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Crypto Scams – How to Avoid and Detect The Scam

Cryptocurrency is very common nowadays and everyone especially the young one is very keen to invest this instrument.

What Is Cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency is a virtual digital currency, no physical mean is transacted, it only works in virtual world.

If you send cryptocurrency to someone else, it is done through online transactions and it is not reversible.

Why do people nowadays like to use cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency transaction is online and fast. It does not work like banking transaction whereby the bank charge a transaction fee and need to verify your authenticity of the fund and purpose of the transactions.

Crypto transaction offers anonymity and the value of cryptocurrency varies and moves very fast, hence it is a very attractive item for investment.

A lot of people like to enter cryptocurrency as investment as they think it is another get rich fast investment with lucrative return within a short time.

As more and more people are jumping into the bandwagon of cryptocurrency, without really understand how it works, they are only after the high return cryptocurrency can give to them, and thinking this is the investment to go to.

What does this tell us with this hot potato?

Every time when there is some lucrative instrument which can help people to make money fast, the vulture will sure lurk around to prey on its victim.

The vulture is the scammers here, they will find ways and means to lure unsuspecting victims to invest in the scheme they design.

Then the main question is – how do you know it is a cryptocurrency scam?

Scammers always look for new ways go for investors’ money, they can come up with so many methods and tricks to draw the investors to give up their money.

What are the signals you can detect in spotting the scams?

1. If someone offer you some good investment opportunities and business deals.
2. They even offer you to double your investment return and
3. Achieving financial freedom you are looking for.
4. That you can get you investment in double quick time.
5. Telling you that you can pay in cryptocurrency if you can recruit others into their scheme.
6. Offering you help that they can help you to grow your money.
7. Asking you to login into certain trading platform.
8. Once you have done that, you realize you are not able to withdraw your money without paying a fee.
9. There are scammers who will post some scam jobs on job websites and they promise you a job if you pay a fee.
10. Some scammers even have videos made saying how lucrative is the scheme they have.
11. They even have celebrity to endorse their success and testimonials to show the track records.
12. A lot of people do not realize all the videos and testimonials are fake.

What are the common scams in cryptocurrency?

1. Phishing scams.
2. ICO scams
3. Malware scams
4. Crypto mining scams
5. Fake crypto exchanges scams

If you want to learn more about the common scams in cryptocurrency, you may want to read up this in https://mainstreetcrypto.com/articles/common-crypto-scams/. In here, it is more in-depth and informative.

What can you do if you think you have been scammed?

If you think you have been scammed, try to do the following as soon as possible.

1. Make a police report
2. Gather all the evidences.
3. Document all the evidence in chronological orders.

You can also report to the following organizations:

• the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov
• the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) at CFTC.gov/complaint
• the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at sec.gov/tcr

for those who want to know which organizations are on the blacklists, you may want to check out the following:

https://authentic-review.com/2022/01/29/crypto-scam-list-2022-update/

https://tradersofcrypto.com/guides/crypto-scams/

Stay vigilant whenever you want to deal with cryptocurrency.

Some pointers for you to avoid falling into the scams

1. Always check the addresses and domains of the site you are surfing.
2. Never share your private information with any one else.
3. Be wary of easy money and fast returns on investment.
4. High risk high return, so do you believe it is good?
5. If you are in cryptocurrency, use a cold wallet.
6. Always use a new account to test out something new.
7. Leave as little in the wallets.
8. Use a 2FA verification method to login to your account.
9. Always check the rating of a platform.
10. Carry out due diligence before you embark on your cryptocurrency trading.

Conclusion

Do you still want to invest in cryptocurrency?

Despite all these reports about scams involving cryptocurrency, still we have a lot of people diving into this, this is typical human greed.

A greed to have more money in the shortest time possible and at all cost.

Some people have the mindset that this will not happen to them, and maybe they need to pay some school fees to learn a hard lesson.

At the end of the day, unless and until the government start regulating the cryptocurrency transactions, and unless you have done enough researches and learn more about the mechanism of cryptocurrency transaction.

Final Advice

The simple advice is to stay out of it.

With the recent rampant scam in the banking industries, especially towards the end of last year 2021, more people are alert to the scamming going on.

However, despite all this news about the scams in the banking industries, there are still a lot of bank customers fell into the trap of the scammers.

News report stated among those who fell victims to the scammers are professional and females.

One would have thought only elderly who are less savvy with information technology will fall prey to the scams.

the number showed otherwise, even as reported, IT engineer also one of the many victims.

The other group is the females, be it the professional, housewife or some who are emotionally disturbed. Scammers will look for those vulnerable.

What can we do to safeguard ourselves ?

to safeguard ourselves from falling victims to the scammers, and lose our lifelong savings, it is about time more people are to aware of this and take necessary steps to keep ourselves happy.

the age-old saying - do not talk to strangers, still hold true in this virtual world of advance technology.

most people seem to have forgotten this adage when come to online world, especially the young ones who like to communicate through virtual world.

We can at least do the following to safeguard ourselves.

1. Carry out due diligence on the other parties.

how many people online check on the background of the other parties they are dealing with?

when a person comes across some offers online, tendency is for the person to click on it and see the offer and like it, will purchase, without checking whether it is real or not.

Before you come to conclusion whether to deal with the person, do the following:

a. we should at least check the legitimacy of the website.

b. Read comments and review about the company,

c. Search online to see whether there is any about the person or company.

d. check whether the person whom you are supposed to deal with have any other social media accounts.

e. If the does, what did the posts and share in his account,

f. Carry out a check on anti scam website and see whether the name is listed in it or not.

2. Insist on a physical meeting.

One of the best way is to have a physical meeting, if the person on the other side refused to do so, then we can more or less about dealing with him.

well, the may say under the current circumstance, it is quite difficult to travel and meet up, then we can suggest a video call since the technology enable this virtual meeting a possibility.

3. Do not commit any decision instantly.

people tend to make instant decision nowadays, and scammers are taking full advantage of this.

nowadays people are impatient, especially when dealing with transactions online, they want it fast, so fast that until they do not bother to check clearly and carefully what they are clicking on.

4. Check for telltale sign that it is a fake website.

a lot of people when they receive a message, email or notices, they do not bother to check carefully to look for telltale sign of fake messages.

most people will just look at the headline and the sender name, and believe it is from the legitimate sender.

In Singapore, there are a lot of senders who like to use the following corporation or website names to send malware and phishing link.

1. DBS.

2. DHL.

3. LinkedIn.

5. Microsoft.com

6. MOH

7. POSB

these are just some example, if you check the domain names of the websites, it is not the original organization domain name, the email domain also look very different.

Are the measures announced by Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) effective?

MAS has since the phishing SMSes scam in December 2021, announced a few measures to further improve and strengthen the internet banking industry security.

1. Removing of clickable links in SMSes sent to customers.

last time banks used to send SMSes to customers with clickable links, this as explained by banks, it is to enable the customers to click on the link and get access to the website faster.

Scammers took advantage of this, especially when the banks used the shorten form of domain link, so it is quite difficult to check on the real domain name of the banks.

2. Delay the changes and updating of information of customers.

to make life easy for customers, banks used to say customers could now update their information online without making a trip to the branch.

with this scammer, after phishing the login particulars of the customers, happily do the changes and take control of the operation of the accounts of the customers.

now MAS want any changes and updating of personal particular such as phone number, login password and so on, be processed and be effective only after 12 hours.

you can read more about that in the following two links:

a. Singapore Government Media Statement.

b. Monetary Authority of Singapore announcement

Banks are pushing their customers to use online banking.

They claimed to encourage the customers to use online banking as much as possible.

Why do banks insist on customers using online internet banking?

Banks claimed with the advancement of technology, and more and more people are internet savvy, it is about time online internet banking be the focus and future of banking.

Even government is encouraging all business entities to go online and do things online, so the banks are taking the cue to do so.

The banks claim by doing business online, they can reap the following benefits:

1. Cost savings.

The banks claim it is the most cost savings invention for the banking industry.

With online banking, the banks require less physical branches, which mean hiring less bank staffs to man the branches.

So there will be huge saving on staffs cost, rental of branches, utility, and other cost incidental to operating a branch

2. More efficient

With internet banking, the operation of the bank is more efficient, as more transactions can be done at anyone time, no like physical banking, a teller can only serve a customer at one time and it may take longer to complete the transactions,

3. Saving the hazard of long queue in the branches of the banks.

With physical branches, sometimes there are long queue as people wait to be served by the counters, especially when one customer has a lot of transactions, or need to seek more clarification, it will take up longer time.

Also, queue theory applies and management has to decide whether single line or lining up at each counter.

With the pandemic ravaging, physical present may not be a good idea.

4. Paperless, save the environment.

Online banking tend to use fewer papers, as customers do their banking requirement online and documents are saved in soft copy file and file away in their respective devices.

Less paper work supposedly will use fewer papers and to certain extent, less cutting of trees. And no need to send out monthly paper statements.

5. Easier for the customers to check their bank balances and banking need.

Customers can check their bank status any time with internet online banking, they are not able to do so if it is a physical banks, as there will be subject to banking hours.

If the customers want to do any banking transactions, they can do so even at mid night if the needs arise.

However, this is something which he can not do with physical banking system, and he has to wait for the next day.

6. no need for the customer to make a trip to the bank as it can be done online.

Making a trip to the bank is a headache, when you consider the traffic and the need to look for parking space.

Somehow, where there is a bank branch, the parking slots are not readily available.

Making trip to bank is always a hazard, and inconvenient for some people, especially when you think of the need to queue up for your turn to see the teller.

7. More convenient for the customers!!

Frankly speaking, online banking is quite convenient if you are tech savvy and can not live without accessing to internet.

You can do it at home in your cosy home environment, it looks very good and efficient.

8. Banking transactions can be done anytime, even at night, no need to rush to bank in day time.

With internet banking, if you need to do an urgent banking transaction at night, you can do so easily, no need to wait until the next day for the bank to open.

Likewise, you can do it globally wherever you are, even you are not in the home country, you can still carry out the necessary transactions.

Despite all these so called benefits and advantages of having online internet banking, what are the cons of it?

1. Lack of human approach.

This is the main complaint about online banking, no more human touch.

Lacking of human interaction, mean you do not have a banking relationship manager to deal with, and you can not build up a good rapport with the bank officers at all.

2. Can not do cash deposit of money.

If you have hard cash to be deposited, you can not do so with internet banking, still you need to go to the nearest ATM or the bank branch to do so.

3. Safety of the internet.

Is it safe to use online banking? safety and security of it is questionable, as it involved two parts.

One is whether your device, be it your mobile phone, is safe, the other issue is whether the bank online system is safe and secure.

Nowadays no one dares to say their computer systems are safe and 100% secured.

The moment one company claims its computer system and network is safe, the hackers will treat it as a challenge to hack the system.

Some hackers like to do it just to satisfy their urge to hack and prove how good they are in breaking into a system.

Of course there are some who hack in order to scam other people's money.

4. Not every one is tech savvy especially the elderly.

Older generations are having problem to understand how to use the mobile phone for its simple function like sending messages and making phone calls.

with the smart phones nowadays, majority of the phone are touch screen based, not like last time button, more difficult for senior citizens to use.

And you expect the older generations to know how to do banking transaction online?

They do not even know how to surf the net for information.

Some may be able to learn, but do they know what they can click and what they can not click?

Do they know whether the site they enter is genuine or fictitious site?

After listing the pros and cons of internet banking above

Let's discuss the topic - Are the banks doing the right things to push for digital banking?

With the recent cases of scams involving one of the banks in Singapore.

In which about 470 customers lost more than SGD $ 9 million in the month of December alone.

Now people have second thought whether the banks are doing the right things to push for digital banking,  and totally discard physical banking transactions.

It was reported that the scams happened when the customers of the bank received SMSes.

Purportedly from the bank informing customers of illegal transactions, customers need to verify by clicking the links provided in the same SMSes.

Once the customer clicked on the link, that is the end of their money in the bank.

Without knowing the links which are fraudulent and linked to a fake banking website, the unsuspecting customers click on the link.

The scammers easily secure the requirement login particulars of the customers, and they will then go to the real bank website to carry out the necessary transactions such as:

• changing the login password.
• amend the withdrawing limit per transaction.
• change the requirement of one time password via SMS,
• direct the notification to their own phones or devices.

So is it the right move?

What have the banks done in order to make internet banking a smooth and trouble free procedure and system?

1. Hot line number

Has anyone tried to call the bank on its hot line and get to speak with a human straight away?

One bank in Singapore use some so called latest technology, the same as the one used in APPLE phone on the siri robots.

And it was so frustrating especially when you can not even get pass this stage,  as the machine does not seem to understand what you said.

I encountered another occasion when you call the bank, it starts with - for English, please press 1, so you do.

Then it starts giving you all the options but not in numerical orders.

So after you press the number, before it gives you more option, it starts selling you and encouraging you to use their app and telling you how efficient is their app.

After listening to the advantages of using the app, then it tells you the option.

You then press the option, once again, you have to listen to how great is their app and so on.

After that it says all our operators are engaged at the moment, you can call back some other time or go to our website and perform the transaction you want to do!!!!.

So when you feel that you have been scammed and you want to contact the bank immediately, facing with the machine talking all the times and not able to speak with a human, how to contact the bank?

as reported in the news, in the recent cases, the bank advised its customers to contact the bank immediately.

I wonder they know how hard it is to talk to the human in the bank by calling the hot line they have.

2. Token

At one time, Banks wanted to do away with the physical tokens and pushing customers to use the app.

With the recent cases in December 2021, banks have decided to allow the customers to continue using the token.

3. OTP or One Time Password.

The bank at one time wanted to do away with this One Time Password, and pushing bank customers to use the app for the access to the banking requirement. However, with the recent frequent cases of scams, they have decided to stick to this OTP for the time being.

However, does this solve the scam problem?

Customers now are not that confident to receive any SMSes from the banks, as they are not sure the messages they received are genuine or not.

What have the banks advised the customers?

1. Do not click on any links in the short messages .

Banks claimed the short messages they sent do not have any links attached at all.

So in other words, if you receive any short messages from the banks with link attached, it is a fake message, though it may look like the messages are from the banks.

2. Do not give any information about your details on banking to anyone.

This instruction is rather difficult to comprehend, when you login to the bank website, do you provide the information? as you are being prompted to do so.

Are you sure the website you access is the real website of the bank?

how do you differentiate the real and the fake website?

Perhaps you may want to use the tools available to check on any fake website or do some checks in the internet.

The best way to do so is to key in the URL of the bank directly, instead of just click on the link provided.

3. Call the bank hot lines to verify.

As I mentioned earlier, some hot lines provided by the banks are not that easily accessible.

Unless you have the patient and in good mood to listen to all the sales pitches or talking to robot, it is better you just make a trip to the bank and talk to the human directly.

Even that again may not be possible as the staff may direct you to go online, it seems that is about the job function of the staffs of the banks nowadays, to tell customers to go online to do banking transactions.

Now what can the banks and authority do? or should do?

1. Bank domain.

It is about time all the governments in the world work together to regulate the registration of domain names in world of internet.

Currently, you can register a domain quite similar to the one you want to scam.

For example, ABC Bank.com once you register as the bank domain, another person can register one almost similar to it such as ABC. Bank.com

for those who are not cautious and alert, they will think it is the same.

The relevant parties may have to agree in order to stop this type of scam.

Those people who are trying to do some fraudulent thing with ill intention, will definitely make use of this.

Therefore, it is important that certain domain can not have similar name at all, regardless of you put in a coma, a hyphen, or whatever.

2. Tracing of the transactions.

There should be electronic trails of the transactions, the money trails from the bank where the victim's money was transferred from, to the bank where the money was transferred.

If the money was then further moved to another bank account, and so on, sometimes, it could be moving to multiples destinations so as to avoid detection.

Or making it difficult for authorities to trace the eventual destination of the fund, especially when the scammers move the funds all over the world.

And unless the investigators are very patient to follow the money trails, the recovery of the fund is almost equal to zero.

The recovery of the fund is more difficult when it is going through some offshore heaven, or countries which have very lax monitoring and anti money laundering enforcement.

3. Real Hotline

it is about time the government through its central bank ensure all the banks really have some human manning the hot line instead of trying to automate the phone answering system and saving cost.

The response time of answering the phone and the frustration of the customers calling the banks at time of emergency, will determine whether the scammed money can be recovered or not.

4. Timing of transfer

Anyone noticed whenever your transfer money to your account, the bank will tell you it will take a day or two to clear?

Meaning, you can not use the money immediately.

However, when you transfer the money out of your account, it seems to deduct from your account immediately!!.

Therefore, actually the recent cases of the phishing scams can be easily thwarted if the bank has the system in place.

Such as when money is transferred out of the bank, it will take one day or two or wait for the account owner to confirm whether he did the transfer.

The bank can ask the customer to go down to the bank to verify since nowadays, we can not trust the phone on the other end of the line is really from the bank or not.

In Summary

In the meantime, those who want to learn more how to know more about phishing SMS, you may want to go HERE to learn more about it.

You may also want to do more research on this.

Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Association of Banks have just announced some measures to curb the SMS phishing scams.

You can read more about that HERE

Online shopping

This is the in thing in town nowadays to do shopping online.

Online shopping is actually a good thing to have, especially in this COVID-19 pandemic time.

In a way, this helps to keep the cases of infection down and to certain extent, keep the human traffic in the shopping malls and reduced congestion on the road too.

As usual, any good invention or things will always have the bad influence or effect too.

Scammers have been using the online shopping platform to scam on unsuspecting people.

They will make use of the human mind of tenancy to assume the link is alright.

By the time the unsuspecting victim realized they have been scammed, it may be too late as there is monetary loss .

The common online shopping platform mushroom practically overnight.

Over here in Singapore, we have things like Lazada, Shoppe, Amazon Prime, NTUC Fairprice, RedMart, just to name a few more famous and popular one, .

How do the scammers use the shopping platform to scam unsuspecting victims?

1. SMS messages asking you to pay more.

Normally a legit shopping platform will not ask you to pay more after you have made payment on the item you have selected.

According to reported news recently, scammers had used a tactic to message shoppers and telling them that they needed to pay more for the items they have purchased.

a lot of shoppers especially those who frequently use online shopping, once received the message, will not bother to check the authenticity of the message.

They just click on the link provided in the message and make the additional payment as required.

scammers fully make use of the human tendency not to check in details to implant a phishing malware into the device of the victims the moment the victims click on the link provided.

Human being tends to assume the message is genuine and the link is the real website link.

However if they just pay more attention and be more alert, they will notice the link provide is not the official website of the shopping platform.

2. Sending emails to the victims and asking them to make any additional payment.

this type of scam is quite common, the reason being recipient of email do not bother to check the email domain of the sender at all.

they always assume the email is from the real shopping platform they often use without knowing the email domain is different,  even though the title of the sender is the same name as the shopping platform.

If they really care to be more alert and check the email domain, they will find out it is not the official email domain at all, and if they have clicked on the link provided in the email, the phishing malware will be activated.

What can a person do to avoid this type of scam?

1. Check the link provided before you click on the link.

Check whether the link is the real link, then compare it with the platform domain.

2. Call the platform

if in doubt, call the platform and verify whether they have sent you any message.

3. Check whether you have made any purchase recently using that shopping platform.

a lot of people tend not do the check as they have bought online too often and they fail to keep track of their purchases, and it does not cross their mind that they do not make any purchase recently.

4. Just delete the messages you received without opening.

people may worry what if the message is true, well, if the message is true, the platform will get in touch with you again, or call you to inform you to top up the shortfall when the goods is delivered.

if there is no reminder sent, then you can be sure it is a hoax and a scam.

Do You Think You Have Been Scammed?

if you think you have been scammed, you can do the following:

1. Check whether you have made any purchase recently, if it is negative, then you do not have to worry.

2. Try to make payment using credit card instead of using your debit card or online banking.

It is important to set your credit card charge alert to one cent, meaning even there is a charge for one cent, there will be a message alert to inform you that your card is being charged.

if you have not made any payment, call the credit card issuing bank to stop the payment.

Normally, the bank which charge your credit card will not remit the money to the merchant immediately, so the moment you receive the message of the charges, call them immediately.

3. Report the scam immediately to the relevant authority, this can help the relevant authority to gather more information and take necessary action.

4. Spread the words among your friends about the scam.

5. Share it in your social media so that more people will know about the scam.

6. You can share your experience with https://www.scamalert.sg/

7. Internationally you may want to report to HERE

Conclusion

just be more alert and check any link sent to you, especially the domain of the link.

Whatever you do, do not click on the link at all.

If you have any feedback and comments, do drop a few lines in the comments section below.

Share your experience and let's make online shopping a better place.