Wild West, scam in crypto

For the last months I have been working on how to make money, for free online and if that is at all possible, esp if you don’t have a huge following (referrals) as other social media stars:) have. I am grateful I have 3 ??. Yes I have made money, through various ways and in another post I will elaborate on that. Unfortunately I also came across a scam.  Now I knew this before getting into this, and it was too good too true and likely 99% a scam. And no I didn’t loose a lot. 

How do you recognize a scam? A scam usually follows this type of steps 

Step 1: offering a ‘good to be true’ profit

If you used faucets you probably saw the add.. Bitcoloan (you won’t find then anymore because they deleted every trace of their existence). It offered different packages where you would get high interest on your crypto. You loaned money and the borrowers paid interest. They operated for several months and therefor gaining ‘trust’, claiming to be a legal UK entity. I came across this, just before it all fell apart. They claimed their ‘client’ Compound wanted a 10 million $ loan and for providing their crypto to this, people would receive 360% ‘interest’. Meaning Compound would need to pay back 36 million$. People unfortunately believed it and invested. In the mean time, confused people asked  Compound, if this was even  true,  it didn’t make any sense. The CEO confirmed in public it was indeed a scam. At the same time, surprise surprise people complained they couldn’t withdraw money. Bitcoloan claimed this was due going from ‘cevi to Devi’. Somewhere around end of July they deleted all their profiles, websites, SoundCloud, YouTube and poof they were gone. 

Investigating who is behind this seems an impossible task, anyone can buy a Twitter handle, buy positive reviews (in turn for something) post fake pictures. Who do you file a complaint with when you were scammed?  Your local police officer?  It’s interesting to see in light of the latest Poly hack, it is still difficult to move the money out. Currently,  I am talking to victims, who feel they can’t do anything and .. the scam wasn’t even over yet. 

Step 2 the afterscam 

I found out while I was trying to communicate  to people it’s a scam on Telgram, they  were now affected by the next scam. Through telegram they were invited by the now defunct Bitcoloan, claiming to be hacked and if they wanted to get their money back, they must send money to x, in the chat you saw hundreds of people  posting pictures as proof,  they had received their funds back. However ofcourse this too was false.  Unfortunately some people did fall for this again. Once they paid x amount, it wasn’t enough yet, and they needed to send more, and or register at another website, until they started ‘complaining’ and then they were kicked out of the channel. Desperate people make mistakes. 

Does these type of scams have anything to do with Crypto?

No they don’t, these scammers see an opportunity. But it does give crypto a ‘bad’ name. Often elderly people are victims (businessinsider) or BBC They hear about all this money to be made (‘easily’ and ‘guaranteed’ and they want this too: FOMO.

Investigating deeper, I see:

• EIFI, dig deeper (Etherconnect)  and they blatantly admit they are connected to Bitconnect (yes that one).
• Cointerra.io, offering they same type of high returns as Bitcoloan did, currently offering tokens through their IPO. What do you think ?

Its so important to warn people and how they can protect themselves:

• Be reasonable:  if it seems to good to be true it probably is
• Be critical: reviews, social media handles, pictures can be bought or faked 
• Be safe: esp as a beginner, stay with the tried an true, invest like you would in shares as an index, the top 10/50/100.
• Do your due diligence if you invest in something ‘new’. 
• Keep your crypto safe by using a physical wallet such as Leger 
• Checkscam alert for wallet address if you are not sure
• Think clearly, not with your emotions, wait at least 24 hours before you act or make a decision 
• Do not belief you can get your money back by paying, once you were scammed
• Never invest money you can’t lose!

Anyone affected by a scam, please report it first at your local office. For any Bitco victims out there, you can contact me and I can get you in contact with other victims. If you lost more than you could stand to lose, and now feel lost, embarrassed and hopeless, please get in contact there or with your loved ones. You will get through this!

All stay safe out there !