Why asking for help publicly can sometimes make you a target.

[ZeroVinsonN]

While growing up, we do those things on social media as teenagers. We get attached to people online and hope to meet them someday. We also call them on video and listen to voice calls with them. It is the same thing that is happening to these adults. Eventually, the scammers have improved at using cam tools that make video calls look real, and voice calls sound perfect, like the real person in the image used to chat them up. People fall for how true the scam was presented.

Most people seem to think that everyone on earth operates like them, if you are not too trusting that doesn't automatically mean everyone on the planet finds it hard to believe strangers, I could very well go online one day, link some false information together and start a new conspiracy theory and a lot of people will believe it to be true, Humans are desperate like that so when someone who has been looking for love for a while finds someone offering to love them all logic seem to escape them and that desperation can lead to them making stupid decisions too, it's dumb but it's also Human nature.

[Jubilee58]

I was a victim of this circumstance in the past when I was looking for a way to recover some coins I had in one of this exchanges. It was in the telegram platforms, and I actually received some calls claiming to give me help, but at some point I discovered they were trying to defraud me instead of rendering the help I asked for. This is to concord to your findings, most people expose themselves to fraud because they lack some kind of security consciousness. The Internet is not wholly made of good people, there are individuals who have made themselves available to scam others. While looking for help, be very careful, and also know that you don't ask for help everywhere. Bitcointalk is one of the best community you can seek for Bitcoin related challenges, and even at that you need to deep some of your portfolio information secret.

[Resourcefulness]

The idea of not to ask direct questions anytime someone needs help from others is good idea, it can really help reduce the chances of falling for scammers who will claim to be helping you when their only interest is to empty your balance.

[ovcijisir]

~
What you need to know as a newbie is that scammers don't wait randomly, they actively look for beginners who are confused in one way or the other so that they can take advantage of them. So, when you make posts like this on Bitcointalk while asking for help. i have $5000 stuck in a wallet can someone help me recover it. You just did two things. first, you just announced that you have funds stuck somewhere, secondly, you are showing people that you might be confused or inexperienced which makes you a perfect target for scammers.

What will happen next after posting such thing is that you will start receiving private messages from people offering help, message from fake support agents, links to phishing websites, and request to verify your wallet or seed phrase. At first, you may see them as people who genuinely want to help you recover your funds, but their goal is to simply gain access to them.

~

That is exactly what happened to me two years ago. I was having troubles accesing funds for one altcoin, as browser wallet was mo longer supported. Entering the seed words in alternative wallets ended in empty wallets. I asked questions about my problem on one forum. That day I received 5 or 6 private messages from "customer support", where they required me to go to some external website and solve my issue there (by entering seed on some unknown website ).

That day was eye opening for me as I became aware of the extent of dangers that one newbie can encounter.

That inspired me to start scam exposing thread where I expose scams that I find by actively looking on the web. There I also encourage people to report scams so they can be taken down sooner.

That thread even evolved into website, which was made possible by great member of my local section which gave me all the resources needed to start a new website.

Anyway it is pretty hard for a newbie and we must give our maximum effort to protect them from all the dangers.

[Joy- maker]

That is exactly what happened to me two years ago. I was having troubles accesing funds for one altcoin, as browser wallet was mo longer supported. Entering the seed words in alternative wallets ended in empty wallets. I asked questions about my problem on one forum. That day I received 5 or 6 private messages from "customer support", where they required me to go to some external website and solve my issue there (by entering seed on some unknown website ).

That day was eye opening for me as I became aware of the extent of dangers that one newbie can encounter.

That inspired me to start scam exposing thread where I expose scams that I find by actively looking on the web. There I also encourage people to report scams so they can be taken down sooner.

That thread even evolved into website, which was made possible by great member of my local section which gave me all the resources needed to start a new website.

Anyway it is pretty hard for a newbie and we must give our maximum effort to protect them from all the dangers.

I'm glad you shared your personal experience. Many people have fallen victim to scams simply by asking direct questions online, I would like to know how things went, since you were directed to an unknown website to enter your seed phrase. Did you eventually entered it, and what happened afterward?

What happened to me a few days ago, made me realize that newbies are often the target of scammers. Could you imagine that I was having issues restoring my unstoppable wallet? Although the restoration process was completed, but my balance was no longer displayed.

I had to visit their ANN thread to complain about the issue. Could you imagine not a single person sent me a message offering to help? I believe despite spending only two years on the Bitcointalk forum, people assumed I can't be easily scammed, based on my Rank and experience.

[sokani]

I'm glad you shared your personal experience. Many people have fallen victim to scams simply by asking direct questions online, I would like to know how things went, since you were directed to an unknown website to enter your seed phrase. Did you eventually entered it, and what happened afterward?

I don't think Ovicijisir fell for it.

I also had the same personal experience in my newbie days. I had difficulty accessing my funds on Binance, and I decided to ask Google for help, and I was directed to Binance's Telegram channel, where I shared my challenges. Immediately, I received private messages from three scammers posing as an admin.

Luckily for me, an admin was online and had replied me in the group chat. So, it was easy for me to know the PMs I got were from scammers, and I avoided them. Later, I reported them in the group chat, and they were removed.

[ovcijisir]

I'm glad you shared your personal experience. Many people have fallen victim to scams simply by asking direct questions online, I would like to know how things went, since you were directed to an unknown website to enter your seed phrase. Did you eventually entered it, and what happened afterward?

I don't think Ovicijisir fell for it.
~

You are right, luckily when that situation occured I was experienced enough to know better Too many red flags popped out (external website, weird url, answering on pm instead directly on thread etc.)

~
I'm glad you shared your personal experience. Many people have fallen victim to scams simply by asking direct questions online, I would like to know how things went, since you were directed to an unknown website to enter your seed phrase. Did you eventually entered it, and what happened afterward?

In the end I eventually got the answer I was looking for, and if I remember correctly I reported scammers accounts. The scam was pretty obvious to me but on that forum I had just registeted so they thought I was just another unexpecting newbie. Unfortunately if that attempt occured 7 or 8 years ago, when I had much less experience, that attempt could easily be successful.

What happened to me a few days ago, made me realize that newbies are often the target of scammers. Could you imagine that I was having issues restoring my unstoppable wallet? Although the restoration process was completed, but my balance was no longer displayed.

You are absolutely correct, on this forum I never experienced scam attempt, but that could be because scammers that lurk here probably think they have low chances of having success on scamming me. That could be right but I must admit that even I fell once for a different kind of scam (pig butchering scam), luckily I realised it on time but I have lost some funds until I realised I was being scammed.

I had to visit their ANN thread to complain about the issue. Could you imagine not a single person sent me a message offering to help? I believe despite spending only two years on the Bitcointalk forum, people assumed I can't be easily scammed, based on my Rank and experience.

You gave me nice idea for conducting a little experiment. To create new account just to see if there will be scam attempts if I ask some question about wallet reconstruction. Just to see if scammers tactics are evolving and what scam templates are they using.

[Churchillvv]

I was a victim of this circumstance in the past when I was looking for a way to recover some coins I had in one of this exchanges. It was in the telegram platforms, and I actually received some calls claiming to give me help, but at some point I discovered they were trying to defraud me instead of rendering the help I asked for. This is to concord to your findings, most people expose themselves to fraud because they lack some kind of security consciousness. The Internet is not wholly made of good people, there are individuals who have made themselves available to scam others. While looking for help, be very careful, and also know that you don't ask for help everywhere. Bitcointalk is one of the best community you can seek for Bitcoin related challenges, and even at that you need to deep some of your portfolio information secret.

Its now common to see people on the recovery part of scam, when you seek help them may sound very smart and have solution to your problem until the discussion takes a turn to you giving them something outside the current issue, I have been able to record reoccurring patterns in this scam. that have let me with the conclusion that once you loss access to any kind of funds in a wallet you should let go as long as its not a CEX or DEX issue where KYC is could be the issue for CEX then just let it go because trying to recover most times land people in the target position.

[Comeacross]

That is exactly what happened to me two years ago. I was having troubles accesing funds for one altcoin, as browser wallet was mo longer supported. Entering the seed words in alternative wallets ended in empty wallets. I asked questions about my problem on one forum. That day I received 5 or 6 private messages from "customer support", where they required me to go to some external website and solve my issue there (by entering seed on some unknown website ).

You don't even need to mention the name of the platform but I bet it is Telegram 

If you are active on that platform, there is a chance you will receive at least one scam attempts everyday even without asking for help unless you are not in any public channels. The moment you ask question in a public group especially crypto related, prepare to welcome fake customers support. Reason why all legit customers support in legit group usually have "No DM first" attached to their names. Any time someone dm you first to offer help, just know they're scammers.

People still fall for them because they never calm down to think whenever they need help.

[Hyphen(-)]

That is exactly what happened to me two years ago. I was having troubles accesing funds for one altcoin, as browser wallet was mo longer supported. Entering the seed words in alternative wallets ended in empty wallets. I asked questions about my problem on one forum. That day I received 5 or 6 private messages from "customer support", where they required me to go to some external website and solve my issue there (by entering seed on some unknown website ).

You don't even need to mention the name of the platform but I bet it is Telegram 

If you are active on that platform, there is a chance you will receive at least one scam attempts everyday even without asking for help unless you are not in any public channels. The moment you ask question in a public group especially crypto related, prepare to welcome fake customers support. Reason why all legit customers support in legit group usually have "No DM first" attached to their names. Any time someone dm you first to offer help, just know they're scammers.

People still fall for them because they never calm down to think whenever they need help.

Telegram is something else, I call them home for scammers because scammers are always active on telegram since it is easy to access. If you are in a public channels where there are thousands of members, asking for support is like inviting scammers to your DM with clone identity claiming to be customer support of that particular platform even though you ask the questing in the right group you are supposed to ask, it is very important not to attend to strange DMs no matter how convincing the person sound because I am a victim of telegram scam several times before I understand what they do better.

Telegram is the list platform to trust as a crypto user, you can easily get scam if you decide to pay attention some DMs because even if you are on your own, scammers will come to your DM with lucrative offer that can change your life in crypto space, accepting their offer will be you wrong decision. Therefore, always be careful with telegram platform.

[ovcijisir]

That is exactly what happened to me two years ago. I was having troubles accesing funds for one altcoin, as browser wallet was mo longer supported. Entering the seed words in alternative wallets ended in empty wallets. I asked questions about my problem on one forum. That day I received 5 or 6 private messages from "customer support", where they required me to go to some external website and solve my issue there (by entering seed on some unknown website ).

You don't even need to mention the name of the platform but I bet it is Telegram  

If you are active on that platform, there is a chance you will receive at least one scam attempts everyday even without asking for help unless you are not in any public channels. The moment you ask question in a public group especially crypto related, prepare to welcome fake customers support. Reason why all legit customers support in legit group usually have "No DM first" attached to their names. Any time someone dm you first to offer help, just know they're scammers.

People still fall for them because they never calm down to think whenever they need help.

You are right about TG being scam paradise but that attempt was not made there, it was made on official forum of that particular altclin I was using at the time.

But yes, scammers send me messages on TG two or three times a week and I am not even active in most groups

I guess they have me in some database back when I was participating in bounties and shared my TG handle left and right.

[Ojima-ojo]

The first wallet draining attack I got in the cryptocurrency space is through asking for help on a telegram group.
.this guys will message you privately telling you that their are representatives of the project and willing to help you.


Their targets is in getting your wallet seedphrass or let you connect to smart contracts unknown to you that you grant access to your wallet, so newbies most avoid public attention about their newbie status and looking for help.

[Comeacross]

You are right about TG being scam paradise but that attempt was not made there, it was made on official forum of that particular altclin I was using at the time.

But yes, scammers send me messages on TG two or three times a week and I am not even active in most groups

I guess they have me in some database back when I was participating in bounties and shared my TG handle left and right.

Unbelievable.

Maybe the platform is hacked by scammers or the entire coin is meant to scam people in the first place. I have had similar experience with some coins that the team behind them are pure scammers. There is no way a legit customers support would ask their customers to do something that put the reputation of their platform at stake unless they want to forfeit their job.

The fact that multiple people messaged you and claimed to be support team means something suspicious. I know about some platforms being taken over by scammers.

[ovcijisir]

You are right about TG being scam paradise but that attempt was not made there, it was made on official forum of that particular altclin I was using at the time.

But yes, scammers send me messages on TG two or three times a week and I am not even active in most groups

I guess they have me in some database back when I was participating in bounties and shared my TG handle left and right.

Unbelievable.

Maybe the platform is hacked by scammers or the entire coin is meant to scam people in the first place. I have had similar experience with some coins that the team behind them are pure scammers. There is no way a legit customers support would ask their customers to do something that put the reputation of their platform at stake unless they want to forfeit their job.

The fact that multiple people messaged you and claimed to be support team means something suspicious. I know about some platforms being taken over by scammers.

To be honest I don't think those scammers had anything to do with a team. They tried to scam me by sending private message, and I think that they just lurk there until they spot a newbie having trouble.

Eventually I got the answer by project developer, but it took a few days...

I believe that scammers just saw opportunity and didn’t have anything to do with the project itself.

[_act_]

The first wallet draining attack I got in the cryptocurrency space is through asking for help on a telegram group.
.this guys will message you privately telling you that their are representatives of the project and willing to help you.


Their targets is in getting your wallet seedphrass or let you connect to smart contracts unknown to you that you grant access to your wallet, so newbies most avoid public attention about their newbie status and looking for help.

Your post just reminded me of the past, a day that I joined a Telegram group of a new crypto project. Immediately I joined the Telegram group, there were many people that messaged me immediately that they are an official of the project. When I saw many messages, I knew it would be a scam.

There were more of them as I joined new projects at the time.

None of them told me to give them my seed phrase, they gave me a website which I can connect my wallet which is different from the official website of the project which definitely means it is a scam. After wasting their time, I will not connect their fake websites because I know they want to drain my wallet.

[Mansoveh]

True, some people that will see the question you asked online will feel that you are not smart and maybe if you mention bitcoin they will feel that you have a lot of Bitcoin and they may want to scam you, but that should not prevent anyone from asking questions, if you don't ask question you won't know what to do about the issue you are having, when you ask question online or in this forum focus on those that are giving you answers don't PM anyone or send any of your personal information to anyone.
The reason why some people are usually scammed when they ask question online is because they don't focus on answers that people are giving them anymore, they prefer someone to help them personally and this is how they get scammed.

One proverb that my parents used when I was little. A person who asks for a directions will never lost. But with the current system, it’s now risky to ask a question from a stranger. Asking a stranger is totally putting your life at risk. Instead of asking someone physically, why would I ever ask someone who I barely know online? You can’t even trust your family when money is involved, nor even the strangers.

If a have a smartphone, I would google the challenges I’m facing to find the solutions. Better than risking my life to ask a stranger for help.

[Ojima-ojo]

None of them told me to give them my seed phrase, they gave me a website which I can connect my wallet which is different from the official website of the project which definitely means it is a scam. After wasting their time, I will not connect their fake websites because I know they want to drain my wallet.

That is exactly how they operate, they will not ask for seedphrass sometimes because they know some wallet owners could have such knowledge that anyone asking for seed phrase must be a hacker.


Simply by connecting your wallet to their smart contract address that is it your portfolio will be drain and that wallet will be put on bot monitoring meaning anytime funds get in there their us an automatic debit to the hacker's wallet, so is worst.

[tabas]

One proverb that my parents used when I was little. A person who asks for a directions will never lost. But with the current system, it’s now risky to ask a question from a stranger. Asking a stranger is totally putting your life at risk. Instead of asking someone physically, why would I ever ask someone who I barely know online? You can’t even trust your family when money is involved, nor even the strangers.

If a have a smartphone, I would google the challenges I’m facing to find the solutions. Better than risking my life to ask a stranger for help.

That's a good analogy, locals from those places that you are unfamiliar with might take advantage of you because they know that you're new to the area. While we can search things online, googling them all there's also a risk there that everyone has to account for. And that's about the dangers that someone who doesn't have enough knowledge on how to spot possible phishing and random websites that can contain files that are directing them to download. So, both has a risk but if we're aware of those we'll reduce the chances of falling for it.

[Chibit01]

The idea of not to ask direct questions anytime someone needs help from others is good idea, it can really help reduce the chances of falling for scammers who will claim to be helping you when their only interest is to empty your balance.

Asking for public help on a forum like this one won't bring any form of public scam attempt. You can either get your problem resolved or get mocked. Anyone who wants to approach a user for scamming will do it privately, and when you raise a problem in public, better to be prepared that honest people won't be the only ones contacting you, the real danger most times comes with when there is a big amount of money involve and the public is aware of it.

[EluguHcman]

Some people are just funny, because how will you start up a sexual conversation with someone you don’t even know. How will you meet someone on social media, and they going to deceive you with pictures, and you going to fall for it. The way some people behave is just kind of surprising. If you are scammed with this kind of strategy, then you should blame yourself for that.

This is very annoying to say that someone just chats you on social media and start sending you pictures and you believe that person without at least knowing the person for long time or even seeing the person facialy.
To me it looks so weird as I don't see myself to be in such situations where someone would just chat me on media and I started falling into traps of those pictures.

You guys are probably missing some realities of life where in one way or the other we can fall victims even where we think we are knowledgeable.
Don't get me wrong in this statement because I will either not fall a victim because, I have gained so much experiences about the strategies of scammers but believe, there are some that will only keep you safe from being a victim just by you being contented and not being greedy.

We have had countless times about investors loosing their funds for investing on some shit coins because the developer and teams were strategic enough to make it look real. Yes.
In the side of believing what or who is displayed on the picture or video can as well be convince able with the advanced generations of the AI which makes it look very legit to believe someone or something displayed in the video or picture is real.

We have also been able to identify this kind of tricks by the experience of others who had already fallen victim.
The internet or digital world is indeed weird.