How Do People Hand Over Their Assets to Scammers?
Scammers in every industry invent various methods to empty people’s pockets. Fraud in the crypto and digital currency industry is considered one of the most modern forms. Lack of awareness and simplicity among the general public, failure to provide necessary warnings and education by regulatory bodies and experts, user greed, poverty, economic issues, etc., are some of the reasons these individuals always find ways to operate in the vast digital space, making illicit and inhumane profits. What has led us to present a set of these so-called modern scams is how victims are lured into traps, not only without realizing it but also without understanding the situation, even after losing their assets. Victims often blame bad luck and easily forget what happened.
Stay with us until the end of this important article and, in the end, share it with your friends.
Table of Contents
Scamming through Higher Income for Payment
Nowadays, countless platforms, apps, and Telegram bots claim to pay users a small amount of tokens or cash in exchange for periodic activities and simple tasks under the guise of “airdrops.” In this way, the traditional airdrop payment system is not only about clicking the “claim” button; users who engage more with the project will deserve more airdrops.
So far, everything seems natural and logical, as many projects like NOTCOIN aim to reward their most loyal users because active and loyal users help promote the project and increase its visibility.
However, various tricks also occur in between, aiming to trap most unaware users. A user who participates in such airdrop projects, hoping to repeat the success of “NOTCOIN,” gradually realizes that, for a small payment, they can receive much higher profits or airdrops than those who participate in the natural process of airdrop distribution. This is exactly where scammers lay their traps.
For example, airdrops like “Tronix” and “Tether (USDT),” which seemed very well-known and legitimate until recently, suddenly became inaccessible, and the tokens supposedly mined by users disappeared. Of course, those who acted more cautiously and never deposited money into their wallets didn’t lose anything. However, the key point is that some individuals hoping to increase their income deposit money into their Tron or Tether wallets on these platforms.
Limited Time
In the Tronix and Tether airdrops, only users whose balances exceeded a certain amount were allowed to withdraw. Therefore, from the moment the project began until users’ initial balances reached the withdrawal limit, scammers had the opportunity to exploit users’ greed. So, when a certain number, labeled as “profit,” was displayed in the users’ wallets, some users, thinking they were smarter than others, made a small deposit and “tried their luck.”
Little did they know they were doing exactly what the scammers had planned for so long.
As a result, after collecting millions of dollars in silent funds, everything suddenly ended, and no one protested. Everyone blamed the incident on bad luck, and not only were there no protests, but the closure of these two projects also went unnoticed.
Similar Scamming Methods
The example mentioned is one of the most tangible and recent methods recognized as the first model of crypto scamming. However, there are generally many similar and varied cases, some modeled after this method.
The scope of this topic is so vast that it is impossible to cover every example in one article. Therefore, by introducing similar cases in the following sections, we aim to familiarize you with the general strategy of online and crypto scams so that you can approach future instances—certainly ongoing and becoming more inventive—with a more informed perspective.
Watching Advertisements
You’ve surely come across advertisements in crypto games and apps. Ads can be watched in two categories: in-app banner ads and YouTube video ads.
Many mobile games reward users with gems (GEM) or special points to upgrade their characters and in-game features for watching in-app ads. This is a win-win solution for both users and game developers, as watching ads generates income for the developers while offering game upgrades for users.
However, for airdrop projects, the story is slightly different.
The essence of crypto and airdrop projects is based on costs and advertisements for visibility. Many crypto projects raise millions of dollars through their roadmap and whitepaper, and interestingly, the volume of capital raised is considered an achievement. After the launch, more users bought tokens and coins from that project.
Therefore, the income generated from displaying ads is relatively insignificant compared to the scale of airdrops and initial payments unless the entire project is centered around displaying ads, with no intention of launching a new crypto project.
While it is impossible to point the finger at all active and well-known projects, it can be concluded that the success and stability of many of them are purely a mirage, and undoubtedly, many of them enter the market as scams, Ponzi schemes, and frauds, disappearing soon after.
In-App Purchases
The term “in-app purchase” is also a standard approach in video games. Many computer and Android games offer in-app purchases for users, and a significant portion of the revenue from these free-to-play games comes from these purchases.
However, when it comes to crypto projects and airdrops, offering an option to buy tokens to increase income seems largely unreasonable.
In an airdrop game like “Earth Coin,” which claims to defend the environment, buying facilities and tools for virtual satellites orbiting the Earth appears to be rather laughable. In such games, where more activity leads to more income (token rewards), users often spend a significant portion of their earnings on the game itself at the start, which is natural. But buying more with crypto assets like “NOTCOIN” makes no logical sense.
Hamster Kombat Income Before Token Listing
Based on the facts presented, some strategies of the popular “Hamster Kombat” game deserve attention. For example, in the game’s reward or puzzle-solving sections, there are always videos that reward users with hamster tokens after watching them. As you know, watching videos on platforms like YouTube generates revenue for content creators, who earn more as viewers watch more.
Thus, even before launching the Hamster Kombat project, the development team was earning money by educating participants on cryptocurrency.
The practice of watching videos is not limited to just Hamster Kombat. Many other games like “TapSwap,” “MEMEFI,” and others have adopted this model and, under various names such as “finding the code” or “code of the day,” direct users to watch their YouTube channels and videos.
Other Crypto Scamming Methods
Apart from the methods already mentioned, which all hide behind the facade of airdrops, there are numerous other scams that we will briefly touch on.
There is no business or investment that offers unreasonable profits to investors. In fact, no legitimate way to become wealthy overnight has ever been seen anywhere. Just as alchemy is a myth, so too is the dream of becoming rich overnight. The ideology behind most scam and Ponzi projects is to instill the belief that alchemy is real but hidden from the masses, and that you are lucky enough to have stumbled upon it. The question that arises is: if projects with profits in the tens of percentages exist, why would they need the investments of people like us? Meanwhile, the founders of such businesses could become wealthy with minimal investment in a very short time.
Invitation to Fake and Outdated Projects
One of the most common and oldest methods of fraud is sending private messages or creating fake groups on messaging platforms like Telegram, WhatsApp, and Instagram. The scammer, usually with a trustworthy-looking profile picture—such as that of a mother with a small child or a well-dressed foreign woman in a modern office—begins encouraging individuals to invest in short-term high-profit schemes, sometimes with broken translations in Persian or in English. To convince the audience further, the scammer shows pictures of the profits they have supposedly earned.
You might be thinking there is no reason to believe or even consider such invitations. However, when we’re talking about hundreds or even thousands of recipients, the story changes. When a message is sent to a large number of users, the game of probabilities comes into play, and those few who believe the message end up handing over a significant amount of money to the scammers.
Sending Apparently Incorrect Wallet Information
VIP Account
Username: newvictim
Password: jafang
Account balance: 3,899,327.13 USDT
Please do not share this information with anyone [www.walletrad.com]
The tempting account balance is enough to arouse curiosity in a large percentage of those who receive this message. These types of messages are typically sent anonymously, via email or messaging platforms like WhatsApp.
Upon visiting the address provided in the message and logging into the account, the victim is shown the astonishing balance. At this point, the victim is only one step away from losing their assets.
The first thing anyone would do at this point is to request a withdrawal and transfer the money to a trusted wallet.
Most wallets have a withdrawal rule where the gas fee of each network is paid separately, and it is not possible to deduct the fee from another cryptocurrency in that wallet. For example, when withdrawing Tether (USDT) through the Ethereum (ETH) network, the user must have enough Ether (ETH) in their wallet to cover the network’s gas fee. To do this, the user either needs to transfer some Ethereum to that wallet or convert a portion of their assets into Ethereum in the wallet’s exchange section. However, you can never use Tether to pay the Ethereum gas fee.
Now, because there is never such a balance in the wallet, it is not possible to convert Tether into Ethereum. Therefore, the platform asks you to deposit money to unlock the assets in that wallet.
If you consider the transfer fee to be, for example, $200, the victim would find this reasonable in exchange for the release of millions of dollars. After transferring the $200 to the platform wallet, they realize what’s going on—but by then, it’s too late.
The website bingrex.com is one such fraudulent site that recently scammed Iranian users. Due to its similar name to the legitimate BingX exchange, many people mistook it for a real broker.
Pump and Dump
There are many Telegram groups that claim to search for shitcoins and underground projects. These people, like Dr. Reza A.’s Telegram channel, spend years earning the trust of their users. During this time, they feed users shallow analysis and present themselves as caring and guiding figures.
For instance, in Reza A.’s bio, it says: “Friends, beware of scammers. I don’t send messages or request deposits.” Such a clever message helps build trust with users, but behind this compassionate mask, an unscrupulous person is deceiving innocent people.
In between technical analyses of Bitcoin (BTC) and well-known altcoins, they suddenly introduce a new cryptocurrency that is supposedly going to be listed on major exchanges soon. They claim that if you buy some of this token from unreliable and decentralized exchanges before it gets listed on major platforms, you’ll experience huge profits.
Since these projects have no reputation or credibility, scammers avoid mentioning the project’s name until it’s launched, so no one can verify its legitimacy.
The project, which was supposed to be available for purchase and swap on certain unverified platforms at a specific day and time, is suddenly introduced and listed. Users rush to buy it, and within just a couple of hours, the token’s price increases by thousands of percent. This creates even more urgency among users to buy at lower prices.
However, the painful and ruthless part of buying this cryptocurrency comes when users realize that the reason for the token’s abnormal pump is that users cannot sell the token, and no one had known about this until then. The reason the token’s name was withheld until the launch was precisely to prevent more aware users from having the opportunity to conduct further research.
The user’s assets, which are increasing exponentially in the wallet, can never be sold. The only person who can sell them is the project’s founder. With this method, all the investors’ money goes into one person’s pocket, and the price of the cryptocurrency quickly drops to zero, leaving the hopes of thousands of innocent users extinguished forever.
Therefore, before purchasing any unknown or emerging cryptocurrency, it is best to visit websites like coinmarketcap.com or coingecko.com to check the public details of the cryptocurrency, such as the total token supply, circulating supply, market cap, official website address, smart contract address, whitepaper, supporting exchanges, and most importantly, its technical score on a site like tokensniffer.com.
Message from a Platform Support Team
Hello,
You have been identified as the owner of TrussVault digital wallet according to the evaluation of mobile phone IP.
If it is correct, you will be one of the recipients of our airdrop token within the next 7 days by sending your wallet recovery words and obtaining approval permission.
Otherwise, please refrain from sending
Persian Trust Wallet support
The above message, which may seem somewhat confusing and contains many grammatical and typographical errors, asks the recipient (on WhatsApp) to send the recovery words of their Trust Wallet. The message uses similar names like “TrussVault” instead of “Trust Wallet.”
First, keep in mind that the support team of any platform does not need a user’s private recovery key to offer any service. The private key of any wallet is only used when logging into the wallet from a new device or recovering the wallet in case the user forgets their password.
Therefore, scamming through this message can happen in several ways:
The possibility of sending the private key by more naïve individuals to the scammer;
The possibility of sending wallet information, including the username and password;
The possibility of starting a conversation under the belief that the message was sent by Trust Wallet’s support.
A $1000+ Airdrop!
Notice: you have own $6400 worth of tokens in the airdrop, if you have not received it yet, please contact our telegram @TF2028 to claim it!
First of all, the value of airdrops is much, much lower than these figures because they are distributed among thousands of users.
Secondly, the value of an airdrop is never predictable since the prices of cryptocurrencies fluctuate constantly; this is especially true for airdrops that are still in their initial stages and have not been priced yet.
For this reason, by sending a message to support, the scammer can request money or wallet information from you in thousands of ways.
Another point to consider regarding these messages is that some of them may contain hacking links or malware. By clicking on these links, all the information on your mobile phone could be stolen.
Important Signs for Identifying Scam Projects
There are so many online and cryptocurrency scams worldwide that it’s impossible to list all of them one by one. Therefore, it’s better to familiarize ourselves with the general and common signs of scam projects and fraudulent individuals so that the chances of falling into their trap are reduced.
Greed
The biggest way to break through users’ guard is by arousing their greed. This is done by portraying the project as low-risk, promising very high and quick profits, making users feel lucky, and asking for a very small amount of money to make the project seem low-risk. By doing so, the victim’s guard is lowered, and the suspicious signs of the project are ignored in favor of satisfying their greed.
Trust
After greed, gaining the user’s trust is another well-known method. From the beginning of human civilization, trust has been a priority in establishing business and social relationships.
Statistics show that similarities in names, proper and appropriate behavior, family photos, fake bank account images, smiling faces, and showing a list of non-existent satisfied users also help create a sense of trust in the user. For this reason, trusting based on superficial evidence often leads victims into making significant mistakes.
Lack of Contact Information
Reputable websites typically have clear contact information. If a website or platform lacks a contact number or physical address and only has a contact form, it is not trustworthy.
Poor Language and Writing
Messages or texts from scammers typically have weak, sometimes vague, and very amateur writing. Since the support teams of reputable websites are chosen by company managers, individuals with low literacy never make it into those positions.
Pressure for Immediate Purchase
Entering a project with a limited time offer, immediate sales, or any type of promotion that creates urgency and reduces the user’s opportunity to research and think carefully is suspicious. More caution should be taken before proceeding with investment or purchases.
Lack of Reviews and Feedback
Fortunately, showing user feedback and reviews on websites and platforms has become a standard and common practice. Therefore, the lack of this important feature can be a sign of a cover-up and should be taken seriously.
Request for Personal Information
As mentioned earlier, requesting personal information, such as username, password, private keys, etc., is prohibited in every system and support service. Therefore, if for any reason someone or a platform requests personal information from you, never provide it.
Final Words
Fraud and theft have existed since the beginning of history and will continue to exist forever. However, the existence of such individuals does not undermine the nature of an entire industry. Since we cannot pave the entire world, it’s better to always wear the shoes of caution and awareness and walk wisely and cautiously. Stay informed about the latest fraud tricks, and share this information with those around you and your loved ones. Don’t forget that the dream of becoming rich overnight, like Pinocchio, is an ancient trick, so don’t believe it.
