What are you chances of getting scammed in the crypto world?
Crypto scams seems to be getting common by the day. Everyday more and more ingenious techniques are being employed to trick the unsuspecting common folks and robbing or shall I say stealing their crypto.
I feel that crypto scams are getting so common that it is safe to use the analogy that
If you throw a stone out of the window chances that it would hit someone who has been crypto scammed or has encountered a crypto scammer.
Why crypto scams are increasing
Perhaps it is the lure of easy money with the comfort of digital anonymity that a scammer can target a person sitting next to him in a bus or someone in another part of the world.
Whatever the reason it is getting a treacherous world if you are using any kind of social media, email or the likes of good old twitter.
My own brush with a crypto scammer
I have had my share of encounters with crypto scammers and I must say that it is getting easy for us to get scammed and more difficult to keep oneself safe.
The main reson is trust
It is interesting how scammers pick the information you post online and built on it to trick you.
The chronology of my crypto scam journey
I recently had some issues trying to transfer my Brg tokens from the tron blockchain to the BSC.
I reached out to the BRG token team on Twitter
I reached out to them and posted the issue that I was facing.
Perhaps this is the place where a scammer can target you as a possible scam lead.
Potential scammer initiates a contact
The potential scammer responded to my tweet and asks me to DM my address.
So far so good what can be harmful in sharing the public key of my address I wonder.These are my thoughts on hindsight at that time I was too happy to have got a response from the support team.
The reason for my trust
I got a response to my tweet that made me thing I am being attended to and secondly the account used a banner of the BRG project.
When I sent a direct message with my address. O got a response telling me why my swap was not successful. It was some technical mumbo jumbo which made no sense.
The gist of the message was that my address was not validated by a node thus my transaction did not go through.
The possible scam guy/gal is extra friendly
The next communication says I need tot validate my account and if I do not know how to do so the support guy would guide me.
As I am clueless about the steps which were never mentioned on any official blog I ask for the steps.
Bang Comes the final bait
I get a link to a site. I am supposed to click the link open the site and validate my account.
Did I take the bait
I could say oh I was the smart one and knew that this is a bait. However the fact is that till this point I did not suspect in the least that I was the target of a potential scam.
It was late at night and I was tired and not 100% alert this is all that I can say in my defence.
Then for some reason or perhaps it was my sheer good luck that I happen to compare the twitter address of this support person with the original support team address.
Alas they were different!
Also the official Tick mark which you see on an twitter authenticated account was missing from the scammers account.
The next thing I did was to close that communication tab and browser instance and next I thanked my stars for saving me what seemed liked an obvious scam.
Without being too critical about my folly I have to say that being overworked, stressed and not 100% alert is no reason to hand over your hard earned money to a scammer
Stay safe and keep your crypo safe
Money is hard to earn and easy to lose. Well that is my relation to it so far so be extra careful while dealing with social media communications.
- Double check the authenticity of the support person /team
- Never hand over your private keys and
- Please do not click on links sent to you in emails received from unverified sources or floating around on social media sites as free money offers.
- I could go on as there are endless ways to get scammed but I close this post with the advice.
- Keeps your wits around. Multitasking is good but not at the expense of losing money.
