Don’t Get Scammed!

The last thing the honest side of Bitcoin wants is for anybody to get scammed.  It is important to understand one key fact:

WHERE THERE IS MONEY TO BE MADE, THERE ARE SCAMMERS

The problem is how do you avoid it?  How can you tell a scam site from a legitimate site?  This is not always easy, and red flags can be easy to miss for a common user.  There are many sites out there dedicated to catching the scams before people lose their money.  This doesn’t mean that bitcoin itself is a scam.

The following three websites should help prevent you from being scammed, and if you or anyone you know have been scammed this is where you’ll be heard.  Feel free to e-mail us too!  We are happy to spread the word on scammers.

Badbitcoin.org

Bitcoinscammers.com

List all Bitcoin scammers and frauds here – Facebook

 

Public Forums

I would not recommend that you trust any one individual on the internet when it comes to BTC exchange for any products or service.  Be very careful who you deal with.  There are a lot of popular bitcoin forums out there that have all kinds of malicious activity going on.  For instance, Bitcointalk.org, one of the most popular bitcoin forums, is infested with scammers.  I have read posts about how trusted user accounts were sold to known scammers!  This, in my opinion, invalidates many ‘trusted’ user accounts making posts.  There are posts of scammers accusing others of scamming, the admins clearly allow this.  Another big issue I have with this forum is there is talk that the admins are allowing illegal activity to go on within the forum.  Are they being paid off?  It is uncertain.  There can be some good information on Bitcointalk, but there are probably better resources out there that aren’t littered with garbage.  The dumping grounds of bitcoin, to say the least!  It is very cheap and very easy to put up a website these days!

 

Understanding Ad-Space

Ad-Space is space on a site that is sold to advertisers for money.  You can find ads on almost any website.  Most ads will show a logo on the upper right or left hand corner of the ad.  Whether it’s AdChoices, Anonymous Ads or another form, it is usually easy to pinpoint the ads on a website.  Some of these work on a bidding war and advertisers willing to pay the most get the most impressions.

An Impression is the term used to describe the ad itself being shown on the screen or monitor viewing the website (i.e. your eyes).  As soon as you scroll to the ad, or if the ad is close enough to the top of the page where no scrolling is necessary, it counts as one ad impression.  The first impression is the most important, so the idea is if your wording or ad is catchy or flashy enough, the user will be interested and intrigued to learn more by clicking the ad.  The same goes for even Text-Based ads.

Click Here for Free Bitcoin!  <– This “Ad” being on the screen creates an impression.  There are text based ads out there, so one should be careful where they click.  If you hover your mouse over any link, or ad, the URL is shown on the bottom left corner of your browser!

Below is one of our ads through Anonymous Ads – An ad system that pays in bitcoin instead of dollars (like Ad-Choices).  Notice the Logo in the upper right-hand corner of the banner.  Hovering over the logo gives you a link to the website, the ad-unit and the ability to place your own personal ad on my (or any) website you desire as long as you have the funds to do so.

This doesn’t mean that ads are bad.  This just means that there are bad people infiltrating the ad system.  Some websites put up an array of ads, and fill up as much space as possible.  This creates a cluster of ads put in place to either confuse the user, maximize ad profit, or both.   If you have ever tried downloading something from a website you have probably ran into more than one download button on the download page, only to realize that there is a download timer (usually about 5 seconds) that automatically begins the download for you.   If the user misses the message because of the overwhelmingly large size of the DOWNLOAD NOW button placed within the ad and ends up clicking the ad, they end up getting an undesired download that can ultimately lead to a virus.  Websites that use ad-space are then blamed for the virus when in reality the website admins have little to no control over what ads are actually placed in their ad units.  The more people that know this, the more money the scam artists will lose on advertisement costs.

 

Downloading

Putting needed software aside, such as MultiBit, the Bitcoin-QT software and/or software needed to utilize Bitcoin, here’s a little bit of advice for you: DO NOT DOWNLOAD AND/OR INSTALL ANYTHING TO YOUR COMPUTER

Do not complete any offers that require downloading of anything to your computer for exchange of bitcoin.  Sites such as EarnCrypto that have offers that require you to download and install a stupid game is NOT WORTH IT.  I have made a few of those downloads myself and did not get any virus’s but it is best to complete the offers that don’t require any downloading.  Surveys and such are OK, but the second you are asked to download something, RUN.  (This does not include the downloading of the smart phone apps.  Many of these are popular, and some I already had.)