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cryptocurrency exchanges

Beware of Scams!

Where the wealth goes, the scams flow! If you’ve speculated how much money you could make through trading or just investing in cryptocurrencies, so have the scammers. And they have made around $23 million!

I got caught in the early ICO (initial coin offering) days. I really wanted to acquire some PPT (populous.world) tokens for their invoice factoring platform, a great way to earn passively through their disintermediating the banking industry. A token made in heaven. However, the ICO was crazy, it lasted around half an hour (I can be corrected), and despite my being ready, pressing ‘Send’ within the first minute, my transaction was ‘pending’ until the token sale was completed. No PPT for me!

So, imagine how ecstatic I was to discover a couple days later that there were a few tokens still for sale. My information came from a tweet from @bitpopuIous. I didn’t even question the validity of spare tokens as the twitter page was an exact copy of @bitpopulous. Can you spot the difference? Yes, it is easy to spot in this font, but not twitter’s. The lowercase ’l’ has been replaced by an uppercase ‘i’.

It was only when I enquired with the genuine twitter account as to when my tokens would appear in my ethereum address that I realized I had been scammed to the tune of 0.57 ETH. A small amount compared to many others. I have tagged the ethereum address, hopefully, one day it will be useful in tracking down the scammer. I know they took the money out of Poloniex exchange.

Scams come in many different forms, but basically trick you into thinking you’re engaging with the official entity.

Precautions!

  • If it sounds too good to be true, IT IS!
  • Always check the url, bookmark it, always type it in (no clicks).
  • No one is giving away ETH.
  • Triple check crypto addresses.
  • No exchange is going to ask for your private keys (username or password).
  • Don’t fall for the ‘Security Upgrade’ email.
  • Educate yourself!