How to avoid bitcoin or crypto scams
Be vigilant, be patient, and do your research
Scams are becoming more creative and widespread, targeting everything from your money and bitcoin to your personal information. These scams can take many forms, including phishing emails, fake investment scams and impersonation fraud.
Scammers can target anyone, however, they known to focus on older individuals or people who are unfamiliar with technology, making it especially important for seniors and their families to stay vigilant and take extra precautions to avoid falling victim to these schemes.
Bitcoin can be particularly attractive to scammers because it's global, easily tradable, and irreversible. Once a bitcoin transaction is made, it can’t be undone, meaning there’s no simple way to recover your funds if you’ve sent them to a scammer. This makes it crucial to be aware of common scams and know how to protect yourself.
A key step towards protecting yourself is knowing what to look for. Before getting into Bitcoin and making transactions, you should ask yourself the following questions:
Scammers often use tactics such as time pressure, lucrative promises, or the victim's lack of technical knowledge to trick them. By asking yourself these questions, you can help filter-out likely scams before you get involved. Remember, if you’re in doubt, it’s best to wait and do more research.
Let’s explore some common scams and how to avoid them.
Investment and “pig-butchering” scams involve scammers requesting money (often bitcoin) with a promise that they’ll deliver some benefit, such as investment returns, interest on your bitcoin, or some crypto token or asset. The scammers cultivate long-term relationships with their victims to build trust, often on popular apps such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Telegram, X (Twitter) or via direct messages. Over time, they persuade you to send money as an investment, and may even show that you have an account balance or investment returns on their platform, when in fact the funds are not there.
The term “pig-butchering” refers to “fattening up” the victim with promises of high returns before “slaughtering” them by stealing their investments, either in incremental amounts or in one large theft. Once they’ve taken money from their victim, the scammers cease communication or continue asking for more money to unlock the victim’s previous “investment” before disappearing altogether. Remember, since bitcoin transactions are irreversible, Strike cannot recover or reimburse you after you authorize sending funds externally.
Crypto, token, and dApp (decentralized application) scams involve deceptive projects that lure in investors with the promise of high returns, but are in fact worthless digital assets or simply outright frauds. Typically, these scams follow a pattern: promoters hype up the project through aggressive ads, videos, podcasts, and social media, often without revealing their personal financial stakes. This drives up the project’s coin, token, or asset price, allowing the promoters and/or founders to sell at the peak, leaving investors holding highly illiquid assets.
Sometimes the price of a crypto asset is artificially inflated through fake trading activity, known as wash trading, where false transactions make it appear as if the value is rising, but this is done to lure new investors in before the scammers sell and exit. When retail investors try to sell, the price ultimately collapses, and the project never delivers on its stated promises or fails entirely. While the scammers walk away with profits, most investors are left with worthless tokens in a classic pump-and-dump scheme.
Relationship or romance scams typically involve scammers creating fake online profiles to build emotional relationships with their victims, often through popular apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, X (Twitter), or other social media platforms. Once a relationship is established, they often request money under false pretenses, usually for fabricated emergencies, travel expenses, or investment opportunities. Scammers can also use AI to create realistic photos, videos, or even voices, tricking victims into believing they’re interacting with a real person, when in fact they’re not.
Phishing scams involve deceptive messages, emails, or websites that look like they’re from a trusted source, such as your bank, a government authority, or even Strike, but are in fact fake. These messages or websites may ask for sensitive information like your passwords, or invite you to click on a malicious link to download software, leading to the theft of personal data or funds. If you’ve ever received an unsolicited email or text message that almost looks like it’s legitimate, but asks for personal information or prompts you to click a suspicious link, then you’ve likely encountered a phishing scam.
Impersonation scams involve scammers pretending to be someone you know or trust, like a friend, family member, or even a celebrity, to try and trick you into sending them money. These scammers often reach out via popular apps such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Telegram, X (Twitter), or text message apps and change their user profile or photo to look the same as a friend or trusted person.
Scammers can impersonate friends, family members, public figures, tax authorities, law enforcement agents, bank representatives, or even Strike employees, and then use a false sense of urgency to get you to pay them or give up sensitive information.
Remember, you should only communicate with Strike via official channels, such as in-app customer support or by email at support@strike.me. When you connect with Strike support, they will never ask you for your PIN, account email, or confirmation codes and will never ask for a payment from you.
Prize and refund scams involve scammers contacting their victim to falsely inform them that they’ve won a prize or are entitled to a special refund or bonus. To claim the non-existent money, the scammers instruct the victim to click a link, download malicious software, provide some personal information, or even send some “deposit money” to claim their reward.
Job or task scams involve fraudulent job postings, job training, work tasks, or work opportunities that lure victims into sending money or personal information. Scammers might advertise these fake jobs online, through social media posts, or even directly to their victims via text or direct message, then promise to pay money, remote work, or quick training to entice potential victims. Once they’ve collected their victim’s payment or sensitive information, the scammer fails to deliver on their promises or disappears entirely.
Tax or fee scams involve scammers convincing victims that they owe taxes, fees, penalties, or withholding amounts, and then demanding payment, often in bitcoin or cryptocurrency. These scammers may operate a fraudulent investment or trading platform, displaying account balances or gains, which may or may not exist, and then require their victim to pay a tax or fee to access their funds or to continue investing. In some cases, scammers may also impersonate tax authorities, pressuring victims to send money to avoid fake penalties or fines. It’s important to remember that legitimate tax authorities only communicate through official channels and never demand payments in bitcoin or cryptocurrencies.
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