Cryptocurrency fraud

Cryptocurrency is now more popular than ever. This is becoming the reason why newbie traders enter the market every day – and where there is a large flow of inexperienced users, fraud always thrives. Let’s take a look at 2 of the most popular types of virtual money scams encountered in 2022.

Fake tech support

Fake tech support scams started gaining popularity in 2017. Since then, the scheme has only grown and become more complex – by combining an understanding of the human psyche and technical knowledge, scammers continue to excel in their dishonest activities.

At first, the scheme was used only for visitors to small shops and existed in a different form – unscrupulous citizens would set up a fake shop with attractive prices. The lucky customer would throw everything in the shopping cart and be asked for their card details when they tried to order. Over time people came to realise that you should only give your card details to trustworthy shops and stopped trusting crooks. This is when fake technical support appeared – now, when placing an order, they did not demand data, but simply asked to contact technical support by phone. On the other end of the line was a specially trained person who would fraudulently obtain the coveted 3 digits on the back of the card.

With the popularisation of crypto exchanges, scammers have moved on to new platforms. Regularly improving the scheme, they managed to gain access to the trading platforms’ accounts.

Phishing

Phishing is also widespread throughout the Internet, but for the cryptocurrency industry it is the most relevant. It is one of the most dangerous schemes in the world – due to its high degree of conviction, even those who were initially aware of this method of deception become victims of phishing.

It usually works in the following way: fraudsters gain access to an exchanger’s user mail database, and they begin sending emails to users on behalf of technical support. For this purpose, they create new emails with names as similar to the original as possible. The user is then asked to click a link to clarify and confirm something – unsuspecting people follow instructions from what they think are official exchanger representatives and instantly lose access to their account.

Both methods are similar to each other, but they are not the same. In the first case, the user will have to give the fraudsters access to his data or account. In the second case, simply let your guard down for a second and click on the link sent to you to become a victim.