Watch Out for Crypto Scams on Twitter

Is “X” Really Giving Away “Y” Crypto on Twitter?! – Generally Speaking, No, That is a Scam.

There is a common crypto scam on Twitter where people pretend to be famous crypto people or entities and promise “free coins” if you send a coin to an address.

The messages read something like “We’re giving away 1,500 ETH. To participate, send .05 ETH to this address.” You’ll find these scam messages on Jim Cramer, McAfee, Vitalik, Charlie Lee, Coinbase, etc. (i.e., places where many go for investment-related info).

Don’t send any crypto and please do not click the link. You are almost better off sending crypto than clicking random links.

Real crypto celebs and entities will never ask you to send them coins on Twitter. Always check the user’s “@” handle and not just the username. The gambit is that they use the same username, but have a slightly different handle.

One day Twitter may level up its machine learning skills and catch these scammers, but until then it’s up to you to report and block them (also report anyone who comments saying “thanks, I got X coin.”)

NOTE: DON’T SEND ETH, LTC, BTC, etc. to these scammers. If you do, you are replying to a bot, who is scamming you, and your crypto is sent to some black-hat who will be incentivized to do this again. Meanwhile, reporting them helps clean up the Twitter-verse and makes life just slightly harder for the scammers.

? Beware of digital currency giveaway scams on Twitter ?

Coinbase WILL NEVER ask you to send us digital currency as these screenshots do.

These scams often employ hundreds of bot accounts claiming to have received free digital currency. pic.twitter.com/tcGvi3SB30

— Coinbase (@coinbase) February 23, 2018