Cryptocurrency has become the latest trend. Along with it comes cryptocurrency scams in various forms. The entire crypto ecosystem is plagued with fraudulence that most people cannot spot until they lose their cryptocurrencies. The crypto scams vary in type and size. While some are pretty simple and obvious, the others are much more complex and difficult to avoid.
The past several years have experienced a rise in cryptocurrency scams both in terms of numbers and variations. The crypto scammers come up with different new techniques that innocent people cannot keep up with and fall prey to.
This article will discuss the most popular crypto scams that you need to avoid at all costs.
There are a host of cryptocurrency scams that you may often encounter. Most of these scams are meant to extract your owned cryptocurrencies in some way or the other. Below are some of the most common variant of cryptocurrency scams:
- Telegram Scams: Often, various Telegram channels and accounts advertise for cryptocurrency giveaways, airdrops. Some even bear scams using the tech support trick where the users trust having their accounts need fixing as it has some problems. The scammers might ask for cryptocurrencies in order to fix the users’ accounts.
- Impersonation Scams: Using the technique, the scammer offers the users to help in opening a new account. They obtain the users’ KYC documents tricking them and complete the account verification. With this, they have complete access to the user’s account. Through this, they also clear out the funds from the victim’s account. They do this by swapping the funds with Bitcoin for withdrawal into their accounts.
Apart from these, various other new techniques have evolved to help the scammers continue their purposes, such as investment scams, giveaways, phishing scams, and employment scams. Most of these take place via social media.
Here is how you can avoid being prey to the efficient cryptocurrency scammers that find various tricks to get you. We believe that by following these following tips, you can be secured at the maximum level.
- You must avoid sending your cryptocurrency to any unknown external addresses. No crypto exchange ever asks you to send them funds to any external address for the purpose of verifying or fixing your account with them.
- Never send your crypto coins under the fake pretext of verification of address for a “so-called” promised giveaway.
- Never fall for the fake screenshots that come with forged giveaways and offers on social media platforms. Some of them might impersonate as the legit account handles. But, you need to cross-check whether they arrived from the original exchange profiles.
- Various websites do promise unrealistic profits and/or high returns. To avoid scammers causing fraudulence with these pointers, you need to be alert. Check the service or product provider.
- Using the independent sources, you must check if a website or project claiming to be affiliated with or even endorsed by a trusted party.
- You need to watch out for the grammatical or spelling errors in the website domain addresses or the communications. If found, it may ensure that it is a fraudulent case.
- You must never share your cryptocurrency account security credentials and logins with anyone. This includes even the crypto platform employees.
- You may find various job listings or giveaways on the Telegram app. Do not trust them. Instead, go on the official website and verify if they have the same openings and offers. You need to cross further check if the Telegram offer or job posting is legit.
- You must always report the fraudulent account activity or the suspicious activities to your crypto platform’s support.
- Do not straightforwardly invest in new tokens via ICO or the lesser-known crypto coins. It is best if you do your own thorough research.
- In order to safeguard your cryptocurrency accounts, you need to use 2FA or Two Factor Authentication.
These are all the basic steps to keep yourself secured. If the users follow all these steps and never make any opsec mistake, he or she can be safe and completely dodge the harmful incidents.
