Cryptocurrency Scams: Ways They Can Use To Trick You by @swaylee

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Greetings Everyone,
I am Rasheed and welcome to my blog. Today we would be looking at one of the most common problems in the crypto verse right now. Amongst the legit hustlers and investors that are working hard to make huge or little profits, there are always the group of people who want to scam newbies and the ignorant off their money so this is more like a post to make their ways known to my readers so they don't have to fall victim of such false hope and theft. I would be listing and explaining possible scam methods in this post so if you want to learn, keep reading.

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What are Crypto Scams?

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According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Consumer Sentinel, from October 2020 through March 31, 2021, reports of crypto-related scams skyrocketed to nearly 7,000 people reporting losses of more than $80 million. Source

Crypto Scams are fraudulent ways which thieves use to make money in the crypto world. They go to extreme lengths to make sure that they take the currencies of people. As days go by, they keep looking for more ways to dupe people and collect their crypto assets either directly or indirectly. The most vulnerable are either greedy people or the ignorant. No one is immune to their attacks as they find a new way to make their theft easier and smoother.

Crypto currency scams take place in numerous places. They even utilize social media as a way of getting potential victims. If the victim is wise, they would either ignore or make enquiry but if they are ignorant or greedy and looking for quick money, they can easily fall victim to the scammers. There even exist scammers on Steemit, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms looking for the right opportunity to strike and the right person to strike. To this effect I compiled a good amount of cryptocurrencies scams which are widely used around the world and i will be explaining them to the best of my abilities.

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5 Possible Crypto Scam Methods

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Here is a message I received on Whatsapp the other day. After due research, I figured out that it was a fake site and the money there can't be withdrawn. Fake Websites are often often created by scammers to trick their users into using them so as to extract their details or even to steal their tokens. For example, I am a scammer and I make a fake exchange website and made it to resemble binance, I would let it work just fine then when I reel in alot of users, I would steal all their money because it's my site and I have control over their assets.

This screenshot I took from the Steemit blog comment section might not necessarily be a phishing link but it looks like one. On Steemit we often see posts like Click this link to get 3000 steem for free. This is a clear example of a phishing link and scammers often use it to gain access into our wallets or account. You often see numerous communities warning against clicking such links in many communities but a greedy or ignorant person would end up falling for it. Here is a post warning us against phishing links by one of the community mods, @engrsayful which give us a more in-depth look at what phishing links are all about

The graph here was taken from a coin on the Binance application. Here scammers can fake the profile of a celebrity or do it in groups. They go to social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and create an artificial hype for the currency which they hold in large amounts. Crypto Newbies and people who have the Fear of Missing Out rush to buy the coin causing it to pump because it would be in high demand. When the price is really high, the scammers sell off all they have of that crypto currency which would cause it's value to decline sharply. They can also do the same by faking a celebrity's account on Twitter or even hacking it then using it to create hype for a coin.

Some people easily assume that since it's a cryptocurrency that it can't be fake. For those into Blockchain technology, we would find out that creating a Blockchain might be really difficult and expensive but there are already existing blockchains and people are allowed to create their token untop them. This has brought about an opportunity for scammers to create their own tokens and a good example of this is the squid game token which was created around the time the Korean series "Squid Game" gained popularity. They somehow pumped the coin until it got to $2800 then they pulled out it's liquidity making the coin drop to $0.009 or thereabout. During this incredible pump, the holders were not allowed to sell off their Squid Game token.

This is a very common scam carried out in various parts of life with cryptocurrencies included. The people most vulnerable to this are the ignorant or new traders. For instance, I utilize the Binance and Huobi pro application to trade then one day their might be a network anomaly and a strange number calls me to give them my Huobi login details so they can fix the issue. They would claim that they work with the Huobi company and they are from the customer service. This is a great example of impersonation. If you end up giving them then it's your loss to bare.

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Final Advice

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I hope I've been able to educate the ignorant on various ways they can be scammed of their crypto assets. Soo many scammers out there waiting for you to let your guard down so they can rob you in broad daylight so always keep a careful mind. Other methods of scamming include scam initial Coin Offering where they collect money from investors and run away and suspicious airdrops which once you collect into your main wallet, all your assets disappear, it might seem like a joke but it actually happened to me and since then I have a separate wallet for receiving airdrops. Stay safe out there, keep Steeming and Thanks for reading ⭐

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