How Not To Scam on Telegram.
So if there is one thing i’ve learnt in this process of running my first #ICO, Quizando.io , is that you NEED to be on Telegram. (New to all this? well you can check it out here: https://telegram.org/)
I mean, don’t you just love #telegram?
As chat + networking tool it is awesome and if you find the right group you can make some amazing connections. But at the same time it’s rampant with scammers from around the world.
Some of the scammers are super crafty like the example below — where the scammer is pretending to be the Martins Orlov aka host of the Martins Hack youtube channel. In this case the imposter is proposing an offer to feature on his channel, and when asked for an email address — he gives me one with a slight typo, an old #phishing trick, intended for you not to notice — see the difference?
Other scammers are even more devious… playing on your frustrations with tech. But the issue is they don’t know when to draw the line — like in the case of a scammer i came across pretending to be the super cool #DougPolk …
So the story goes like this. On our Quizando Telegram Group, this Doug Polk guy approached us with an offer, we had a short chat in PM, and I asked him to send an email with the proposal, which he said he’d do.
A day or so later i get another message, asking if i read his email.
I checked my inbox. Nothing. I let him know, and he said that’s weird, and that he’d resend.
Next day, he contacted me again… still nothing in my inbox or spam (which always makes me worry a little), but i asked him to check if something is wrong on his end.
He then said he’d check with his team but in the mean time should check out his fb page and could message him there to verify all is cool.
Now, take a look at the URL in the picture above… DougPolkCryptocoincentral (incidentally with a whopping 6 Likes!!!)
Again, some people would fall for this. But not getting scammed is all about paying attention to details.
Doug’s actual channel is https://www.facebook.com/dougpolkcrypto/ but the url names are close enough to possibly miss that.
Anyway realising it was a scam I left it at that… didn’t bother saying anything else, and assuming the scammer would go away.
End of story… or so I thought.
This morning my phone starts buzzing — it’s a call from the Doug Polk Crypto impersonator! Wow i thought. That is commitment to a cause. I had 5 mins so i decided to Answer.
Now before i continue, for those of you who don’t know who Doug Polk is, you can check him out here:
“Hello there Mr Wesley,” said the heavily African accented voice on the phone.
Doug is a 30 year old American Pro poker player, turned crypto commentator, who has a voice that sounds like a cross between an ESPN sports presenter and an an excited Fox News reporter. This was not Doug.
“Hello there,”, i replied with a puzzled tone in my voice, “is this Doug Polk?”.
Now at this point our mystery man on the phone, could have put some of my fears at rest easily by saying he is one of Doug’s associates, or a PA etc. No. Instead he proceeded with..
“Yes this is Doug Polk, the youtube crypto influencer and commentator, and i’m sorry but i’ve been having issues with my email. I was wondering if we could talk more about my offer”.
I didn’t want to waste my time so I directly confronted this mystery voice, letting him know he sounded nothing like the Youtuber with over 200K subscribers — you know just to kill the conversation and move on…. but no he replied again!
“Oh Mr Wesley, that’s because I deal with people all around the world, so i adapt my accent to where the person is from. I didn’t know where you are from, so I went with this African accent. In my last call I was speaking to Australia and used an Australian accent so that they can understand me better.”
Facepalm. I mean seriously!?! I called him out there and then, literally telling him not to scam me, as i didn’t have time to waste. I also asked, for sake of information, where he is actually running this scam from, and the guy had the gall to be taken aback saying he was offended.
What followed was a colourful exchange, which i won’t go into so as to keep this post PG, where he never dropped character or his sales pitch. While commendable it literally got him no where.
…
Isn’t it funny that in this exciting new world of blockchain, where the TECH is all about creating trust between parties, it’s littered with 1001 scams and shady practices, all focused on trying to take a piece of the pie.
So, what’s my advice on this:
- If you are on telegram, someone, at some point or other is going to try to scam you
- Before you commit to anything, do research. Google the person, ask for references, emails, look at their socials for contact details and make sure they match
- Red Flag Excuses — while they could be valid let them put you on hyper aware mode.
- Finally, Look at the details. The Language they use, the email addresses they send from, and links they send you to. Look at stats and numbers. Even the least professional people in this business know the basics.
I intend on dropping a couple more of these little notes documenting my journey to ICO in a series called Diary of An ICO founder ( #DiaryOfanICOFounder ), all about what it takes to make it to a (hopefully) successful ICO in 2018 (and beyond)!
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