Be Alert! Any scam from these type of scam can happen to you

Pig-butchering” scams have stolen at least $75.3 billion in crypto in recent years, a study said. Based on the Emerging haunting research result, it becomes necessary to bring awareness to the common masses about different scams prevailing nowadays. As long as crypto gains are the talk of the town and very common luring factors for this every second person wants to get rich quickly through this amazing resource, accessing this new trend in public, scammers become more advanced and sophisticated to scam the public in all new ways. Due to the decentralized structure of the crypto market, most of the scammers after cheating move into society unharmed, and law agencies sometimes cannot find any trace of those criminals.

So, How do crypto scams work?

Crypto scams work, like most financial scams, through manipulation. Scammers exploit victims’ trust, lack of knowledge, and urge to get rich quickly—or in some cases all three points.

Here’s a brief overview of the various scams, these scams can be performed separately or more than one at a time if the victim continues to be scammed Like phishing, investment, pig butchering, Guaranteed return, and websites.

So, for Initial understanding, we will try to differentiate these scams based on the modus operandi, or technic used in these scams.

First of all, comes, scammers all-time favourite and very old and very common scam which came into existence with the emergence of the internet,

Phishing Scam.

Scammers use fake websites or emails that imitate legitimate cryptocurrency exchanges or wallets. These trick users, into providing login credentials and private keys, allowing scammers to gain access to their funds. Once the scammer has control of a victim’s wallet, especially if the victim was tricked into authorizing the transfer, the money is theirs. Or

Scammers impersonate legitimate entities (such as banks or companies) to trick victims into revealing sensitive information like passwords or credit card details.

Investment scams

Fraudulent schemes promising with high returns on investments but ultimately result in financial losses for victims. Nowadays it is very common through social media sites like Telegram Facebook watsup to lure the victims for quick rich schemes by giving them a guarantee of higher returns without risk through trading bots in forex or crypto, either by day trading or by reinvesting. In it, various ways are used to squeeze more and more money from the victim for his withdrawal of profit or returns as the victim already sent this scammer a lot of money so he continued to fulfill their demands, to get his investment and returns, back from the scammers. As their demands never end, So ultimately either the victim due to failing in fulfilling the scammer never ending demands, sits silent or the scammer disappears when he fails to fetch more money from the victim.

Bitcoin scams

Deceptive practices related to cryptocurrencies, often involve fake exchanges, Ponzi schemes, or promises of quick profits. Bitcoin scams are the same as investment scams but in this scam, investment is demanded in stable coins like USDT. The fund is asked to be deposited in an unknown crypto address where the funds cannot be traced easily. After that is assuring of high returns through a fake website, a series of payments are demanded like tax payment, transaction fee, KYC, or wire transfer charges, whatever victim continues to pay he never gets his cryptocurrency back ever.

Employment scams

Fake job offers or work-from-home opportunities that aim to steal personal information or money from job seekers. It is very common in poor countries where people are desperate to get a job due to scarcity of earning opportunities. So, scammers exploit this mindset of victims and ask for money providing a lucrative salary job in the name of registration, file opening etcetera.

Giveaway scams

Scammers claim to offer free prizes or giveaways but require victims to pay fees upfront or provide personal details. This is extremely risky, sometimes just to get some PDF or learning book, the scammer gets the data of the victim. Nowadays it is nearly impossible to find out on the internet, who is a legitimate mentor and who is a scammer, or who is a mentor and a scammer both.

Blackmail and extortion scams

Threatening victims with exposure of their sensitive information unless they pay a ransom. Anybody can check his junk folder, where one or two such emails he will find of this category, the matter of that email will be very polite and the scammer would be claiming that he got excess of your account now so and so amount you have to pay so he will delete all your sensitive information he collected otherwise he will harm your dignity by exposing you in front of your contacts or to all acquaintance whose information he collected from your system.

Pump and dump schemes

Manipulating stock prices by artificially inflating them (“pump”) and then selling off quickly (“dump”) to profit at the expense of other investors.

Initially, a fraudulent group of people blow up the price of a low-volume or low-esteem digital currency they own. Then they spread bogus data or reports in places like Discord and Reddit where amateur investors share tips. When due to rumours the coin price rises, the fraudulent group sells their possessions. By leaving the investors with huge losses on those tokens.

Romance scams

Fraudsters build fake romantic relationships online to exploit victims emotionally and financially. These types of scams mostly start with dating sites where some beautiful girl contacts her prey, and after some meetings encourages the victims to invest. In this scam victim initially loses his money on gifts and hangouts Later he loses his investment also which he provided to the fraudster due to over-trusting.

Fake exchanges

Bogus cryptocurrency platforms that steal users’ funds or provide false information. As nowadays a mobile app or website can be made at a very cheap price so fraudsters make similar websites resembling the well-known exchange. Due to colour schemes, and fonts, the victim thinks he is dealing with that well-known exchange, but his money goes to an unknown address when he authorizes the sites by clicking.

Ponzi schemes

Fraudulent investment programs where returns are paid to earlier investors using funds from new investors. It works like network marketing, One person initiates the idea and sells to different people. Those people sell the idea or product to other people but the major share reaches the first person the second line receives some commission or referrals. The same series goes on by collecting money from the new members old members’ commission is paid,

Fake ICOs

Scammers create fake cryptocurrency projects and solicit investments, then disappear with the funds. ICOs are initial coin offerings where a new token is launched for fundraising purposes from the investors. Fraudsters make fake ICOs, collect funds, and afterward vanish, without delivering any token to anyone.

Rug pulls Scam

In the crypto world, developers abandon a project after attracting investments, leaving investors with worthless tokens. In 2015 a German woman Ruja Ignatova collected huge money from all over the world to introduce a new digital currency named ONECOIN against the bitcoin but later on, she disappeared with investors 4 billion dollars by selling them One-Coin which never came into existence in her whole fund collection time.

NFT scams

Deceptive practices related to non-fungible tokens, including fake sales or misleading claims. Like sad ape NFTs, people bought those Non-Fungible Tokens in the hope of high profit at a later time, and celebrities bought them as a mark of ownership to display in their social media DP. Mostly NFT transactions were carried out in ether coins. So for this game-based character of sad ape NFT, people lost around 2.7 million dollars worth around 800 ether coins.

Mobile app

Malicious apps that steal data, charge hidden fees or spread malware. Malware infecting a user’s computer or mobile device gives scammers access to private keys and wallets. Ransomware encrypts files and demands payment in cryptocurrencies to restore access.

Website Engineering

Manipulating websites to deceive users, often through fake login pages or malicious scripts to access victims’ secret credentials and steal their money.

Bitcoin mining

Promising easy profits from mining without delivering actual results. Surrounding the victim through fake accounts or beneficiaries to tempt the victim to invest his fund for easy mining returns this scammer creates a famous exchange that looks like fake sites to get access to the funds of the victim and assure him of high returns unaffected by the ongoing crypto market fluctuations or losses. In the end, steal his crypto or pose as his funds are locked as pledges and ask fees to release his cryptos. Even after payment the victim never gets his investment or profit back.

Fake Celebrity Endorsements:

Scammers use celebrities’ names to promote products or investments. Criminal syndicates exploit unsuspecting investors by creating phantom currencies that don’t exist. They use fake celebrity endorsements to lure people into investing. These scams are widespread and damaging to everyday investors.

Fraudulent purchases Scam

This type of scam is done by marketing some electronic items like mobiles or laptop sales on social media at a damn cheap price. The fraudsters collect the credit card details of victims to cheat them or sell them something less valued items, or no worth at all items that they entirely not ordered. Ultimately to deceive the victims due to their ignorance or easily tempting nature.

Ransomware

In this scam scammers somehow hack the digital devices like mobile, laptop, tab, or notebook of the victim and insert malware that encrypts files and later scammer demands payment for decryption.

Upgrade scams

In this type of scam, fraudsters often contact victims via phone, email, or pop-up messages. They pretend to be from reputable companies, such as Microsoft or Apple and claim that the victim’s computer has critical problems or security vulnerabilities. They offer to fix these issues remotely for a fee, but in reality, they may install malware, steal personal information, or charge exorbitant amounts without providing any real service. Mostly aged or lonely people become victims of these types of scams.

Fake Airdrops and Giveaways

Scammers start by impersonating well-known cryptocurrency projects or influencers. They’ll claim they’re giving away free tokens or cryptocurrencies. Users are asked to send a certain amount of cryptocurrency as a fee or to provide their private keys, but the promised rewards never materialize.

Until now we have understood so many types of scams happening in all corners of the world. So, some precautions should be discussed for early finding about these scams and getting a red flag whether we are going to be victims of any type of these scams.

We must be vigil when any communication medium using, so that we don’t become victim of any type of fraud, otherwise there will be nothing left with except regret and grief.

To avoid these type of scam  click the link below:

How to spot a crypto or Financial scam