How to avoid being scammed / How I fell for my first cryptocurrency/ICO scam
I originally posted this story to reddit, but after discovering the steemit community I think this story is even more appropriate for this platform and audience. So why not embarrass myself all over again?
Enemy #1, FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
I did my homework. I read the whitepaper. I researched the people behind the company. I moved ETH over the night before, in preparation. In fact, I stayed up (almost) all night, preparing for the Bancor ICO.
Enemy #2, Lack of Sleep
On an hour and a half of sleep, I woke up with an hour to spare. I double-checked the ICO address and the submission guidelines. I had an hour to act...plenty of time to complete the few second process of sending some ETH.
The fundraiser opens and I pull the trigger. I almost go back to bed, but I wanted to see it through. I thought I'd sleep when the transaction finalized. Checking the transaction, I see a failed response. This paragraph of events repeats another three times throughout the next 3 hours, formerly known as the 1-hour ICO window. I was pissed and didn't have any way to know why my transactions all failed.
Enemy #3, POMO (Pissed Over Missing Out)
I did what any angry person unable to spend money would do. I opened Twitter and looked for other angry people. Thread after thread of people complaining that they were unable to get in on the ICO. I replied to a thread describing my experience.
And then while reading through @BancorNetwork's tweets, this particular one stuck on me.
"All who try 2 get in will be accepted."
I obviously "tried", so why did my attempts not get accepted? I decided to message @BancorNetwork for a little clarification.
Enemy #4, Not Knowing When to Give Up
Once I got that off my chest, my wife and I left to meet my parents for dinner. As we're pulling up, my phone vibrates, signalling that I had received a message. I instantly recognize the Bancor logo in my alert and open the message from them.
"Did you contribution transaction go through?"
"your*"
I'm impressed that Bancor is responding with concern. I reply with screenshots of the failed transaction and a recap of our ICO experience.
Three hours later @BacnorNetwork responds, apologizing for the issues and offering an address where I could still get in on the ICO. They were even nice enough to discount the coins for the issues. If your facepalming right now, I can feel it.
Excited that we hadn't missed out after all, I eagerly sent 1 ETH to the address provided by @BacnorNetwork and grinned over my luck.
Enemy #5, Rushing a Transaction
What I had not yet realized was that I just sent an anonymous stranger ~$400. If you haven't noticed by now, at the point where Bancor began reaching out to me, they were using the Twitter handle @BacnorNetwork NOT @BancorNetwork.
If I could properly communicate the feelings I felt when I noticed those two switched letters, you'd stop reading this right now, and curl up in fetal position.
I'm the guy all of my friends and family call with technical problems. Ransomware locked you out of your work computer? Sure, I'll take a look. WiFi signal not reaching your backyard? Let me come over and come up with some suggestions.
And now I'm the guy who couldn't tell the difference between Bancor and Bacnor, and gave a scammer $400.
Is this how I get out of my non consensual role as default tech support? There's always a silver lining...
But I also hope that providing as many details as possible about my experience might help you to notice and avoid a similar embarrassing and costly scam. I try not to repeat the same mistake twice, and these are some of my key takeaways from this experience.
Tips for Avoiding Cryptocurrency Scams
Feeling FOMO? Step away from the computer and go for a walk, take a shower, or just clear your mind for a little bit before returning and deciding whether you should proceed or not. Scammers are looking for people in this exact state of mind as they already have one foot in their trap.
Get sleep. If you're working on fumes, you aren't going to be able to make good decisions. This is not the time for further challenging your mind.
Stay calm. In most cases the ICOs are not profitable, so don't worry about missing out. And just like lack of sleep, intense emotions can also challenge your ability to make good decisions.
Pay close attention to the actual point of transaction. If this is relatively new to you, it can be easy to be careless at critical points during your transaction. Be conscious of this and overcompensate. Triple check the addresses. Are you sure you know this person is who they say they are?
Don't invest in shadow company ICOs. If you don't know who the people are behind the big idea, chances are that's for a very good reason. Skip these. You'll always have opportunities to buy cheap, after launch, if they end up being legit. And there's not a big difference between giving a stranger pulling a Twitter scam your money and giving a money to a stranger who put a little more effort into writing a whitepaper and creating a nice looking site, to dress up their scam for a bigger payout.
Don't trust an official looking Twitter account. Scammers are smart. They know to use older accounts with 4 digit plus followers, official cover and profile graphics, and a post history to match the company they're imitating. Is this the same profile that is linked from the official site?
Don't invest in businesses you don't understand. If you can't explain who this company is and what their product's functionalities are, then you probably shouldn't be investing. With ICOs now raising 9-figures in a matter of minutes, the scammers are in a feeding frenzie, looking to take advantage of any apparent confusion. Know your shit!
This has been a "live and learn" situation. I intend to never make this same mistake and I hope that my experience has made you a little bit more aware of how these scams take place.
If you're interested in seeing the actual fraudulent transaction or checking out the scammer's "to" address to view how many others also sent them money, view the transaction here. It's actually pretty surprising how successful they are.
Do you know someone else who has been the victim of this scam or a similar one? What was their experience like? Do you have any other tips for avoiding scams?
@chupacabro
I'm a one day old steemer and this is my first post. Did I do it right?
If you've enjoyed it, please do the things that steemers do to show it. I'm eager to learn and share more with the steemit community! Now I've gotta go introduce myself or something...
Man, interesting read and sorry for your loss. At least you have learned a valuable lesson, all be it an expensive one.
I appreciate it and absolutely agree. Lesson learned, knowledge gained.
As a follow up, the same Twitter account was made over to look like the official Status Twitter account, so that they could take advantage of the next big ICO. Twitter finally shut the account down, more than a week after I reported it.
It should be known that Twitter does not have a built-in method for reporting fraud accounts. You have to report them as someone pretending to be someone you know, otherwise if you report them as pretending to be a business, they only let you report the account if you represent the business.