Topic: SCAMS IN CRYPTO & HOW TO RECOGNIZE THEM (Read 1652 times)

so if in your opinion we should be very observant and very careful to enter the same site, your opinion is very true if there are now many fraudsters who duplicate well-known sites like the binance.

using credit cards on shady websites are more scary because they could rob your whole bank aside from your cryptos  and also , not all websites are legit even if they accepts credit cards or other payment methods .


thats right . we should always check the correct url and bookmark it so that we are sure that it is the real one , whenever we try to visit and use it . we should also check the domain name ( i.e .com , .io , . eu , .net  , etc ) because some sites have a correct url speling but with different a domain .

very rarely if there is a post like this and is very useful for beginners like me, and I can learn to be careful for every transaction, thank you, bro

Let me know if you have some other ideas guys so i'll add them 

This is a nice thread.  I would also add prices that are too good to be true and sites that only take crypto as payment.  I'm not a fan of banks and love crypto, but sites that don't take credit cards make it pretty easy to run away with your money.  I'm willing to use crypto on sites that also take credit cards.  It means they were vetted by someone at least. 

Thank you for taking your time to do a very good listing of how to recognize scam in crypto and if this steps are followed carefully, it should help newbies or even some investors who still have problem with scam recognize a good project or coin to invest in or a good campaign to promote and be sure to get reward at the end.

Yes. Thank you buddy

Thanks for the tips, well i knew that we need to car3fully the words in a url site. Check it manually if something change in the word like your example binance. There are two dots which the real website doesnt have something like that. I keep it on my mind every i enter in a known crypto website specially on exchanges

That‘s absolutely right! Bounty Campaigns can also be scams.
But you say it, the only way to know it, is when the ICO is finished.

I agree with your suggestions and they should be very useful especially to newbies who want to invest in a project of campaign. If they take their time to do this research and are very patient and make good decision, it will help. You should also check out for the manager, developer and management team.

people are already aware on this kind but one thing they do still decide to continue on what they are doing just for the sake of earning easy returns on a short possible of time. Recognizing them isnt really too hard and even just with a simple logic. They want quickly income.. More high of roi the higher possibility to scam

scams are not only because of investing , we can also get scammed because of joining ico boubty campaigns or sig campaigns . It is hard to avoid scam on an ico bounty but is is easy to avoid scam in an signature campaign that pays in bitcoin because you will know if they are already escrowed the funds or not. While on a bounty ico campaign , they are not using an escrow because the ico need to be finished first after you get your rewards.

For those wise and sensible enough into their own actions and do really keen on investing because they are really careful with their hard earned money then they would most likely do all sorts of things of investigation or researching up.
We do really made our own move and we also the only one would suffer such consequences therefore we should step carefully into things we do seem profitable for us. Mistakes cant be avoided but be careful as you can.

Thank you very much buddy 

If I have smerit on my side I would not hesitate to give one. Nice thread and informative. Keep on sharing that is helpful for each member and you will be given back much prayer for your success.


Bump to that.

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I definitely wanted to see a post alike this one on the pinned message on any section of this forum. As I have not read one of its kind.

“RISK comes from not knowing what you’re doing.” •Warren Buffett

New Ideas and suggestions are welcome guys to keep this thread alive 

People need to be accountable for their own action and they should put in their minds that research is key of everything but there are so many people are so lazy upon doing it that's why we see so many people cried for their own foolishness, and I agree with hard to detect if the project is scam but their is certain indicator that will slowly shown and it will indicate us to exit before we get slap badly by their faster exit.

why continue even if you know that it is already a scam?  that was a totally dumb and idiotic move to do. but at the end those people that got scammed are only crying without doing nothing for their money because they cant do also anything due to the fact that scammers are verry hard to find and caught online . it was their own mistake anyway , so their are the ones that we should keep blaming on and not the scammer or any other ponzi schemes.

Some people are already aware on this kind of thing but they do still decide to continue on what they are doing just for the sake of earning easy returns on a short possible of time. Recognizing them isnt really too hard and even just with a simple logic and common sense we can really able to identify out. I dont know why some people do make theirselves of their own greed and they do cry out later when they are scammed. Bitcoinnect shit scam is one of the examples, even just seeing it on very first time it is already a scam to me.

Part 6 - Pyramide & Ponzi Schemes




A well-known example is BitConnect:
BitConnect promised to take Bitcoin Investing to another level and open it up to everyone. For this, the makers behind BitConnect have introduced their own Coin, the BitConnect Coin (BCC), and a few months later the BitConnect Lending platform. With the platform, it was possible to invest in automated Bitcoin trading and benefit from daily distributions.

As you can see very well in the following picture, BitConnect profits are above average (even if the return on Crypto can be higher) - 40% per month for a passive system is unrealistic.





It is very easy to see what happens when the system collapses.
The danger with this project was that many - also known - creators, influencers and Twitterers actively promoted the project and presented it as an ideal source of income. Why? Because they used their referral codes and were thus rewarded for every new user. In the end, the followers paid dearly their trust in those.


Tips:
Researched projects in which you want to invest (DYOR - do your own research) and do not trust anyone blindly, no matter who in your environment is just totally convinced of a project.
Have no unrealistic profit expectations, no one gives you money
If you do not understand a system or project, do not invest in this project.

Update: In the next days I'll add "Pyramid and Ponzi Schemes"
Stay tuned!

Thank you guys!
I'll update this thread.

Using multiple accounts on where you mean bro, If you want to exchange on the altcoins in the trading site I am not sure what is wrong in that. If you want to create the multiple accounts at this forum means that is advisable and not tolerated too.

I think scam op asked and you have mentioned both are different only mate.
Then scam in ICO project may here from the bounties and then investment over any airdrops and etc...

Ive been doing this after i do experience last time when my main email been hacked i dont know how it happened but im now careful on engaging to things which i do have email registered on each own bounties and airdropts.

For the post and OP, this deserves merit for all the effort being putted on here where do make warnings for those people when it comes to potential type of scamming attempts.There are lots of ways thats why we should really have an eagle-eye type of eyes. hahaha

perhaps with posts like this give awareness for us if you want to do something in the world of crypto must be careful in every step.

Yes,it is better to have separate email address for participating in bounties and use different kind of passwords to save ourselves from scammers.Better to keep the passwords not in digital form because the phishing links can copy our clipboard.

Nice compilation of ways to detect scam.

Some users here got scam already because they create same username and email in different site so better not to do that then we should create new username and password if you afraid to create new one because that's hard to save i suggest to write your username and password to notebook then save in telegram then for more good try to save also in social site

good information, to be more careful in Crypto. especially to avoid scammers.

and I am sure that all those who jump into the world of crypto must have experienced it.

I myself too, but this I made a lesson for me so I am more careful and careful.

I tell you what, it's easiest to think everything is a scam

This is very good post to get the idea about scams and legits in the crypto field but the sad thing is that the scammers are getting updated everyday and make the site looks so original so we also need to get updated with the news about the crypto currency field to avoid any scams and while login to sites it is better to login from bookmarked page to avoid the close sites.

scammers love telegram chats over discord

the information you share really contains very useful information for many people. Congratulations for sharing nice content. It's good to see such shares.

This post doesnt really have the intention on completely stopping scams but rather it do only spreads awareness and given out some illustrations which is really helpful into newbie or people who are just getting in recently either engaging into bounties or directly investing into those projects in the market. Recognizing them would really be just simple by just doing simple routine or indications which even you common sense would able to point out if those project are fraud or legit.

It is amazing to note the volume of useful information packed into this post. Thanks for sharing this on the forum.Phishing websites are a real problem,one has to be extremely care to check out the sites especially exchanges before inputing personal details.It is also good practice to include email verification in withdrawals since 2FAs can be fooled as indicated in the post

Helpful, nice to see someone do something like this. Merited your post. Unfortunately, all these examples won't stop the scams, and people still need to learn to practice good behavior online and understand first how to even prevent themselves from ever facing a situation where they have to check website names and identify scams.

Add the tip for Website scams to bookmark sites often used after verifying they are correct. And only access from bookmarks. Google search is such a dangerous thing I never use it for going to websites.

Edited.

This one of the way to catch the legit project or not with the social account mate. I see the ICO projects are really helpful for the people looking to make the investment double after the tokens listed on the exchange dude.
Please read the white paper first and then confirm who are all the experienced devs part of the project.
I mostly looking into these information only. If all set good only even I go participate in their bounty campaign.

Very good detail for detecting scams crypto or ICO, i will just to add to on my personal experience on how to detect them is by checking the members the team as well their social media account if they are claiming to be part of the project. For me thats the best way to check if the crypto is genuine or not

to summarize things up, don't join anything that something odds about them like asking money first and saying it's free airdrops, haha. Private key sharing and encouraging is the most stupid thing a wallet holder can do.

Thank you for your positive feedback. Ideas and suggestions are welcome. Should I add something or miss something, let me know. 

For one or the other merit I would be happy so I'll be able to upload pictures

With this information, people should be able to recognize scam when they see one and how best to keep their information to avoid being scammed. Thank you very much for taking your time to give this very helpful information because many people will benefit from it.

Man this is really handy post made by you. Very useful for many newbies to understand this basics of scamming people, how it happens and who is doing so. If you have som other handy stuff written, please share links!

thank you for the imformation you give this is very helpfull  so much to don't get involve of the shit scammers ..

good info on various scams .
most shocking part i seen is in twitter where people somehow get verified twitter handle and then do scam with that .
people take verified symbol as authenticity of that handle .
dont know why twitter not take action on such handles .

one more thing is with google search .
yday i was trying to search a ico website and in search results i found scam website at top in ad category with same ICO name.
no one can differentiate which is fake and people new in crypto and unaware of such scams are mostly victims .

Hello everybody,

because I have read it here more often, I thought that a thread on the subject would not be a wrong idea.
Cryptocurrency scams are becoming harder to detect. Here are a few things to watch out for

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Disclaimer:
The scams listed here are not exhaustive, are merely examples, and are intended to give an idea of the ways in which scammers attempt to gain value.

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As cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are gaining in popularity, the number of scams and scams in this area is also increasing. However, there are also some things that you can (and should) pay attention to when dealing with the subject and where money and/or personal information is in any way at stake.

Overview:
Part 1 - Websites
Part 2 - Twitter
Part 3 - Airdrops
Part 4 - Signal Groups (Pump & Dump)
Part 5 - Scam Mails

Before you go, the most important tip is the Golden Rule: NEVER reveal your private keys, NEVER - for any reason, no matter how tempting!

In addition, greed is one of your biggest enemies. If you are greedy and take too little care of yourself, you can lose everything. So be careful!

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Part 1 - Websites

Situation / Danger:
A now popular scam is the cloning of a well-known website to get the unsuspecting user to enter their data and steal it.

Usually you can tell by the presence of the green "https" in front of the URL if a website is legitimate.


https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F3EKZzpt.png&t=588&c=JycNRYO5CG5NAw

If you are attentive, you can easily see that the next page is not a legitimate site or a legitimate entity because it does not have the proper certification to be trusted.

So you always have to look for a green "Safe" or "Secure" and "https" in front of the URL address of the website. This is a sign that the website and the company have received the proper Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates. Obtaining an SSL certificate indicates that the company can be trusted behind the page.




Coinsmarkets.com has neither the green "Secure" nor "https" in front of its URL. Instead, it has a gray "Not Secure" and a regular "http" in front of the URL.
As a rule, scam pages are quickly detected and removed. If you are now trying coinsmarkets.com (please do not wink) you will get an error message.


However, some scam sites have found a way to display the green "secure" and "https" in the website URL, and then make an incredibly subtle change to the URL.




At first glance, URL for the popular cryptocurrency exchange Binance seems legitimate. You can clearly see the green "https" in front of the website URL and also the name seems to be correct.

In the rarest cases, it is understandable how a site received an SSL certificate that allows them to display the green "https" in front of the URL. This also applies to scammer pages. At the same time, getting an SSL certificate from a less trusted certificate issuer is pretty easy.

If you take a closer look at the second picture, you will see small dots under the letters "n" in the word "binance".

The two dots under the Binance URL show that this is not the real Binance page. Instead, it's a very well-made clone of the page, whose sole purpose is to tap user data that unsuspecting users enter there. Even an activated 2FA authentication does not protect you, since a scammer can enter this data immediately after you have entered it on the real Binance page, where it will still be valid. Thus, he has access to the account from then on.

Especially perfidious are those pages that show an error message after the first log in, saying: "The service can not be reached temporarily, please try again in 10 minutes." In this way, the user does not even suspect that he has just revealed his data and a scammer uses it to gain access to the user's account.
If the user then tries to log back in 10 minutes later, he gives the scammer a 2. 2FA code, which he may use to initiate a transaction or even disable 2FA.

Even if you are attentive, such a site can be difficult to spot because everything seems familiar at first glance.

The example shown here is called PunyCode, which is used to create certain special characters (here the dot under the letter "n")
In another example, we linked to Bittrex and used the cedilla under the "r" (looks like a comma). Cedillas are widely used in languages such as French and Portuguese.

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Part 2 - Twitter

Situation / Danger:
Another popular method is to fake known accounts on Twitter and, under cover of a giveaway or airdrop, encourage people to send money or crypto.



Here you can see very well that in the red box (Scam) the Twitter name is "binance", but the handle is "@ banance_2017" and not like in the green box "@ binance_2017". Here, a giveaway of Binance is faked and the link to an ether address is given to which ETH is to be sent to participate in the giveaway. In the orange box you can see that the post office has been split and licked very often, which should give the whole thing credibility, as are the fake confirmations in the blue boxes. These were also placed by the scammers. The high number of shares & likes is most likely due to the use of bots.

Another scam are fake accounts, which get the "verified" from Twitter including the blue hook next to the name, which - if you are not hellish beware - can lead you astray very quickly. Here's an example:



It can be seen that the TRON project's real account (right) has a blue check mark next to its name. The handle is "@Tronfoundation". On the left, however, is the fake account, which also has a blue hook next to the name, but a slightly different handle "@Tronfoundationl".

The confusing thing: The fake account has the completely identical description, location and a similar follower number AND he is even older, which means that you theoretically even keep the original account for the fake account, since this is only a few months old.

So, if you look at the following tweet, there is not much to say against it that you can consider it authentic:







Tips:
- Just make it a policy to NEVER join a giveaway where you have to invest money first.
- NEVER enter your private key somewhere and do not upload it (eg JSON file).
- Followed the most important Twitter accounts you use regularly
- If you see a message that interests you, go to the Twitter feed of the account and look there to see if the message really comes from the real account.

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Part 3 - Airdrops

Situation / Danger:
Airdrops are now performed in various ways. Therefore, it is also difficult to show all possible scam combinations. What most Airdrop scams have come to grips with is that they somehow try to get hold of your private keys - either on a website or in a (Google) form.

Prominent example is the Fake-OmiseGo Airdrop:



In the screenshot above it is easy to see that in each case the third field asks for your private key. The following sentences are particularly perfidious: "Note: It is safe We will never collect or store your personal information (such as your private key) This form is fully encrypted ...". In addition, this is an unnecessary complexity suggests, while the scammers have it only on your private key apart.

The links to such sites are distributed via Twitter & Facebook but also via telegram and other channels such as Slack or Discord. Often an urgency is also suggested (for example "only the first 1,000 participants), so that the alleged victims become careless.

Tips:
-NEVER give your private key! (you can not repeat it often enough)
-If you want to join in an Airdrop, first check the project! Do not use a direct link from the same source. Looking for a homepage and a bounty thread here in Bitcointalk
-If you do not find anything, it is most likely a scam
-Use your common sense, because here too in the forum there are questionable projects and practices.

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Part 4 - Signal Groups (Pump & Dump)

Situation / Danger:
Undertow. Signal Groups and Pump & Dump Groups are a great danger, especially for newcomers, as they suggest quick profits and often present them credibly.



Tips:

-Avoid short term pumps & dumps, without extensive research and experience it is pure gambling and losses are almost guaranteed.
-Never spend money to get into "closed groups" or receive so-called paid signals. You usually come in the paid outer circle >> 75% loss!
-Watch out for supposed "insider tips" that are being dropped. These are almost always coins that are in the pumping phase. If you get in here, you're the one who's dumped on.

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Part 5 - Scam Mails

Situation / Danger:
Phishing and Scam emails have been known for years and are actually nothing new. Due to the often prevailing intransparency in Crypto and the unawareness / insecurity of many, it is still worth mentioning. In addition, scam websites (see above) may irreversibly compromise accounts / wallets and therefore pose a particular danger. Especially in combination with Airdrops and the often difficult-to-understand coin-token distribution practices, the danger of scam / phishing emails is omnipresent.

On the left a "classic" phishing mail, on the right a scam mail that applies for a nonexistent Airdrop:



There is not much to say about scam emails. They work on the same principle as previous phishing emails and try to convince you credibly that they are authentic. This is unfortunately favored by the fact that many projects are relatively unprofessional and therefore supposedly scam mails actually come sometimes from the actual project. As a result, laypersons (and even experienced users) often find it difficult to spot the difference directly.

Tips:

-Create at least 1 new e-mail address for Crypto. Be selective on whom you give this address.
-Never respond to mails that have not requested yours. Especially not if you have not given the project / sender your e-mail address.
-Do not click on links in emails! Should you do it, use a e.g. sandbox
-If you are unsure about a mail, verify the information (not by clicking in the mail!), Eg. Search the project's Twitter, Telegram, or other social media channels.