The European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) of Europol, the European Banking Federation, the Spanish Banking Association, the National Police, and the Civil Guard have developed basic prevention tips for crypto-asset investment scams, because the more aware we are as individuals of potential fraud, the safer we can be.
Here you can review the types of scams that cybercriminals carry out to learn how to detect them and avoid falling into their traps:
The romance scammer: Contacts you through a dating app or social media. It may start as a romance scam and quickly turn into an investment fraud with substantial losses.
The identity-stealing friend: You become the target of a scammer who compromises your friends’ social media accounts. Believing you are communicating with a trusted person, you may be more open to investing.
The business opportunity: The scammer calls you and shows you a fraudulent crypto-asset investment website. They convince you to invest with promises of substantial profits. In most cases, you will only realize you cannot recover your invested money after a long period of time.
Phishing advertisements: A crypto-asset investment ad appears on social media. You click and provide your contact details. The scammer contacts you and convinces you to invest.
What Are the Warning Signs?
Investment opportunities with returns too good to be true.
Pressure tactics that make you think it is an opportunity you cannot miss.
Fraudulent advertisements posted on the internet or social media.
Unsolicited investment offers received via email, social media, or mobile devices. The opportunities may come from:
Requests to transfer your legitimate crypto-asset investment to an alternative address that is under the control of criminals.
What Can You Do?
