Cryptocurrency scams

[greggles]

With interest in cryptocurrencies at an all time high, it's unsurprising that cryptocurrency scams would start proliferating.

I received this via email recently.



An obvious scam. Be careful out there. If anyone comes across any other cyptocurrency scams be sure to post them to help others identify them.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

With interest in cryptocurrencies at an all time high, it's unsurprising that cryptocurrency scams would start proliferating.

I received this via email recently.

View attachment 125614

An obvious scam. Be careful out there. If anyone comes across any other cyptocurrency scams be sure to post them to help others identify them.

Perhaps in this day and age, anyone taken in by these scams is " going to get taken in". It is a bit like my Victorian cousins going for a swim in the tepid waters off The Strand when a large crocodile was sighted there last week.

My old reef fishing mate Richard Gluyas is reporting in a newspaper of record this morning.

Casinos, cryptocurrency exchanges and money transfer businesses are on notice that they are high-risk sectors that criminals seek to exploit to launder the proceeds of crime, Austrac chief executive Nicole Rose has warned.

I must admit that after signing up to a Crypto seller of "repute", for live information on my dart exercise with ETH, I have received an extraordinary amount of spam via email and telephonic communication.

My Nigerian in-laws Chief Precious MacKenzie and his wife Innosense are dealing with the matter for me.

I also have received more visits at the Hotel from the Sunday Christians flogging free newspapers, so it ain't all bad. They are a nice bunch of harmless believers.

gg

 

[Eframe]

Theinvestmentcentre.com
Unregulated broker who uses a fake trading platform to manipulate the market so they can deceive you into investing.
Once they have convinced you into buying Bit Coins you never get your money back.
I wonder how many lives they destroy?

 

[basilio]

ABC has a detailed outstanding story on the way 3 different people were scammed through crypto currency operators.

They had taken good care to verify the credentials of their advisors - but they lost their money just the same. The Federal police believe $100m has been scammed this year alone.

Cryptocurrency scams targeting Australians as scammers bank more than $100 million ​

By consumer affairs reporter Amy Bainbridge and the Specialist Reporting Team's Lucy Kent
Posted 6h ago6 hours ago, updated 1h ago1 hours ago

Three families, three separate crypto scams. (ABC News)
Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article



They're three families, all from different parts of Australia.

They have vastly different backgrounds and financial situations.

But one common thread binds them: they have all been embroiled in scams involving cryptocurrency, the decentralised digital currency.
These scams have crippled their futures, with hundreds of thousands of dollars funnelled into the hands of cybercriminals, and lost forever.

Australian Federal Police say cryptocurrency scams have "exploded" during the pandemic, with new figures from the Australian consumer watchdog showing a 172 per cent increase in losses between January and November this year, totalling $109 million.

What is cryptocurrency?​

• Cryptocurrency, or "crypto", is decentralised "digital money"
• There are more than 10,000 cryptocurrencies in use around the world
• The Australian Tax Office estimates up to 600,000 Australians have invested in "crypto-assets"
• Some cryptocurrencies have exploded it value over the past two years
• The technology has been praised for its portability, inflation resistance and transparency
• But criticisms centre on its exchange rate volatility and its susceptibility to illegal activity and scams

Eve and John were saving for a house deposit. Then they tried to invest in cryptocurrency and lost it all

Australian police say cryptocurrency scams have "exploded" during the pandemic. These three families were sucked in.

www.abc.net.au

 

[moXJO]

Should be noted that this is off the major platforms. Trading binance, coinspot is fairly vanilla

 

[moXJO]

ABC has a detailed outstanding story on the way 3 different people were scammed through crypto currency operators.

They had taken good care to verify the credentials of their advisors - but they lost their money just the same. The Federal police believe $100m has been scammed this year alone.

Cryptocurrency scams targeting Australians as scammers bank more than $100 million ​

By consumer affairs reporter Amy Bainbridge and the Specialist Reporting Team's Lucy Kent
Posted 6h ago6 hours ago, updated 1h ago1 hours ago
View attachment 133928
Three families, three separate crypto scams. (ABC News)
Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article



They're three families, all from different parts of Australia.

They have vastly different backgrounds and financial situations.

But one common thread binds them: they have all been embroiled in scams involving cryptocurrency, the decentralised digital currency.
These scams have crippled their futures, with hundreds of thousands of dollars funnelled into the hands of cybercriminals, and lost forever.

Australian Federal Police say cryptocurrency scams have "exploded" during the pandemic, with new figures from the Australian consumer watchdog showing a 172 per cent increase in losses between January and November this year, totalling $109 million.

What is cryptocurrency?​

• Cryptocurrency, or "crypto", is decentralised "digital money"
• There are more than 10,000 cryptocurrencies in use around the world
• The Australian Tax Office estimates up to 600,000 Australians have invested in "crypto-assets"
• Some cryptocurrencies have exploded it value over the past two years
• The technology has been praised for its portability, inflation resistance and transparency
• But criticisms centre on its exchange rate volatility and its susceptibility to illegal activity and scams

Eve and John were saving for a house deposit. Then they tried to invest in cryptocurrency and lost it all

Australian police say cryptocurrency scams have "exploded" during the pandemic. These three families were sucked in.

www.abc.net.au

People get scammed because they get greedy or just stupid. And people are generally stupid

 

[againsthegrain]

People get scammed because they get greedy or just stupid. And people are generally stupid

to be fair heaps people get scammed in dating scams 100k+ easy
ITunes cards, fake ato etc etc

 

[moXJO]

to be fair heaps people get scammed in dating scams 100k+ easy
ITunes cards, fake ato etc etc

I've known different guys that have been scammed in all of them and warned them as they were doing it that "it's a scam".
They all for some reason refuse to believe it and lose even more money. It's the same stupidity in general.

People have completely irrational moments of brain loss. FOMO is a big driver as is lack of attention.
"In for a penny' is another killer'.

 

[basilio]

People get scammed because they get greedy or just stupid. And people are generally stupid

Did you read the story moXjo ? How about responding to the particular detailed examples of the people who lost their money and how it happened.

 

[over9k]

What kind of idiot pumps thousands into anything they learn about from an "unsolicited phone call"?

This is a complete non-issue. The exact same thing has been done since phones were invented, crypto is just the latest bait they're using.

Can we please move on?

 

[moXJO]

Did you read the story moXjo ? How about responding to the particular detailed examples of the people who lost their money and how it happened.

The unsolicited phonecall and the Facebook ad is where I stopped. If you think either of these is reasonable then crypto is not for you. Just saying.

Dumb and greedy.

 

[over9k]

The unsolicited phonecall and the Facebook ad is where I stopped. If you think either of these is reasonable then crypto is not for you. Just saying.

Dumb and greedy.

If you keep reading, it's the oldest method in the book - the punter throws a bit in to test the water, the scammer "lets" it yield a great return, the punter goes "ok well the test went well, let's throw some more in" (so greed takes over) and then bam, the scammer takes the increased amount.

It's like the idiots at the casino that play a small amount, win, then throw some more on the table trying to win more and thus then when they inevitably lose lose big rather than small.

 

[moXJO]

If you keep reading, it's the oldest method in the book - the punter throws a bit in to test the water, the scammer "lets" it yield a great return, the punter goes "ok well the test went well, let's throw some more in" (so greed takes over) and then bam, the scammer takes the increased amount.

It's like the idiots at the casino that play a small amount, win, then throw some more on the table trying to win more and thus then when they inevitably lose lose big rather than small.

It's always a 'blinded by greed' situation.
Did they stop and research for literally 1 min?
What else would you call it but stupidity and greed

 

[over9k]

It's always a 'blinded by greed' situation.
Did they stop and research for literally 1 min?
What else would you call it but stupidity and greed

Classic case of being on the top of mount stupid and not realising it.

You know, when you think you know what you're doing vs know you know what you're doing.

 

[Joe Blow]

The amount of bad actors trying to register at ASF to promote cryptocurrency scams, crypto brokers, or other dodgy crypto schemes is simply off the charts at the moment. I've been playing whack-a-mole with these jokers for months. They are coming from Africa, they are coming from Asia, they are coming from Eastern Europe and Russia, and the ones using VPNs... well, I have no idea where they are coming from. I even have people from Australia pushing crypto referral codes, "Get $10 with your first deposit at Dodgy Brothers Crypto! Just use my link!".

This is worse than anything I have seen in over seventeen years. The scammers are out in force anywhere they think they can get some views. Be careful out there.

 

[over9k]

The amount of bad actors trying to register at ASF to promote cryptocurrency scams, crypto brokers, or other dodgy crypto schemes is simply off the charts at the moment. I've been playing whack-a-mole with these jokers for months. They are coming from Africa, they are coming from Asia, they are coming from Eastern Europe and Russia, and the ones using VPNs... well, I have no idea where they are coming from. I even have people from Australia pushing crypto referral codes, "Get $10 with your first deposit at Dodgy Brothers Crypto! Just use my link!".

This is worse than anything I have seen in over seventeen years. The scammers are out in force anywhere they think they can get some views. Be careful out there.

For anyone else concerned about this, the exchange I use, "swyftx", is one of the legitimate ones and their service is impeccable (finding and refunding a couple of glitched transactions etc for me, that kind of thing).

Just in case there's counterfeit versions of their site out, their legit website is here: https://trade.swyftx.com.au/login/

They are not paying me to post this.

 

[basilio]

The amount of bad actors trying to register at ASF to promote cryptocurrency scams, crypto brokers, or other dodgy crypto schemes is simply off the charts at the moment. I've been playing whack-a-mole with these jokers for months. They are coming from Africa, they are coming from Asia, they are coming from Eastern Europe and Russia, and the ones using VPNs... well, I have no idea where they are coming from. I even have people from Australia pushing crypto referral codes, "Get $10 with your first deposit at Dodgy Brothers Crypto! Just use my link!".

This is worse than anything I have seen in over seventeen years. The scammers are out in force anywhere they think they can get some views. Be careful out there.

Says a lot doesn't it ? The fact is Joe doesn't have the time or capacity to individually identify each scam. In fact it is possible that one of the organisations is actually on teh level ! But with a lifetime of experience he has just killed the lot rather than allow any potential bad actor to impact on the ASF community. Just for interest I wonder how other investment websites are handling these advertisers ? Any observations ?
...............................................................................................................................................
I'm not that impressed with moXJo and over9k dismissal of the very detailed stories in the ABC article. In fact it was moXJo who offered an exceptionally frank series of observations to my questions and noted just how rife scamming and fraud was in the crypto currency arena.

The stories were chosen by the ABC because they represented a cross section of the scams that led to losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. They were very clever scams and used crypto currency as vehicles for their execution.

Eve and John were saving for a house deposit. Then they tried to invest in cryptocurrency and lost it all

Australian police say cryptocurrency scams have "exploded" during the pandemic. These three families were sucked in.

www.abc.net.au

 

[moXJO]

The amount of bad actors trying to register at ASF to promote cryptocurrency scams, crypto brokers, or other dodgy crypto schemes is simply off the charts at the moment. I've been playing whack-a-mole with these jokers for months. They are coming from Africa, they are coming from Asia, they are coming from Eastern Europe and Russia, and the ones using VPNs... well, I have no idea where they are coming from. I even have people from Australia pushing crypto referral codes, "Get $10 with your first deposit at Dodgy Brothers Crypto! Just use my link!".

This is worse than anything I have seen in over seventeen years. The scammers are out in force anywhere they think they can get some views. Be careful out there.

You mean I'm not a beneficiary from African royalty?

For all you partial to click types:
Never click links from unknown sources.

People can now spoof and sim swap your mobile number. Former can receive texts for 2fa.

Block apps from sending info.

Never give details about yourself to random calls. If they say they are the ato tell them to give you a reference # and call them back.

Don't trust anything if it involves your money. Block out sales pitches and do the research.

There so many scams it's not funny

 

[basilio]

For anyone else concerned about this, the exchange "swyftx" is one of the legitimate ones and their service is impeccable (finding and refunding a couple of glitched transactions etc for me, that kind of thing).

Just in case there's counterfeit versions of their site out, their legit website is here: https://trade.swyftx.com.au/login/

They are not paying me to post this.

That was useful. Certainly had some glowing reviews of what they do.

Swyftx Review 2024 | Fees, Facts & WARNINGS - Marketplace Fairness

What is Swyftx?Swyftx is one of the best Australian crypto exchanges, and there are several reasons why it is ranked so highly not only by myself, but thousands of customers on Trustpilot. Swyftx is easy to use, supports + cryptocurrencies, is AUSTRAC-registered, compliant with KYC/AML...

www.marketplacefairness.org

 

[Joe Blow]

Just another quick anecdote. I have a friend who is very sceptical. Someone he knows got into Cardano very early. Needless to say, that someone turned $25,000 into $2 million in short order. Sceptical friend dives into Cardano too and in September he comes over for few cold ones and a chin wag. He brought up crypto and when I mentioned that crypto was facing some regulatory issues going forward he said, "They've been saying that for years."

This friend is the last person I though would jump onto the crypto bandwagon. The fact that he is on board tells me everything I need to know about crypto. Cardano has halved in price since September and I haven't brought up crypto with him since.