Cryptocurrency Scams – 5 Crucial Things You Need To Know
Cryptocurrency scam have been rampant and it is becoming a huge issue for those who invest in such digital currencies, what with specialized scammers for each type of cryptocurrency available on the trading market. Bitcoin scammers are the highest in number, seeing as the particular digital currency has been making waves in the news with its volatility in the trading scene.
But, no matter what digital currency that you decide to trade in, there are 5 crucial things that you need to know about cryptocurrency scams, how they work and how you can prevent yourself from being a victim of such digital money scams.
The 5 Crucial Things About Cryptocurrency
#1 Your Information Is Public
Dealing with crypto is essentially based on trust between investors to keep the prices from falling flat on the trading market. For this, a certain amount of transparency is required, to make sure that no one silently causes a crash in the cryptocurrency market in order to reap the profits on their own. As such, some of your private information will be made public to other crypto traders and this becomes something that can be easily accessible to scammers. They will, in turn, use these details to break into your crypto trading account and drain it within minutes.
#2 Scams Can Be Silent
You wouldn’t even be able to know that your Bitcoin trading is being hacked. A popular method of cryptocurrency hacking, known as cryptojacking has been causing worry amongst traders. How this works is that the cryptocurrency hackers gain access to your trading account through a malicious webscript and begin to mine cryptocurrency from your account, without you even realizing that its happening. If you notice that your devices, either your smartphone or computer, is getting laggy and you notice that your Bitcoin balance isn’t reflecting correctly, chances are that they’re being mined from under your nose.
#3 Social Media Is a Crypto Hack Gateway
Often times, we have seen on Twitter or Facebook that someone is giving away free cryptocurrency and in order to claim it, you must click on a complex looking link. As much as it may seem like a generous person sharing their wealth and making the world a better place, it usually isn’t the case. These shady looking links are a key tool in phishing scams that coerce you into giving up your crypto account details. In some other versions, you may find giveaway scams where you are required to transfer a certain amount of cryptocurrency to a person with the promise of gaining more than the amount transferred. This a classic giveaway scam method and should be avoided at all costs.
#4 Customer Support Can Steal Crypto Too
Yep, fake support teams for big crypto companies are actually a thing. These group of cryptocurrency scammers pretend to be customer experience representatives and would contact customers under the ruse of speaking on behalf of the cryptocurrency company. The usual MO is to say that something has gone wrong with the account, but in order to check and give you an update on your trading account, they will need some details. Aside from that, these fake customer support teams can also send you emails an newsletters that mirror the actual ones. These fake emails contain malicious links that prompt you to enter your cryptocurrency account details or can even install a malicious, data-stealing script on your device.
#5 Fake Ads Can Cost You
Ads on Google are not something that we are alien to. Often we see an ad about a sale or a new product when running a Google search. Unfortunately, crypto scammers have taken to using this platform to promote their malicious websites in order to steal your information. Their fake ads have too-good-to-be-true promises which would prompt you to click on their ads. These ads then lead you to their data phishing website, where they gain full access to your personal and trading data. The next time you click on a Bitcoin or Litecoin ad, you might want to look a little more closely.
Cryptocurrency scams do not necessarily need to occur only on your trading platform or your Bitcoin or Ethereum accounts. They can be disguised in the form of a social media post, or a shady link. Even as a promising ad on Google. The thing is to be extra careful when clicking on such links or following “giveaway” instructions so that your cryptocurrency balance does not fall prey to cryptocurrency scams. Have you been getting scam emails from Bitcoin scammers pretending to be Bitcoin support team? Run them by our email lookup and uncover the identity of your Bitcoin scammers.
Disclaimer:
The above is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute a legal advice or specific recommendations in any way.
