How do you avoid scammers?

[Davidvictorson]

I am new to Bitcointalk and I have been around my local board since from my sign up yesterday, I wanted to asked this question over there but need a general knowledge from the community at large not only from my locals. Just as what I have used on my title I want to know the possible ways to avoid scammer and phishing sites because I have came to understand that for one to excel in this forum and in bitcoin investment / holding at large, one needs to be very mindful with the ways we click on sites, where we store our funds and the techniques scammers often use to scam beginners like us.

After we have learned to avoid scammers, we should also learn to report them to the necessary authorities if you suspect them. If you have the courage enough, you could confront them by sending them a direct message to confirm the authenticity of their identity. Very importantly, you want to trust your gut if you have a bad feeling about someone you're talking to on the internet you want to listen to those instincts.

[DubemIfedigbo001]

I will recommend you just buy bitcoins and hold for now, until you've learn well the security features you  should observe when having other dealings in bitcoin.
If you must trade or gamble, have a different wallet you use for these things, do not link your main wallet to any exchange, or any shitcoin airdrop cos that's the fastest way to get your funds stolen by scammers. In 2022, I saw a  colleague at the office get disposed of her hard earned coins simply because she used her main wallet to try getting an airdrop then, without knowing its a trap. She  linked her wallet to the site and in minutes, all her coins were gone and she was greatly pained.

[Cryptoababe]

Most scammers use phishing sites .So,newbies should be careful of where they sign-up or connect thier wallet. Because scammers don't care never care .They will still your funds and feel comfortable doing so. So, the best way to be careful is by staying away from some useless website registration airdrops or wallet connection airdrops. With this ,no one will know your details and guess any of your information.

[Litzki1990]

You have to be faster than the cheaters to avoid being cheated by the cheaters. But if the cheaters are faster than you, you will get cheated at some point. Some common things you have to keep in mind, always keep this thing in your mind that CEO of any organization or admin of any organization will never ask you to invest in his project. If someone gives you such an offer through telegram, you should be sure that it is a scammer and try to stay away from him. 

Another thing I noticed when messaged in telegram group for exchange support, after a while after sending message I see one after another PM's and when I check PM I see account created matching admin name of particular exchange and that account PM me .In the beginning it was difficult for me to understand who is real and who is fake but later I understand the difference between real and fake and I am now one step ahead of fraudsters so that I don't get scammed.

[Out of mind]

OP if you are new to cryptocurrency you definitely need an education. If you don't know about crypto, it is natural that you will fall victim to scams. I would suggest you to learn about bitcoin first, then you should go for investing and trading. Moreover, you should have enough knowledge so that you don't get cheated. There are many scammers in crypto offering you various websites and giveaways, so stay away from them. If you take all these steps, you will definitely not get scammed.

[DYING_S0UL]

If it's too good to be true then it's likely to be a scam. Avoid it at any cost.

1. Don't click unknown links or open files which you are unsure of.
2. Try to avoid PM from unknown persons.
3. Don't believe in anyone online, especially when he says about a big profit margin.
4. If investment is involved, it's 90% chance to be a scam. Real person would never ask for investment at the first place.
5. Use Virtual machine to test new things.
6. Never store your private keys anywhere online.
7. Double check, cross reference everything, before sending your assets. Because lately there are a lot of fishing sites being used.

[JMBitcointernational]

I am new to Bitcointalk and I have been around my local board since from my sign up yesterday, I wanted to asked this question over there but need a general knowledge from the community at large not only from my locals. Just as what I have used on my title I want to know the possible ways to avoid scammer and phishing sites because I have came to understand that for one to excel in this forum and in bitcoin investment / holding at large, one needs to be very mindful with the ways we click on sites, where we store our funds and the techniques scammers often use to scam beginners like us.

I think security should be my number one priority as a fresher or newbies, although with time I will gets acquainted with the relevant information across the forum, I know that here is a lovable and a dedicated community that focuses on full discussion about bitcoin and its related cryptocurrencies which I can't easily outline all but I know you people knows about them taking a picture from coimmarketcapitalization (CMC).

Please we can share and discuss responsibly without any forms of comments.

Scammers are everywhere  even  outside the crypto world ,hence ,I will advice you To be conscious of the wallets you keep your coins and if possible try and monitor it from time to time .

[Outhue]

A stranger come to my telegram yesterday and ask me about a certain project if I have bought it, then I answered yes, he claimed he have done the same very early and he already make up to ten times his money, I congrats him.

We stopped talking, and this morning he named a coin that I should go and buy it early before it pumped, I knew where it's all going but I decided to have some fun, so I did my research using coin gecko and coinmarketcap, I found out that the coin isn't even listed yet, then he decide to drop me a smart contract.

He told me to add the smart contract on uniswap and make purchase, I believe he created the fake token himself and named it the same name as the upcoming project, what a good way to scam strangers who don't know much about crypto, I listened to him this far to know or learn about his scamming trick, right from the beginning I knew he is a scammer.

Strangers seeking attention do more damage to crypto beginners than anything else, do not give your attention to them, set your social media app to receive messages only from friends and family, if you have any question to ask about crypto, create topic about it on this forum.

[Rockstarguy]

One of the way to avoid scammers here  in the forum is never be in haste to make a deal or too fast to accept an offer from strangers.  Scammers always approache people first to offer what can't be gained for free . Always ask questions about things that you are not sure of, asking questions will really set you free a lot from falling prey into the hands of scammmers.

Apart from the forum, even outside the forum you neeed to be conscious when dealing with total strangers,  people you don't know or can't give account of who they truly are. Scammers are very smart and always comes up with a new technique in getting people and you have to be smart also in your reasonings,  see every stranger as a suspect.

[phonakAG]

... I want to know the possible ways to avoid scammer and phishing sites ...

If you manage to avoid scammers and phishing sites then you have nothing to be afraid of.

In order to avoid scammers, you should bear in mind that there is no free money in crypto. And of course, there is no easy money. If someone DMs you and tells that you will be able to earn an amount of money easily then this is 100% scam.

Regarding the phishing sites, personally what i do, is before clicking any LINK, I go to google and search for the name of the thing I am looking for. If it is regarding a project , COIN, TOKEN etc. the best thing to do is to visit Coinmarketcap.com and navigate to the website of the project from there.

This way you are going to be sure you are navigating to the official website and not to any phishing site.

[itorai]

What I often do to avoid this is by increasing my foresight and maintaining caution and intuition. However, if something feels strange, you should be alert and check further before continuing.

[Wiwo]

Best practice to escape scams or any other form of security threat is by not looking for what is not looking for you,  or profits that are way too good to be true,  this is where and only when you become free from any possible impending scams as you journey ahead in the cryptocurrency,  so if you can deal with your greed and how fast you want to make profits,  you will likely not fall into any scam for a long time,  because scam is one of the fastest way to lose you money and motivations in this industry as a newbie, It not market crash because each time there is a market crash,  you can still recover along the line if you continued holding the assets,  but when you are scammed,  you assets is gone and gone forever,  so as a newbie,  work on avoiding scam by all means.

[letteredhub]

Just as what I have used on my title I want to know the possible ways to avoid scammer and phishing sites because I have came to understand that for one to excel in this forum and in bitcoin investment / holding at large, one needs to be very mindful with the ways we click on sites, where we store our funds and the techniques scammers often use to scam beginners like us.

Please we can share and discuss responsibly without any forms of comments.

Great to have you in the forum mate, welcome!
Yes, you have to very mindful of a lot things as a newbie in cryptocurrency, don't tru to fast-forward your time by chasing cheap means of making money and projects that have sugarcoated promising returns that on a norm is too good to be true.
Ignore replying PM's from unsolicited member's in the forum that might come to you claiming to want to help you make profit through a business plan or token. If you find such PM's don't hesitate to flag them to the community.
Don't have a greedy mentality, it's out of our greed that scammer prey upon to catch us to easily fall for any bullshit they sell to us. Most importantly, be a good reader, you can learn a lot in few months from this forum that a non-reader can't comprehend to grasp even in a year.

[Sandra_hakeem]

In addition to what you said, I don't think peeps are usually smart enough when they begin to entertain discussions on social media platforms or wherever - to the point that they're eventually lured into something they won't wanna do but, for the sake of the friendship that's been built and nutured trustwise overtime, they are already into it.
You can also be a cyber security to yourself and resources - I mean you're in the best position to secure your funds, not anyone else... It's best to erase any erroneous mindset of money doubling on the net - I'll call it LUCK if you eventually fall for a Ponzi scheme ( cus sometimes, you might miraculously get paid ones or twice), but the worst part would be sending your coins without any traces.

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

[Odusko]

What I often do to avoid this is by increasing my foresight and maintaining caution and intuition. However, if something feels strange, you should be alert and check further before continuing.

If it looks sheddy to you then it most likely going to be scam and you should be extra careful and on alert to avoid getting scam, and also not getting carried away by greed also will save you a whole lot at some point, because one of the popular ways that scammers get through to people is by promising them what is too good to be true and also attracting them with high profits within short term which sound almost unrealistic.
But if you are not too greedy, it will become hard for the scammers to penetrate,  also avoid clicking links that are randomly sent to you, this could lead to phishing.

[lalabotax]

I think security should be my number one priority as a fresher or newbies, although with time I will gets acquainted with the relevant information across the forum, I know that here is a lovable and a dedicated community that focuses on full discussion about bitcoin and its related cryptocurrencies which I can't easily outline all but I know you people knows about them taking a picture from coimmarketcapitalization (CMC).

Please we can share and discuss responsibly without any forms of comments.

Scamers are something that cannot be separated from the crypto world. In this forum too, there are definitely scammers who are always lurking around, especially newbies who are still confused. They take advantage of the moment and also the condition of the members to enter and attract these members to believe in them as scammers. And so, these scammers can easily trick them with various reasons that are quite convincing for them.

So from here, we really have to learn a lot about the risks of being on this forum and also in crypto business. Because of course there are risks, one of which is from scammers or hackers. We should not trust anyone, especially if it is something that they say has the potential to rise and provide very high gains. This is quite suspicious, isn't it? Don't believe anyone who says they will help you and they need your privacy data such as ID number, seed phrase, private key, and so on. So, here we really need to be careful in detail and continuously.

[Viscore]

 Do not entertain strangers online, and never click or open messages that are sent from unknown, that is one trap to access your account through getting your sensitive information that you should be protecting in the first place. And in instances that someone will invite you to join their group or channel for free, do not bite the offer because it could be free for now but later on it will already ask a fee or payment in exchange to what you have gotten from them.

The online world is full of scammers. So just act like you're one of them and act smarter and wiser, so you won't be taken advantage by those real scammers.

[serjent05]

There are lots of article that explains and instruct readers on how to avoid scammers and phishing attacks.  They even define how these things works and how one can be able to detect or reccognized them.  You can check these articles if you are interested @OP.


10 Ways To Avoid Phishing Scams
How to Recognize and Avoid Phishing Scams
Prevent Phishing Attacks: 10 Ways to Identify & Avoid Phishing Scams
Avoiding scams

As stated in most of the given article link, to avoid scam one must recognize and know how scams work.

extracted from one of the link given above:

8 things you can do to avoid being scammed

1. Be suspicious[/url]
2. Don’t trust unexpected contact
3. Do your research
4. Resist demands to act quickly
5. Keep your computer virus protection up to date
6. Never open attachments or click on links in emails if words or images make you feel unsure about the sender
7. Use different passwords for logging in to online services
8. Reserve the right to be impolite

And most of all don't let greed control our decisions.

[itorai]

Cut....

because one of the popular ways that scammers get through to people is by promising them what is too good to be true and also attracting them with high profits within short term which sound almost unrealistic.

Yes, it is generally a popular way of cheating this way.
However, with current developments, fraudsters are increasingly clever in carrying out their actions, they take advantage of situations and conditions, especially people who are "plain" easy targets.
It must be remembered that instincts can make the difference, so I think it is important to improve instinctual abilities to minimize the occurrence of undesirable things.

[Youngkhngdiddy]

I am new to Bitcointalk and I have been around my local board since from my sign up yesterday, I wanted to asked this question over there but need a general knowledge from the community at large not only from my locals. Just as what I have used on my title I want to know the possible ways to avoid scammer and phishing sites because I have came to understand that for one to excel in this forum and in bitcoin investment / holding at large, one needs to be very mindful with the ways we click on sites, where we store our funds and the techniques scammers often use to scam beginners like us.

I think security should be my number one priority as a fresher or newbies, although with time I will gets acquainted with the relevant information across the forum, I know that here is a lovable and a dedicated community that focuses on full discussion about bitcoin and its related cryptocurrencies which I can't easily outline all but I know you people knows about them taking a picture from coimmarketcapitalization (CMC).

Please we can share and discuss responsibly without any forms of comments.

   You might be following a strong tip from somebody with a great deal of mastery yet become a casualty by accidental visiting a phony site. There's an amazing number of sites that have been set up to look like unique, legitimate new businesses. On the off chance that there is certifiably not a little lock symbol showing security close to the URL bar and no "https" in the site address reconsider. Regardless of whether the site seems to be indistinguishable from the one you believe you're visiting, you may end up coordinated to another stage for installment. For instance, you click on a connection that resembles an authentic site, yet assailants have made a phony URL with a zero in it rather than a letter 'o'. That stage, obviously, isn't taking you to the cryptographic money venture that you've just explored. To stay away from this, cautiously type the specific URL into your program. Twofold check it, as well.
   If you're following celebrities and executives on social media, you can't be sure that you're not following impostor accounts. The same applies to cryptocurrencies, where malicious, impersonating bots are rampant. Don't trust offers that come from Twitter or Facebook, especially if there seems to be an impossible result. Fake accounts are everywhere. If someone on these platforms asks for even a small amount of your cryptocurrency, it's likely you can never get it back. Just because others are replying to the offer, don't assume they aren't bots, either. You have to be extra careful.