What is Scammer?

A scammer is a person or an entity that conducts a fraudulent scheme with the intent to obtain something from the victim, usually financial assets or information. Scammers have a number of tools and strategies to trick their victims and convince them that the scheme is legitimate and possibly even profitable to them.

The rise of cryptocurrencies has given way to new types of scams, specifically targeting those who hold crypto assets. Fake initial coin offerings (ICOs) using clones of other coins, promises of NFT collections that are never delivered, and too-good-to-be-true decentralized finance (DeFi) projects are just some of the many scams floating around the crypto sphere.

There are four general types of the most common crypto scams that members of different blockchain networks should be wary of:

• Impostor websites;
• Fake apps;
• Compromising updates;
• Scam emails.

Impostor websites act as a method of phishing. These websites are developed to appear legitimate and often replicate a website with some kind of payment gateway or a registration form that can be used to steal the victim’s information.

While some impostor websites are only able to steal the data that the users enter, others may also contain viruses or malware that can infect the rest of the computer and cause irreparable damage.

Fake apps can be developed for desktop or mobile devices. Such apps are corrupted to the core – their code is designed to act maliciously once the app is downloaded and opened. Similar to impostor websites, fake apps can appear legitimate, although they do not come from an official, verified source. They are frequently used to steal sensitive data.

Some malicious parties can design social media updates that compromise user accounts, create security gaps that can allow hackers in or otherwise corrupt the security, and steal data from the user. Compromising updates can lead to the users losing all access to their accounts.

Scam emails are one of the oldest tricks in the book. However, their effectiveness has significantly decreased over the years, as many email services can now flag spam emails as soon as they appear in the inbox.

Scam emails are usually quite easy to spot due to bad grammar, odd formatting, and suspicious email addresses of the senders. They may contain links to phishing websites that appear legitimate.

Recently, there has been an increase in scam emails regarding financial operations on platforms like PayPal or Venmo, as well as emails mentioning crypto wallets and exchanges.