Wrote before about scammers, scam projects and collated an basic guide on how to avoid scams.
To avoid losing money, the number 1 rule is ... don't be stupid. No one gets rich overnight.
Treat everything with caution and go through the whitepapers. This may save you from a later disappointment. The important details are mentioned in the whitepapers, such as the strategy, goals and roadmap.
The Deus Ex! Who is behind the project? If the coin is backed by visible people, the chance for scam exits and loopholes is smaller. This doesn't mean that fake profile can't be created to back certain projects.
Verification is mandatory before investments, especially if you don't want to lose a large amount of money.
Only invest money that you can afford to lose
Does the sale process looks legit? A quick and forced sale is the first sign of something fishy. If the ICO is to good to be true... it's not true.
Following this topic, few weeks ago I had the pleasure to read a great post about scams and great guidance on how to avoid loosing money. See Scammers Never Rest - by Cryptonator for a great compilation of what dangers are lurking in the shadows. Rah wrote another good guide on how to spot crypto scams.
Scammers never rest! Yes, it's the ugly true. We had a great chat on Telegram about how they had to up their game and constantly create new staff and new methods to trick people. Even if you do your fair part and avoid school boy errors, you can still become a victim, as the hacks on DeFi projects and protocols are on the rise.
Have a look at what major scams and hacks happened in the last months and you will see that you can never take to many safety measures. Twitter accounts getting hacked, Kucoin attacked, OKEx staff fraud, DeFi projects doing exit scams, police ignoring frauds and lots of vulnerability exploits, stealing money from Akropolis, Harvest Finance, Origin USD, Pickle Finance, and many more
Hack Alert! Major US Twitter accounts 🇺🇸 hacked in BTC scam!
Another DeFi project scam: Yfdex vanishes with $20 million
UK Police ignored the $3 million Lyfcoin crypto scam
Origin Dollar(OUSD) dropped to $0.14 after hack
Harvest.Finance hacker attack aftermaths and strategy
Another Day... Another Hack: Pickle Finance got robbed
In the last week I started collecting and saving my interaction with scammers and dodgy people, and I will include in this category those who steal intellectual property and commit copyright infringements.
ReadCash will have it's special place in this post as most of my good posts from Publish0x were published in there already, but not by me. This is funny because this makes me be unable to use my own work when writing content in there. The guys are such low level crooks, copy pasting the whole article, and using even my referral links, thumbnails and pictures. The Brave Browser post was stolen with a spelling mistake in the image, one which I noticed later on.
Who had a good banter with me about the downfall of Atomic Wallet Coin? This was my first post to break the $5 barrier and one of the most entertaining, as many people joined the debate. Mike23 made it his!
Lets move on to emails, where inheritances from the Nigerian Uncle is more common than rain in England. This time my help was required from a damsel in distress. Suzzy from Cote D'Ivoire needs my help to move $6.5 million cause her country is not save, and they hate cocoa factories. I will be compensated with 15% of the amount. The hope of survival depends on me!
As an author, I receive monthly payments for the paperback books or kindle books I sell. Somehow this guys got my details, so someone breached the data privacy, and asked me to update my bank details. In a helpful manner, they even provided a quick link to make my job easier.
Social media is no stranger to scammers, as Facebook is full of unique offers for crypto investors. The smarter ones are now approaching people on Telegram and Discord. I don't know about you, but I personally hate to be approached by strangers. You can see Johnny Boy trying to help me win some fair money on this roulette website, being ready to prove me how genuine this is. I don't trust people who disrespects my home planet of Tatooine.
Discord is another shady place, where dodgy people are looking for their next victim, sharing super offers, crypto investment opportunities or just communities where we can build/grow together. This guy has a great casino offer, with lots of free spins but no pretzels. I love pretzels. And man.... why are you shouting your name?
Carrie has an invite for me, a nice community where we build together. Together with who? It's a second invite from her, maybe because I ignored the first offer. I know this carrie is not real because I often chat with the real one on LiveJasmine. Use a capital letter in your name to look less fake.
This click bait made me read the headline, cause you have to admit it, if this guy become rich, we all have a chance. I just assumed the rest of the article is full of bullshit and lies so I moved on.
Now this kind of stuff is promoted content. Such a pathetic method used to attract noobs to click. You prefer Asian girls or how to make $5 Bitcoin in a fortune? I had over 2 Bitcoin five years ago and now I have 0.03 so maybe I will click the link.
The globalisation of technology is to blame for this one as well. Everyone can now own a device with Internet. This is the real reason why spammers and scammers are going... to the moon. This guy is suggesting random people to invest in a random thing! Jump on guys!
The 2020 reality is that the Internet of things is over saturated with dodgy people trying to scam others. Without any exaggeration, I am invited in 4-5 Telegram trading groups, I am getting about a handful of direct messages regarding crypto opportunities on each platform I am using. The email scams are getting better and better, and more difficult to recognize. Stay alert, think twice before opening amazing offers and make sure you double check every crypto transaction you plan to do.
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Join the noise.cash Quiz on the 3rd of January (4pm UTC) for a chance to win the $10 BCH top prize
Links and referrals:
Scammers Never Rest - Cryptonator`s Ultimate Guide To Avoid Cryptonator
How to spot crypto scams- by Rah
Weekly Heads-up! Crypto opportunities and how to avoid scams
The Downfall of Atomic Wallet Coin (AWC)
Brave! Long live the King of the Browsers!
Coinbase Earn: BAND, COMP, Orchid & EOS
Amazon author page: PV Mihalache
Quality Faucets: Free-Litecoin.com (LITECOIN)
Tier 4 referral system: Horizen (ZEN) & ZCash from PipeFlare & GlobalHive
FreeCryptos Gang: DASH, TRX, ETH, ADA, BNB, LINK, NEO, BTC & LTC
Coinpot Gang: DASH, BCH, DOGE, LTC, BTC, BTC2, BTC3 & BTC4
I earn crypto for reading and writing on Publish0x and ReadCash, watching videos on Lbry.tv and surfing online on Brave Browser and Presearch. I use Swapzone for the lowest fee swaps
The post about Brave was stolen from my account.