Newbies, beware of NFT scams!

[DYING_S0UL]

First of all, I have known about crypto since 2021. So somehow I have some knowledge of it. One of my friend recently got into this sector, and he knew I was somehow involved with crypto. So whenever he got into trouble or had confusion, he would come to me and ask me.

One time he came to me and said he had a method to earn money. He met with someone on the internet who was an NFT seller. The seller (scammer) promised him that if he bought his NFT for 100 dollars, it would generate up to 20 dollars daily. Hearing this, I was a little confused. Because NFT recently became popular and was still new, I didn't have enough knowledge of it. Even then, with my experience, I could tell it was a probable scam.

I checked the scammer's account, their Twitter account (less than 3k followers), and the NFT in Binance. The NFT didn't have any significant daily trade or volume; it was some random NFT listed for sale. I sure knew it was a scam. So I warned him not to buy it. But he tried to buy it even after my warning. When he was about to send the scammer money, Binance blocked the account due to suspicious activity. The funny part is that the scammer knew it would happen. So he was already prepared with a video link on how to unlock the account. Then my friend was 100% sure he was a scammer and blocked him, and he was saved big time.

So if you are new to crypto, always do your own research before investing.

[EL MOHA]

One time he came to me and said he had a method to earn money. He met with someone on the internet who was an NFT seller. The seller (scammer) promised him that if he bought his NFT for 100 dollars, it would generate up to 20 dollars daily. Hearing this, I was a little confused. Because NFT recently became popular and was still new, I didn't have enough knowledge of it. Even then, with my experience, I could tell it was a probable scam.

This paragraph simply tells that you also do not have experience because you should even be in doubt immediately he told you a random person decides to sell his NFT that would generate more money every day. There is absolutely no one that want you to earn something from the internet. There is nothing like free money on the internet, so once any juicy offer comes then know that it is certainly a scam. One doesn’t need to have knowledge about this to dictate how it works, luckily your friend was able to come out well from this.

[DYING_S0UL]

This paragraph simply tells that you also do not have experience because you should even be in doubt immediately he told you a random person decides to sell his NFT that would generate more money every day. There is absolutely no one that want you to earn something from the internet. There is nothing like free money on the internet, so once any juicy offer comes then know that it is certainly a scam. One doesn’t need to have knowledge about this to dictate how it works, luckily your friend was able to come out well from this.

That's what I clearly wrote in my post, that I didn't had much experience with NFT. And to be real I'm not that interested either. That's why I told him NO immediately.

[jrrsparkles]

It was a Ponzi scheme offer, glad that your friend got lucky and saved $100 due to a miracle but don't expect that it will happen every time.

My suggestion is if you are new to crypto only invest in Bitcoin until you can identify yourself from differentiating the legit projects/offers from scams but in my opinion its safe to say all the shitcoins are scams.

[Cantsay]

Did this happen recently? Or a past event? If it’s recent can you share the link to the twitter handle of the scammer that would protect some other users here from wasting their time replying to them (i.e if anyone is dumb enough to believe that a random nft would be generating $50 for the buyer on a daily basis).

When he was about to send the scammer money, Binance blocked the account due to suspicious activity. The funny part is that the scammer knew it would happen. So he was already prepared with a video link on how to unlock the account. Then my friend was 100% sure he was a scammer and blocked him, and he was saved big time.

So if you are new to crypto, always do your own research before investing.

I don quite understand this part, which account was blocked? Your friend’s or the scammer’s? No offense but this part of your post makes everything sound made up, it’s normal for someone to encounter a scammer online as they are everywhere in the internet but them having their account blocked as soon as you / someone else was trying to make a payment to them seems weird, assuming it was a telegram account I would have said the account got blocked because he (scammer) was also messaging some random people that got his account reported but for binance it's unusual ngl.

[_act_]

One time he came to me and said he had a method to earn money. He met with someone on the internet who was an NFT seller. The seller (scammer) promised him that if he bought his NFT for 100 dollars, it would generate up to 20 dollars daily. Hearing this, I was a little confused. Because NFT recently became popular and was still new, I didn't have enough knowledge of it. Even then, with my experience, I could tell it was a probable scam.

With $100, you will earn $20 daily profit? If it is me, I will not bother to do any research because that alone is enough for me to know that it is a scam. Scammer use high yield return promises which are not true.

It was a Ponzi scheme offer, glad that your friend got lucky and saved $100 due to a miracle but don't expect that it will happen every time.

This is not a ponzi scheme, or it may not be a ponzi scheme. It is a scam directed to other someone without using peter's money to pay Paul.

[examplens]

..

Everything you described is just another internet scam scheme. There is not much difference compared to the famous offers with the inherited fortune of the Nigerian prince, where it takes a few hundred dollars to pay off, which I believe we have all received at least once.
YouTube is full of smart characters who talk about making big profits through NFT, and that is enough for beginners to believe in such offers.

The NFT market is in a knockdown and the recovery will be very difficult, I personally do not believe that it will ever reach the level it had a year or two ago. I can't say I'm not happy about it. 

[_act_]

Everything you described is just another internet scam scheme. There is not much difference compared to the famous offers with the inherited fortune of the Nigerian prince, where it takes a few hundred dollars to pay off, which I believe we have all received at least once.
YouTube is full of smart characters who talk about making big profits through NFT, and that is enough for beginners to believe in such offers.

Why are you referring to Nigerians? Are there no scammer in your country and other countries? This is the definition of Nigerian prince according to Wikipedia when I searched for it online:



Do not let us use one country to refer to scam on this forum. No country is innocent.

The NFT market is in a knockdown and the recovery will be very difficult, I personally do not believe that it will ever reach the level it had a year or two ago. I can't say I'm not happy about it. 

They are selling something of no value with money. People's ignorance was the reason NFTs were popular. The only NFTs that can be recognized are the ones like celebrity, important person like Donald Trumps and those like Jack Dorsey.

[DYING_S0UL]

Did this happen recently? Or a past event? If it’s recent can you share the link to the twitter handle of the scammer that would protect some other users here from wasting their time replying to them (i.e if anyone is dumb enough to believe that a random nft would be generating $50 for the buyer on a daily basis).

Sorry to say I didn't saved the links of the scammer. It happened so suddenly I totally forgot. This incident happened 1 month ago.

I don quite understand this part, which account was blocked? Your friend’s or the scammer’s?

My friends Binance account was blocked/locked when he was trying to buy/send the money. That's how his money was saved. It was a very common block. Youtube had many videos how to solve it. You just had to made a video of you saying some things and send it to support.

[examplens]

Why are you referring to Nigerians? Are there no scammer in your country and other countries? This is the definition of Nigerian prince according to Wikipedia when I searched for it online:

How did you understand that I was talking only about the Nigerian people as frauds?
I just mentioned the very well-known "Nigerian prince" scam, which probably wasn't even the first time it was launched by someone from that country. But you know that because you yourself left a screenshot from Wikipedia as an explanation.
All pyramid schemes are called Ponzi, and they got that name from the original creator of this type of fraud. The fact that he is Italian is completely irrelevant.

[Despairo]

It's not only about NFT, but everything involved with money including fiat.

Earning 20%/day is absolutely ridiculous if someone think it's legit, there are so many ponzi scheme out there and they're trying to make it not really looks suspicious by lowering the reward.

However NFT itself is already scam, so newbies must avoid NFT and other next hypes.

[sokani]

It is a good thing your friend did not fall for the scam at the end of the day because the signs were too glaring but your friend was too blinded with greed that he couldn't see it. NFTs shouldn't be bought from some random person on social media who claim to be NFT reseller, there are marketplaces where it is sold like OpenSea, Axie Affinity etc. Also, how is the NFT going to be generating $20 on a daily basis? How is that even possible?

There are many scams so your friend needs to wise up if he's going to thrive in this space. These are possible NFTs scams and how to avoid them.

[OcTradism]

So if you are new to crypto, always do your own research before investing.

Old or new in cryptocurrency market, you always have to do your own research DYOR before investing.

Being an old person in this market does not mean you don't have to DYOR before investing. Because whenever you want to invest in one project, you must DYOR about it if you don't want to bindly invest in a scam project and lose your capital.

[ImThour]

Seems like just another scam, not a very tricky one. And to be honest, you can never catchup with the attackers or the scammers and they will always be one step ahead of a normal Crypto investor who is willing to invest in any web3 project. You need to stay in touch with a group of community who are actively looking out for things like these so you don't miss out and keep your Bits secured. Most preferably, use a hardware wallet which is open source.

[Lida93]

Everything you described is just another internet scam scheme. There is not much difference compared to the famous offers with the inherited fortune of the Nigerian prince, where it takes a few hundred dollars to pay off, which I believe we have all received at least once.
YouTube is full of smart characters who talk about making big profits through NFT, and that is enough for beginners to believe in such offers.

Why are you referring to Nigerians? Are there no scammer in your country and other countries? This is the definition of Nigerian prince according to Wikipedia when I searched for it online:



Do not let us use one country to refer to scam on this forum. No country is innocent.

The NFT market is in a knockdown and the recovery will be very difficult, I personally do not believe that it will ever reach the level it had a year or two ago. I can't say I'm not happy about it. 

They are selling something of no value with money. People's ignorance was the reason NFTs were popular. The only NFTs that can be recognized are the ones like celebrity, important person like Donald Trumps and those like Jack Dorsey.

We should make sure to verify our information before being in a haste to let it out to the public domain so we don't dent the image and character of a people out of ignorance based on I-hear-say kinds of informations. That's why we have the word   research , because not all informations from the social media is correct or legit.
Fraud and scams are activities not subjected to specific people or country, it's widely all over the world and no well meaning entity will dare to support it devices.

[Doan9269]

So if you are new to crypto, always do your own research before investing.

If you're a newbie, before anyone could tell you something first, always make your own research towards it and consult other sources as well to be rest assured, then don't make the mistake of starting your crypto journey with altcoins, decide to go with bitcoin firs and avoid anything that may lead to your experience with scam or loosing your investment under fraudulent activities, also try as much as possible to always learn and know how to do things by yourself, lastly is that, don't be too eager for making money, it requires time and process.

[Hyphen(-)]

I don't have any idea about NFTs, and I will always advise newbies not to get involved in anything related to NFTs and to focus on learning about the entire process of Bitcoin technology and cryptocurrency before thinking of NFTs so as to be safe.

One time he came to me and said he had a method to earn money. He met with someone on the internet who was an NFT seller. The seller (scammer) promised him that if he bought his NFT for 100 dollars, it would generate up to 20 dollars daily. Hearing this, I was a little confused. Because NFT recently became popular and was still new, I didn't have enough knowledge of it. Even then, with my experience, I could tell it was a probable scam.

Almost all people you encounter online who introduce you to any type of investing are fraudsters, and like you mentioned, they will guarantee a large return on a daily basis, which we all know is not true because no one has free money to give away online. You should advise your friend to avoid such persons online because they are scammers.

[Faisal2202]

This paragraph simply tells that you also do not have experience because you should even be in doubt immediately he told you a random person decides to sell his NFT that would generate more money every day. There is absolutely no one that want you to earn something from the internet. There is nothing like free money on the internet, so once any juicy offer comes then know that it is certainly a scam. One doesn’t need to have knowledge about this to dictate how it works, luckily your friend was able to come out well from this.

At last, scammers need to lure them into some offer so that they start to think that this is the one and only chance to earn free money from the internet, and they fall for FOMO and fall prey to the scam too. The best practice is to follow someone's advice when they at least tell you not to do that. Ok, I get it. If you are stubborn and think the advisor is the hurdle between you and your success, then at least try to look from a different angle at what benefit it brings for the advisor and scammers.

Then those scam victims will understand that they are making a mistake by believing the scammers. These are all just phishing schemes to lure them into thinking that you will earn a hell of a lot of money by doing just nothing.

I totally agree with you that once we eliminate the idea from our minds that there is nothing like free money in the world, then we will be saved from scams for all time. well, at least to some extent. But these scammers always come up with different ideas as they have a higher IQ than the Einsiten. 

[ZAINmalik75]

The years 2021 and 2022 were the years when NFTs were on top of everything. Many projects are only coming with the idea of NFTs because following the trend will make you money, and that's what investors are doing. They were investing in the NFT platform because the era of NFTs had just started and the new platform had raised huge funds. But in that trend, bad actors also scammed and took advantage of the hype of the new trend.

Just like your friend was scammed, many others were scammed too, and many are getting scammed now due to a lack of knowledge of the NFTs and how they should take action based on the response from the buyer or seller.

New dealers always fall for scams, and the best thing they can do is take some precautions, especially when someone like you is guiding them. Then they should not ignore the advice.

[Marykeller]

So if you are new to crypto, always do your own research before investing.

Someone new in crypto doing their own research before investing in a crypto project is quite necessary, but let them on the same hand, try as hard to invest in what they are knowledgeable of than investing because of the profit it will generate for them.

With my experience in crypto, I can't think of buying an NFT project because I don't know much about it(its present and future worth), I wouldn't dare to buy it because I am less knowledgeable about it

Your friend only wants to buy the NFT project just because of $20 daily, nothing again. He actually doesn't know the worth of the NFT that the scammer wants to sell to him. Whether it is worth that price or not.

If the scammer had told him a higher amount than the selling price he told him, promising him $20 daily, he would have even considered buying it.