Topic: Skepticism and Common sense—Scam inhibitors! (Read 155 times)

I am grateful for these advices and I will put them into consideration every time I would be developing my post. It also gladens my heart that this forum do not only educate someone about cryptocurrency, it also helps to develop (and get better at) creative writing skill, at least I'm learning to constructively communicate my opinions on subject matters.

It was after I created the thread and people didn't comment that I realised that the volume of the post could have been responsible for the absence of comments on the thread. I'm grateful once more.

I'm a newbie,
I'm learning;
I'm happy!

It's such a big read and you really did take out the time to pen it down right and its commendable that you've got that time plus, your composition is good too. Nevertheless, if I may, you might want to be careful when composing a large contents such as this one. It could discourage reading and I most say, I was virtually discouraged to read through in entire and probably scan through but, would be left with a shabby idea on the narration. Perhaps you can use a different approach that highlights certain points and exclude unnecessary details.

Telegram is the home of scams. Scammers use a less moderated platforms like social media to run there scam schemes so, once you find yourself in one, look for the exit.
Those few minutes taken to log unto your common sense (I like the expression by the way) and these questions that rose your skepticism is all that saved you. If only investors out there could do this than being scammed.

Most rich people don't have the time to beacon on other to come join them and be rich. At least its the way I like to think about it. They've got poor once in there families and neighbourhood to enrich so, why the heck should they care about you!

They might claim to lack funds but, a professional trader, capable in doubling investment capitals in minutes is far too smart to need your money for an investment capital. There are loan packages out there with low interest rate and should the trader be so experienced and good with trades, he or she could use one and repay almost immediately after getting desired profit. Your funds shouldn't be what some self proclaimed professional would use for practice but it's indeed a scam.

A number of people on this planet are "doubting thomas" at default; perhaps, they've Experienced some incidence that contributed to that innate attitude. In my first thread on this forum, I mentioned how a lot of people missed the opportunity to invest in Bitcoin and other important cryptocurrencies at their incubation periods.

I realised most people (including me) couldn't buy the idea of investing in this cryptocurrency because of the bad experience they've had with scam agendas like ponzi schemes. I've come to realise over the years (through my study) and from the little period I've spent on this forum that Cryptocurrency itself is not a scam project, but people hide behind it to scam others, and I've seen this been carried out in one of the two ways mentioned below (though might not be limited to the two mentioned below).

Scam in Buying Cryptocurrency
Following the moment I fell in love with cryptocurrency and got aware of my ignorance about it, an incidence happened to me. At that time, I was watching out for every possible opportunity to invest in cryptocurrency after my KYC on Binance failed because I didn't have the required Identification document that time (I later got the KYC done some months later). Coincidentally, at the period, I found myself on a telegram group where I saw people posting evidences of payment implying that they've paid for an amount of cryptocurrency to be sold to them, likewise on the group was someone (acting as the seller of the cryptocurrency), who also would send messages to confirm payment and transaction of the cryptocurrency.

As much as I was watching out for opportunities to buy cryptocurrency at that time, I was not convinced to want to engage in such transaction for some reasons:
(1) I've been scammed before (though on a non-cryptocurrency platform), this increased my skepticism level.
(2) I took a minute to log in to my common sense to put all things to test and evaluate the present situation at hand, so I asked myself some questions: Do I know the people on this group?, Do I know the person who created the group?, If I send my money and things didn't go as expected, is there a medium through which my money could be refunded?, fortunately for me, the answers to those questions were NOs.

This was how my skepticism (due to past scam experience) saved me from another scam experience of my life because not to long after that time, I found out from social media in report of people who were scammed through such process: they set up people to act as though legit transactions are going on on the group while in actual sense they were looking for a prey, the evidences of payment posted were just baits.  

Scam in Cryptocurrency Investment
Just like those ponzi schemes, I've seen and heard of schemes where the moderator of the scheme advertise His expertise in trading to people in other to get them to invest in the scheme while he uses the money as capital to trade and then promise the investors a percentage of ROI (Return on Investment). This same incidence claimed the life of a colleague in my fellowship. This brother was acting as a middle man between investors (mostly his friends and course mates) and the Trader (Note: Foreign exchange was the investment in this case).

Unfortunately, He (the middle man) was able to talk a lot of people in to investing in the scheme while he was ignorant of the risk attached to trading FX, I'm not sure he even knew what FX is really about, the ROI and his share of profit as a middle man probably made him stand in the counsel of such scheme. Sadly, things didn't go as planned as the trader couldn't keep to the terms of contract. Meanwhile, the investors didn't know the trader, they didn't have access to him, they only have access to the middle man, so they started posting the images of the middle man on social media with captions that he is a scammer and all those defaming words.

Consequentially, this led to depression for the middle man as he couldn't savage the situation, so he committed suicide.
This incidence was what came to my mind few weeks ago when a friend showed me a whatsapp group he was added by an unknown person, they also use the same terms of contract as the Incidence I mentioned above but in this case, cryptocurrency is what they preach as the investment. I was able to convince my friend to exit the group immediately because he was at that time ready to invest in anything so far there's a ROI. That's another escape from a scam trap.

Now, these are my advise or reasons I think people should not fall into traps like these anymore:
(1) We now have, at our disposal, Cryptocurrency Exchange that allows us to buy or sell cryptocurrency from merchants (a process/transaction called Pair to Pair (P2P) on binance), interestingly, we can even become a merchant on Cryptocurrency exchange like this. Merchant on this type of Cryptocurrency Exchange have their reputation to protect as they could easily be dealt with by the administration of the Crytocurrency Exchange if there's any breach in the procedure of transaction. I feel this is safer than paying a stranger for cryptocurrency when there's no intermediary to monitor the process of the transaction. Examples of Cryptocurrency Exchange mentioned above are (but might not be limited to): BINANCE, KUCOIN etc.

(2) Whatever investment we want to venture in, I feel it's best to be aware (have knowledge) of it, in fact, it's not a bad idea if we handle things by ourselves. I know a lot people who are into cryptocurrency and they still have their Job, I've seen Students who are also into cryptocurrency and they have their focus on their studies still; as Robert Kiyosaki mentioned something I will like to call an investment principle in his book Rich Dad Poor Dad, he called it Mind your business, thankfully, this principle also applies to cryptocurrency, you don't have to quit your job because you want to study about (or invest in) cryptocurrency.

Lastly, I will say that this forum is a tool that people should put to good use, especially people who are truly enthusiastic about cryptocurrency, I'm saying this because in the little time I've spent here, the forum has enlightened me on my trading knowledge and mentality about cryptocurrency.