With the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies, the number of fraudsters who want to get rich at the expense of inexperienced novice investors is also increasing. It's getting easier and easier to get into the net of scammers every day - they not only make deals on cryptocurrency exchanges, which block users' funds, but also launch credible projects with a large-scale advertising, which will surely lead to another fraud.
Is it possible to protect yourself from scammers 100%? Let's be honest with you - no, because no one can be insured against new methods of fraud that appear every day. However, you can significantly reduce the risk of falling for a scammer's trick if you learn how to identify them.
The concept of a scam
To begin with, it's worth understanding what a scam is in the cryptocurrency industry. In English, scam means a fraud, a scam. Like most words associated with investments, it appeared relatively recently, but has already become widespread. The essence of scam is that criminals make money on the insecurity of cryptocurrency, taking advantage of people's trustfulness or simply their lack of experience in the field. In addition, scams also occur because the sphere of digital currencies is a huge space for scammers, because it is not regulated by law and, therefore, can not bring offenders to legal responsibility.
The most common signs of a scam are promises of impressive bonuses at registration and guarantees of huge profits with almost no investment. In addition, scammers counterfeit popular sites where you can enter your card and wallet data with currency and often offer to install malicious software for the bonus, which they can use to get your details. Very often scams are advertised by various bloggers and telegram channels, while receiving a good percentage of the fraudulent scheme. Therefore, you should be vigilant, filter your information field and try to think critically in order not to become a victim of malefactors and save your money. Now that you are familiar with the concept of scam, it is worth getting acquainted with the most popular schemes of losing money when investing in projects.
Signs of scam projects
Probably many of you have heard about the notorious financial pyramid Finiko, which, according to approximate calculations, was invested about 7 billion rubles. The essence of this scam-project was to invest their money in the project, where these funds will be manipulated on the stock exchange with a guaranteed profit of up to 5% per day. Sounds good, right? But in fact it was much worse -- witnesses said that they really did get 1% of their investment every weekday at first, but soon the income dropped to 0.6% and then zeroed out altogether. Finico had a huge client base (165 thousand people!) due to the referral program - you could get an extra 5% for a referred friend. Of course, this firm had nothing to do with the real profitability, that is why in 2021 it was disclosed. There are a huge number of similar cases at the moment, but this particular scam drew a wide response because of the huge number of victims. What happened taught many people that with the development of the digital space can not trust all promises, and it is worth remembering the old truth that free cheese - only in a mousetrap.
In order not to allow cheaters to profit from their own savings, it is worth remembering the main signs of scam projects:
1) The promise of "golden mountains" from the first investment in the project.
2) The constant obtrusive advertising from various sources.
3) An undisclosed author of the project and anonymity of the team.
4) No way to contact the technical support
5) Partially filled website of the project, may contain typical fake reviews
6) lack of a project concept
7) frequent changes of details for investments
Often, it is difficult to recognize a scam project, especially at first, when the income really starts coming to your card. However, as a rule, it does not last long - the payments stop after a couple of times, with the scammers referring to technical problems or simply going off into the sunset. Therefore, before investing in any project, you should remember - the higher your investment, the more risks you experience.
Rules of conduct in case of a scam
Before you invest your money in any project, look for information about it on various forums and feedbacks, and at the slightest doubt in the honesty of the author - refrain from investing your money. As a rule, such projects are not closed immediately, because their goal - to deceive as many people as possible. They often change their names and present themselves as a new project with more potential, so try to read the blacklists of such startups that you can see on the Internet.
If you have chosen a project for investment, try to monitor its activities for a while, and if possible, contact someone who is already a member. Enter your profit gradually - do not invest all at once, it is better to divide this amount into several potentially successful projects, albeit with smaller promises.
Of course, it is better not to fall for such schemes of fraud in general, but still, if this happens, do not immediately get upset, it is better to try to make every effort to keep your money. If you suspect that the project is suspicious, try as quickly as possible to withdraw your funds from the platform. If that procedure is not possible, try to do it with the help of third-party services or sell the currency in question. In addition, you can write to the technical support with a statement that you are a blogger and tell your large audience about the scam project, if your invested funds will not be returned. This can work, because it's easier for scammers to lose one customer than thousands.
Be vigilant and don't let yourself and your loved ones be scammed.