one of the major factors that causes people to lose money not just in the crypto world alone but in all aspects of life. Seriously we all have a certain percentage of greed in us but it is left to us to try and minimize it so it doesn’t affect us in any way. It may be difficult to overcome but once we do there is a high chance of success in what we do. In crypto it has caused damage to alot of people because they were unable to fight it and they let it take control over their decisions. I think as a crypto person it should be your first obstacle you must overcome before investing.

as long as there is money in a particular place, scams will never cease to exist that particular place, they will keep coming in different forms in different trends and no matter how expert you have been around here, you will come across them.

There is a popular saying money is the root of all evil, so wherever there is money there is always people trying to get the money by an illegal means and People come with various format just to steal money away from it’s rightful owners. Scam is becoming more and more rampant now and some people even depend on it for survival so we have to always be on the lookout to detect scam, it doesn’t matter of you are an expert or not if you are not careful you may end up being scammed. Now that we expecting a bull run we should even be more careful because it is the season where scam projects and ponzi schemes are more common, it is a period when people will be plotting for ways to capture their prey as everyone will be on the lookout for projects with high potentials.

There are times projects go anonymous for projects like DEFI that are high risk as they always new and test, they do that for disclaimer purposes in case it failed which is the intention is clear. However, there are some projects that hide their identity by using fake ID are always scams because that's impersonation to give an impression of what they are not, this is one of the red flag people should detect during personal research, nobody will tell you this but you alone and the signs are there when they use fake ID from google and Stock images for impersonation.

Good point OP i have seen and heard of how some projects hide their identity and go anonymous and how some projects impersonate other projects just to lure in investors but i think you could have done better by sharing how new investors can detect such projects while doing their own research so they don’t fall for such scam.

[MusaMohamed]

Greed is an emotion, being less greedy may mean less profit because man is created by nature to like to get more money, how to control this emotion is what makes it a catalyst for you to achieve more profits.

Finally, learning, intelligent questioning, and continuous research are your weapons.

Quitting signal groups, investment groups, trading groups will reduce traps from scam groups, scam influencers and will help to reduce unnecessary greed and uncontrollable emotion and psychology.

It's good to do that prevention if we think we can not control our greed, emotion and psychology.

Nevertheless, they say  "experience is a teacher" after getting the first hand experience of being scammed some learn their lessons while others seek further to gain more knowledge and some cry foul and call it a scam.

Experience only can help if you can improve yourself and can control your emotion and psychology better with time and your experience. If you can not control them, how many years you spend in the market and how many lessons, painful losses you got won't help you to be a better investor or trader.

[JunaidAzizi]

Mostly people were scammed because of their own stupidity. People want to rich faster through an easy way but that way leads them to get scammed. If you want to be rich then do hard work and do not use any shortcuts. You have to know what is a scam and what is not if a project pressurizes you in the sense of timeline that it has a limitation or limited slots etc. Then it will be a scam, Avoid the project that gives you a big bag of money in a short time period, And check the details of that project if it does not show any transparency of its team, finance, etc., and get maximum negative online feedback than stay away from it. Human have a greedy nature and that create problems for you so suppress that and also do detailed research while joining any project

[isaac_clarke22]

In crypto anything can be a scam, because crypto made scamming incredibly easy and safe for scammers. You create a coin, you sell it to people - you legally don't owe them anything, you're not obligated to make it profitable, to make it work. You're just selling a digital asset created out of thin air. Governments can go after ponzi schemes, because they break contracts by not delivering profits, they can't go after crypto because there's no explicit violation of trust. So it doesn't matter if a coin has transparent team, endorsed by experts and so on - they can take your money and legally not owe you anything for it, because you are not investing, you are speculating.

Yeah and it is even happening digital and even though it isn't fully anonymous in here, you're kinda doing some things under the radar and people might not even try to pursue scammers that much and that's why those scambaiters like Kitboga are amazing for doing their stuffs even if it isn't 100% crypto scambaiting.

Even if you consulted with the cyber crime police, I don't think that they wouldn't be able to do so much since many stuffs can be faked online easily and there would be almost little to no trace for leads on the identity of whose behind the fraud.

Mostly people were scammed because of their own stupidity. People want to rich faster through an easy way but that way leads them to get scammed. If you want to be rich then do hard work and do not use any shortcuts. You have to know what is a scam and what is not if a project pressurizes you in the sense of timeline that it has a limitation or limited slots etc. Then it will be a scam, Avoid the project that gives you a big bag of money in a short time period, And check the details of that project if it does not show any transparency of its team, finance, etc., and get maximum negative online feedback than stay away from it. Human have a greedy nature and that create problems for you so suppress that and also do detailed research while joining any project

"Stupidity" is kinda harsh word. Scammers would improvise in their schemes. Started with just a simple phishing then lots of ways to scam people or deceive people like in ponzi schemes pop up. These scums also play the psychology game, and not just straight up attempt to "give me all your money and I give you something".

[ndutndut]

also don't trust new people on telegram or other social media. Usually they will contact their victims and offer whether to buy tokens or ask about the tokens being purchased. scammers have many ways now and it continues to grow, so we also need to be careful and update about various kinds of scammer attacks. If you have a senior who understands crypto in more detail, then he can be your mentor

Well, this is absolutely true. Don't easily trust new people, especially if you know them through social media. If we have friends who already understand the world of crypto, it's better to ask them directly, don't think we know everything about crypto investment.

When talking about fraudsters, I remember that in my area, the term investment fraud was known in my area. Usually they use this scheme with "fake trading robots" they promise big profits but in reality the money paid/money earned by investors is actually money from other new investors, so every time there is a new investor the money is used to pay old investors.

[tvplus006]

...Usually they use this scheme with "fake trading robots" they promise big profits but in reality the money paid/money earned by investors is actually money from other new investors, so every time there is a new investor the money is used to pay old investors.

This is an example of a classic ponzi scheme. The main mistake of those who fell for this hook and lost their money is that they considered themselves smarter than others and thought that they would be able to withdraw their money before the pyramid collapsed.