Topic: One of ways to identify scams (Read 425 times)

Most of the scams that take place are mostly based on media advertising. You would not blame the media for the advertisement, as they are doing their job of promoting a business, and unbeknownst to them, what they are presenting is nothing but a pre-planned scam. I was thinking that the media house should be able to put up a verification or validation department to properly look into businesses brought to them for advertising so that they would really have clues of what they are presenting to the masses for patronage because doing this would help reduce the risk of them being labeled scam promoters, which would save them their reputation. Although they are commercial organizations, they are also looking for money to pay their staff and maintain their relevance in society, but that does not mean they would be promoting scams to the masses.

Nevertheless, the desire to get things free and cheap, as you have said, is another way scammers get at their prospective clients. They know people like free things and, as such, would want to use it to entice them to get into their traps, and when they do, they scam them of their assets and funds, but sometimes I wonder if the victims really do not think about it whenever they are dealing with these scammers, up to the point of going as far as inputting their keys and other details, granting the scammer access to their wallet. It is after they are done with it that they realize they just made a big mistake and by that time, it might be too late to retract and this would have cause more damage to them.

When it comes to scams, I think it would take more than your knowledge of a field to help you avoid scams. These guys are beings like us, reasons as much as we do and try to present to you what is overly acceptable and not in the business and profit environment. At most you do hope they never get to cross your way but, it would take more than just having to identify certain features or attributes to scams to aid you escape there schemes.

While many might come in the form of investment packages, promising huge returns in the shortest possible time and wants you to scale on a pyramid, others wouldn’t.

Most times, I feel you just don’t get to go with what you don’t have the means to control to be safe.

This is just the most important way to determine scam confirmations , scam can be perkagely served even by the medias,aswell as influencers  which gives upper-hand to such scams as people  tend to believe  more and more.

One of the most used tactics  now is limited  trust scam . These kinds  of scams tend to make you believe  that  they are being straightforward with you  for months  even  years just to earn your trust only to break up after earning your trust .

What the belief behind scam little  for more. Unless you get the idea of getting free , cheap things from your head u are still prone to scamming attacks.




This was the main reason I clicked on the advert because adverts could be Done to entice  customers actually ,I just really need to confirm it that iPhone 14 is 4pi . On clicking it, I founded out the ads was true actually  but I still need to confirm it because I still Don't believe it, I had to click on payment for iPhone 14 only to find enter phrase keys

Immediately  I said finally I was right   it's all too good to be true . I had to share the experience though

Great site you provided here and I must say that you did a great job with your work and I also want to say that scam has been in existence for a very long time and these scammers aren't giving  up anytime soon.
I want to say a big thank you for bring this to the notice of the general public  and I haven't heard anything about pi not of recent but I've heard about them having a online store but with the price of items listed there, I think everything is already looking very fishy because I'm sure 1pi isn't yet upto 1 dollar and why are things so cheaper on the site.
There are several ways to identify scams and another way to also avoid scams is to avoid clicking on random links especially on exchanges as they are possible scam links.

It just seems to you that there is more fraud now. And this is due to the fact that obviously you recently went on a journey into the world of the crypt and, accordingly, you cannot compare how it was and how it became. It is necessary to adhere to standard security rules, and never give your private key to anyone.

Any legit service won't ask you to submit your wallet seed phrase. Most of the time, we fall into scams due to our greedy behaviour. Even we don't research them before submitting our seed. And that's how they have been draining our wallets. I even dare to visit the site you have mentioned. Because very rarely do I visit a site that I don't know anything about. So to prevent scams, we have to prevent our greed. Always don't look for something for free. Nothing is free in the world. The best practice is to share with us if you find something suspicious.

Research and due diligence can prove otherwise. Sometimes people fail to do the needful when ever they receive links or someone talks to them about some new kind of stuffs. They are quick to believe and jump into it without conducting a research to know if what they have heard or been told is the right thing. Research alone could save them the stress and aftermath pressure as a result of the outcome of the scam they got themselves into.

Of a truth being a member of this platform taught me a lot of things I had  no knowledge and idea about. Onset from being here, I learnt alot about scams and how it comes. Although I have been a victim of it so I know how it feels so I had to equip myself with the necessary knowledge and information so as not to be taken unawares again and since then, I have never fall victim of such.

If all she lost was pi coins then she really didn’t lose anything at all. AFAIK, majority of the Pi community mine Pi on mobile devices and so they do not actually purchase this coin. Pi is a shitcoin that has no value, the team keep making big promises to keep their community member hyped about the coin. It’s funny that scammers are trying to steal a scam coin.

There isn’t much secret to avoiding scammers and their tricks. There is a popular saying if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t. If there is anything I have learnt from being a bitcointalk members, it is to be suspicious of everything that has to do with money. My first instinct is to believe that it is a scam, only research and due diligence on my part can prove otherwise.

This cloud mining of a thing named pi has caused alot of havoc on people thinking about making an investment opportunity in it, something that has not been launched, but you will discover that how some people are buying and selling from uncreditable sellers and buyers, this coin itself has caused alot of financial worth of millions lost because there have been propaganda over it to be launched sooner, so that people can invest, buy and hold now, while others are taking advantage on scamming each other on that.

OP you have done well by updating this platform with this keys facts. I remember there was a period when a friend sent me a chat crying that she lost all her. I had to ask her series of questions before I noticed it was the wrong site she entered in the name of making payment for an order via a fake website with pi affiliation. She lost everything she had to scammers. She failed to do her own research before engaging and it costs her all her pi coin

It is very wise that one does his or her  research to properly get updates or ask questions before engaging because doing that would save you of some unwanted stress and problems.

I was expecting you to furnish us with some more information how to detect scams so as to know some new gimmicks used by scammers.

Honestly, if I'll purchase a product that this quite expensive. I'll do the traditional method and I'll be the one to convert bitcoin into fiat and let that purchase happen in cash. Although I've done transactions from shopping and online websites directly with Bitcoin, I'll just go through with the method that I am much safer since these are the amounts that I can't afford to lose even though I am sure that I won't fall for these schemes. Or if I'll use directly Bitcoin for this type of purchase, I'll make sure and will do a lot of research about the website before doing the transaction or much better to only do it on a reputable one.

Everyone has to start from zero knowledge but if they have carefulness and ready to learn, they will gain knowledge with time and also become more experience.

Practice makes perfect, always but to be safe and to avoid not losing all money at one time, with a single mistake; don't use all money for anything when you only get started and still make your very first steps.

I used to be a person like this. Don't know what is a transaction hash and was panic a lot when my withdrawal from one exchange to another one takes a few hours without coming. Fortunately, I did my research and backup my 2FA, password at the time. Like many newbies, I did not use open source non custodial wallet when I started.

You could smell this as a scam from a long distance, this website belongs to a scam beginner who have too less experience, but that doesn't mean that no one will fall victim as we also have new investors who knows nothing about crypto wallet before.

I believe that someone who don't know how crypto wallet works is the type of person that can fall into this stupid looking scam trick, that person must not know the difference between a recovery seed and a wallet address, if not, why would anyone type their recovery seed into this space when that's not how you will pay up?

Stupidity indeed, I have use crypto to pay for some things online and I am the one who ask for their wallet addresses so that I can make the transfer, not the other way around, I am to make the payment as the buyer not you asking me to drop my private key or recovery seed.

At first place if you want to buy a product using crypto wallet is they will provide the address and which coin you've proved for the mode of payment and just waiting for confirmation, but again take not first check if the platform is legit and really authorize to use this kind of mode of payment, before I make a decision too with the crypto platform that not yet known i made a thread here to identify and what are the experiences of another member so i know if i will proceed or to avoid this platform. Today its easy to promote a scam platform just paid the google so you can get the top suggested in the main search but be careful with the URL. Its already red flag once they ask a private seed.

I don’t think Pie Network has a wallet, and I’ve never witnessed any wallet that is attached to Pie Network. Which they will say this wallet is for pie network? I don’t think there is; however, this pie network is just a browser, which they only do after 24 hours. You will enter the browser and click the button, and it will increase by itself. People who do this call it mining, but for me, I don't call it it rather because there is nothing free, and someone should come and tell you this is a way you will get money. It's hard, and the way that pie network is going, I have friends who engage this pie, and up till now they have a bunch of it and still not get access to it. They must do KYC before you start spending the token.


Most people get scammed today due to greed; they trust easily, especially when it comes to money; they quickly lay their trust on such things; they don’t care if they meet online; they want to make money, and that is what affects people in society today. However, I think a few people get affected due to knowledge and other factors resulting from this. I’m always wondering how someone will just meet someone online and decide to give out their privacy.

I don't even need any coaching on how to identify possible scams ... I know a scam when I see it and for that, I can't fall for any...Fr!
If it's Feels too good to be true, then it's definitely not... ain't nobody gonna be offering you a hand generously on the net without without probing out ways to have a cut...even If we've got generous peeps online, you don't have to believe anyone since you don't even have the ability to know which is fake...

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

It's good that op raised the alarm but just a mere look at the website one can tell that it's obviously a scam site built by someone who is still learning. I now believe that nothing is absolutely easy in this space because even to scam you must be smart enough to convince your victims. With very obvious errors from the design and scripture, I will not even go further before discard the web page. I understand that some sites are being built by professional scammers and everything looks real but we should be cautious enough not to enter our secret phrase on any site no matter how legit it seems. Greed is the reason why some people might want to attempt it but will eventually regret their actions if care was not taken. No matter how reputable a site is, asking for seedphrase is a red flag and we should not hesitate to exit the site.

Social media sites ads and Mobile application ads, even AdSense ads in search engines, always contain phishing sites. Even if the Facebook page of this phishing site contains thousands of likes, comments, and reviews, this is not conclusive evidence that they are legitimate because there are many ways to increase all of this to any social account or page with small money. Therefore, to avoid this scam, you should not open any links in the advertisements that appear in front of you. Instead, you can visit the project’s official website and social media accounts. There are great browser add-ons to detect scams, such as Blockfence, the MetaMask wallet, and Joinfire. In addition, through the who.is site, you can find out the age of the domain, and I advise avoiding new and newly created domains. Also, suppose someone opens a site that asks him to connect the wallet exaggeratedly or place a recovery phrase for the wallet. In that case, he can ignore this and conduct research in the first place before making a quick decision.

There are lots of people here on the forum who have knowledge of all this and no matter how good you are on the forum there are people here who are more knowledgeable than you and we all know how the reputable the forum is so it is more important to ask here on the forum how legit a site is. The forum is a way of identifying scam on it’s own that people neglect, they fail to understand that whatever you are going through a lot of people must have experienced it in the past and you can learn from their mistakes.


reviews are no longer trustworthy since they can be altered, and scammers frequently pay people to write positive reviews of their websites so they can easily entice victims to visit them. Reviews should no longer be trusted.


Scam sites typically don't last long; they are only around to con people for a little while before it is realised that they are scams since victims will undoubtedly cry out for assistance and alert others to the situation. Because only legitimate websites will last for an extended length of time, it is crucial to take this into account when attempting to determine the legitimacy of a website.
 
These are good points you have come up with OP but next time it will be much better if you resize the images you attached.

This one also can be considered a factor. Some lousy scammers not even fixing some of their spelling when thry deploy their website which is clearly noticed of theit rush doing it. Someone always have an isntinct to check thoroughly and a legit one would always proofread the site or read important details and an error like spelling is a clue that it might be just a scam one.

Even if it's a hundred years old site, why is anybody asking for the phrase of another person? It's a private phrase. No one else should have it. It's no more a secret if you can give it out to strangers, is it?
It's sad to see that people still fall for things like this.
No matter who the message comes from, consider it as a scam. Even if the message comes from the Pi network itself. There is no other use of your seed phrase aside from gaining access to your wallet. Even you don't have any other use for the phrase aside from gaining access to your wallet, why should someone else want it?

We have to be extra careful out there. Cybercriminals don't relent, so we shouldn't either. They will construct different means to extract personal details from us.
This is another reason this forum is a lifesaver.

To be quite frank:

1. Although this is still alarming, nobody should fall to this kind of scam. This isn't a sophisticated scam. This is a dumb scam. To anybody who has a seed phrase, it is a very basic knowledge that it shouldn't be shared with anybody. Anybody who asks for it should be a fraud. That's as basic as the sun would rise in the east.

2. This is about Pi, which is another scam. Anything related to a scam must also be a scam. Pi is a scam. A store which uses Pi as a currency is a scam. Anybody assigning value to Pi is a scambug.

You know one problem with most people is that they DONT READ IN BETWEEN THE LINES, and some are stubborn too to have listening ears. Scam in this generation is nothing to write home about because they come now in different styles and tricks, those too who are engaged in free airdrops giveaways fall a victim to these stuff most likely.

I agree with your statement.

Majority of the scams can be avoided if a person does not share any of his/her personal information in sketchy websites. In addition, if you encounter a website that offers free giveaways that is too good to be true, then avoid it at all cost. Remember, prevention is better than cure- nothing is free in this world as everything has an equivalent.

If a person randomly adds you and messages you telling to invest on their business or to purchase any kind of investment scheme, be doubtful and ignore it. Again, scams can definitely be avoided if you remain skeptical about everything and their processes.

In fact, we often encounter this type of scam, and there are still people who are affected. Whether it's due to a lack of knowledge, experience, too much trust, or because the promise of money earned is too high, to the point of destroying our common sense.

In this case, what we really need to remember is: Never provide or enter important data such as phrases to anyone, on any platform, and with any instructions. Because phrases are very sensitive and important so that we can access our wallet. And if we give it to someone else, the risk is that they can access our wallet easily. Even though they promise that our data is safe, don't ever believe that. Stop if they ask you to.

Thanks for this awareness on scam, though alot had been said and discussed about scam and will still continue in other to safe those that might be coming in contact with such being for the first time, we need to know different tactics and modes scammers can use to attack us, identifying scam comes with different tasks that we had to start with knowing different kinds of these scams and how their operations takes place, this will help us know how we can prevent ourselves from such whenever we come in contact with such at anytime.

You need to keep one thing in mind a good deal won't come to you 90% of the time you need to find it and work for it to earn it. If someone or any project offers something attractive to you, he is trying to sell it to you. That product or service can be beneficial for you and sometimes it won't but it will be for the seller because he will earn profits by selling it to you. So try to figure out who is profiting more from the deal you will make.

Such fraudulent websites continue to grow rapidly, and can even disguise themselves well with the same website name but with different letters.
The main indications of fraud are unreasonable bonuses, asking for your password or secret wallet key and being asked to make a deposit on an unclear exchange website as well as several sales of cheap goods that are very far from market prices.
In fact, all reviewers or accounts that comment are part of a scammer ring.
Be careful from now on because the scams are getting more sophisticated and don't look like typical scams.

Scammers are also trying to be innovative and are always looking for new ways rob people of their funds. When making a purchase from an online store, it’s best to keep to and buy reputable and known stores.
Greed in people is mostly what gets them scammed of their money as people are lured in with what they stand to gain. You’re on an online store and the prices of items are looking too good and too cheap to be true, it most likely is but that wouldn’t stop some people despite knowing how much those items actually cost.

We easily trust without having to confirm things for ourselves and without greed clouding our minds and thoughts, some research online would easily reveal mistakes from scam deals and websites.

If you are told to bring one to collect two it is a scam...
If you are pressured to make a certain payment, it is a scam...
If you are promised a free money, it is also a scam...
We have known many means that scammers use to rip people off their money but what give scammers upper hand is our desire to earn large while putting in little efforts. It is based on this greed that the scammers feed on to decieve many, especially the newbies.

If the offer is too good to be true, it is more likely a scam.  If a seller is offering an item that is way lower than the selling price, we should be alarmed that the possibility of scam is high.  It is either the item that will be delivered to you is a fake or other garbage items (for cash on delivery) or the item won't be delivered at all (for online payment before the item is delivered).

There had been lots of cases where people ordering a gadget received a box with garbage item on it.  Reviews an be faked since the scammer can put a review lying about the successful trades.

I got it from  a Facebook page advert, funny though as it's made  over 10k likes with 2k comments with larger positive comments. I believe many a lot  of people would have been scammed already

How did you stumble on this website? Because it's like someone looking for something that's not lost, the link to this website should be hiding in something or maybe because the website is all about selling some goods, where is the advert that can look attractive to people to make them visit that website? It looks stupid to me because they can't even spell the word passphrase correctly, what is passphraft?

There are some links that doesn't need to be visited before you know that it's a bad one, I wonder what could make me want to access a pinetstore.cc anyway, that's why I ask how you find this website, what where you looking for? It kinda make your post pointless but anyway, you are new and it's expected of newbies.

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When you come across good offers online either in gadgets, money and finance it's probably a scam because no one wants the best for others without getting something back in return, only the stories of ' we are all happy, it's a win - win situation for all of us, this is the only thing that's genuine only now, if not it's a scam.

Aside from identifying scam, but are you serious about buying a phone from an unknown service provider? There are additional risks that are not related to the price. Even if the phone reaches you, the phone may have been stolen or been used by hackers, or its components have been tampered with to contain backdoors that steal your data, so Do not buy a phone except from a well-known store.
As for identifying fraud, you can avoid 90% by asking questions, reading reviews, and not using any unreliable service, but sometimes there is fraud that is difficult to detect, as happened with FTX, so the rule remains that you do not trust a third party when it comes to your money.

The domain is already free, which once again suggests that this was a one-time site written on the knee. It's amazing how people can become interested in a site that is made very unprofessionally and has a very low popularity rating. People are greedy by nature, but it’s a shame for those who earn their money through hard work and subsequently trust it to scammers. There is a good saying that the stingy and greedy pay twice. If you are tempted by a cheap product, you can not only get a fake but also get nothing at all.

It's a scam, Because Pie Also seems scam, There are lot of Pinterest pins rank all over Pinterest which offer free iPhone gift cards, etc. Most of them try to use you for their CPA completion and some try to scam you like you are sharing now. First of all the real businesses try to keep their site up or write their "Site maintenance is going on, come back later" And this site is down.
To detect scam, you can use the methods mentioned in OP, all of them are helpful and I agree.
And to detect scam, anything that I see on the internet that is free and looks like obvious scam, like your free iPhones, free cash, free tokens etc., is 99% likely to be a scam.

It is correct!

People only need to be not greedy or over greedy to realize that any offer that is too good to be true, is untrue and they will smell scams easily like this.

If they are greedy or worse, over greedy, any word to them will be non sense. Of course, we can tell them red flags but I am very surely most of them will ignore our warnings when greed already controls their minds.

One thing scammers work on, apart from the naivety of their victims, is greed. Scammers know this and work on it to hoodwink their victims. They make promising offers and the greedy ones fall for them. I don't know if there's a natural law to it but I've an inkling that there's something like that which nature follows – If you aren't greedy you won't be trapped by enticing word and ROI. People like unrealistic returns and will easily jump on the slightest opportunity at that, not minding obvious red flags they may notice. If someone is scammed because they invested in such schemes that promise high returns, they should blame themselves.

About Pi, I don't know its connection with Pinetstore.cc but I've read about people exchanging for fiat. There's a rush to accumulate it and I don't know what the use is for since it's still enclosed within the Pi community in so much secrecy. That's not how a Blockchain works.

I am not sure if this kind of website will be able to be detected by some extensions like the Metamask extensions (I know Metamask has a feature like this).
Another thing to identify this is to try to search in google or any search engine for the domain/website of the platform and for sure you will get a list of results like it will show you some feedback from other people saying this website is a scam or legit, just double check everything.

It seems like it is targeting those pi users which the project is also likely a scam. So, it turns out that a likely scam project has got and produced another scammer that tries to phish its users.

With all of those tips, it all ends up with the simple;

DYOR.

And with the obvious about websites asking for your keys, never give it to them because it should only be kept by none other than you.

It's not properly documented  that of iPhone 13 is  41 pi while 14 is 4 pi Where's the sense out of that , no tallies  . Guess it's proving itself  already

Whenever we control ourselves in terms of rushing to make used of those site you can see that the scam rate will reduce. See human are so so greedy in a way that whenever they sees something like this flashes their eyes they will think is a golden opportunity for them to acquired such thing at a cheaper price rather than going the normal way to acquire whatever they wanted. Yes scammers are always exploring different ways to try scamming people and the worst things is that they always upgrade themselves and whenever they strike if you are not smart in reasoning they could get you carried without your attention flashing on their main purpose and arms towards it.

But hold a second, I just want to ask for clarification purposes about this pie: do they have a separate wallet or is the token compatible with other altcoin wallets? Just asking, as the token seems to have a separate blockchain and if they have a separate wallet and these scammers are looking for pie like this, does that mean that they have means of selling it that others don't know?
 
Because looking at the current price of the iPhone 14 and the numbers of pie that's attached to it to replace the price means they really add a lot of value to that pie of a thing, I doubt that site even has any of those listed items in their stock as they can just be blabbing to attract those desperate to sell or spend their pie stock in their wallet.

The typos is obvious  especially that of "phrase" but I guess  it could be for cover not to completely expose phrase as a button or just  a complete  typo  ;

Members of the Pi community will disagree with you on this even though all the evidence is right in front of them. I’m done arguing about the legitimacy of Pi network, they seem to have a stronghold in certain areas mostly third world countries where everyone is trying so hard to break free from poverty. Many feel they missed the bitcoin train and see every Altcoin as a potential bitcoin and hopefully make riches out of it.

The general rule is to err on the side of caution and stick to established/reputable companies.

In addition, Pi network is another scam hence their words doesn't hold much weight and should be stayed away from as well, see: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/pi-network-a-huge-trapwarning-5237735

This is the best way to get ahead of the scammers. They do not expect you to do your due diligence because they often use greed to manipulate their victims. You have made some very good points, I agree with all that’s been said, the only thing missing is a website where people can check the credibility of any website. You can find all you need to know using;
https://www.scamadviser.com/

Its a web page not a wallet or extension where you can have a wallet, its pretty much an obvious scam.

But do you see all those spelling mistakes they have, I can see on the image you posted, so It's something from a pretty lame attacker who didn't even create a good website to act as a mask to write down the credentials.

Use trusted wallet in the first place, which will never ever ask you to share the recovery seeds to access extra feature on the wallet.

I don't know anything about this website you are trying to make purchase in, neither do i know much about the pi network (other than many people are mining Pi, thinking it'd be the next Bitcoin ), nevertheless you shouldn't enter your seed phrase in any website or in anywhere at all. Only enter your seed phrase if you are attempting to import your wallet, and even then you must be careful of the software you are importing it into, you ought to verify it and do it offline if possble.

Yes! this is a very crucial one . I've also seen some of post made about scams, almost all  are post-scammed .

You have not mentioned one which is very important, it is even one of the most important among of them all. Which is to ask on a forum like Bitcointalk to know if a site is a scam or not. Some people will ask the question on this forum when it is too late and when they have already been scammed.

One of the important ways that you mentioned is to check the site domain. If the domain is young like some months ago, there is the high probability that the site is a scam.

I do not believe in reviewing or rating site. I believe in what that is old and reputed.

Newbies need to also be very careful not to connect their wallet to a scam site. This type of scam is very common since many months ago.

The way scamming keeps growing is now alarming or it have always been alarming but much more now .

If you are on track with  Web scams unknowingly mostly investment and purchase, once it's getting  to the  point of add phrase, drop it its a scam so far  its not a noncustodial wallet setup or you have a choice to do a thorough checkup and research




This is a page from https://pinetstore.cc asking for phrase
Apart from this its  a  very young site asking for  phrase, well could be trusted but has pi netwok made an official  announcement?? I don't  think so. Can we say its a scam?? That's left to us

Also if you check the value of pi required to purchase Item below  it's looks somehow fishy to entice users.  



Believe it most scams gain trust through  short time honesty  approximately  deceit to gain more attention from audience  who eventually fall victim as it's crashes in a short period of time.

Other tips to verify a scam site

• Do research  If there are ads of other scam site
  
• Check reviews although it doesn't work sometimes as they pay off reviewers but still part of tips
• Check the duration of existence for a particular site
• Check the Trust level over the years

Among others i could mention, it's a good advice to learn more

Edits
Additional Tips

• Verifying and background  check help for a site from a large forum talk like Bitcointalk.org
• Using tools provided by some websites to track scam websites e.g
  Website - https://www.scamadviser.com/