How to avoid being scammed

SENNO
Senno
Published in
4 min readJun 22, 2018

As the Senno community grows, there is inevitably a corresponding increase in the threat from scammers. It’s an undesirable, yet inescapable part of building a community around an ICO: not everyone will have the best intentions and the more people there are in the community, the more bad apples there are likely to be.

To make sure that your information and SENNO tokens are kept safe from scamming attempts, let’s look at how bad actors can be identified and what actions you can take to protect yourself from them.

Telegram scammers

When should you feel justified in suspecting you are being targeted for a scam? There are no hard rules, so it’s hard to say for sure. But scammers on Telegram will likely stick out by behaving in one or more of the following ways that you should be aware of.

A scammer may:

  • Contact you by direct chat (DM).
  • Use info of real admins of the group or other team members like pictures and names.
  • Try to fool you by using the usernames of real admins with a few added symbols.
  • Ask you to give them money to secure a place in the whitelist or maybe make a private sale deposit.
  • Give you a wallet address and ask for a direct payment.
  • Try to get you to reveal personal information like your name, phone number or email address.
  • Use some other method to make themselves seem like real admins.

How to respond:

  • Don’t cooperate in any way if you suspect foul play; don’t give up money or your personal info.
  • Use the “Report Spam” button to make sure the incident is logged.
  • Write in the official Senno Telegram to tell others about the suspected scammer and ask if anyone else has encountered the same.
  • Contact group admins who can be identified by the “admin” tag next to their names and inform them as well.
Examples of people trying to scam members of the Senno community

Senno admins will never:
* PM you (unless asked to, by you)
* Directly provid you a wallet to deposit funds
* Ask for funds via Telegram / email (contributions can be made only through the website)

Phishing emails

If your email address has been compromised in some way, you could be the target of a phishing scam. While you should do everything in your power to keep your email address private, sometimes a slip up or a hacking attempt that out of your control will put your email up for grabs for scammers.

These individuals or groups may:

  • Send out emails requesting the direct transfer of funds to a wallet address.
  • Try to get you to reveal more personal info like your name and telephone number.
  • Try to convince you to join private pools.
  • Want you to open malicious files that could cause lasting damage to your device.
  • Seek to mislead you regarding token sales by claiming that dates have changed or that you could get a bonus by sending funds to a direct address immediately.

How to respond:

  • If you have any reason to believe that an email you received or the information in it isn’t official from Senno, don’t take any action before consulting the Telegram group community and admins.
  • Don’t send funds anywhere.
  • Don’t reveal any personal information.
  • Keep any suspect files closed pending further investigation.

Most importantly, Senno admins are here to help. If you have any questions or concerns regarding possible scam attempts, don’t hesitate to contact a trusted source or at the very least share your concerns with the wider community for feedback from multiple sources.

Important Information

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SENNO
Senno
Editor for

An open, smart contract customer data platform that allows individuals to monetize and control their private information while providing data for industries.