Safety in Crypto
Part 2
I first wrote this article on medium after individuals got scammed due to a fake verge website. You can read it here
As the popularity of cryptocurrencies grows on platforms like Telegram, so too do crypto scams. These scams often promise quick wealth but instead leave victims financially devastated. It’s vital to stay vigilant in this high-risk environment.
What to do if you believe you are on a fake cryptowebsite. Usually these offer crazy good rewards, staking (for projects that don’t have staking mechanism) or give-aways that require you to send a certain amount of value to get money back.
We will use the example of the latest scam https://dev-xverge.cloud/ is being hosted by Hostinger. (their last scam was xverge.cloud and was also hosted by the same company.
What you must do, if you suspect a website is fake, is visit the real website of the project. For example, Vergecurrency.com and notice that there are no xverge or verge dot cloud addresses.
If you do this, after your funds were sent there, please use the website https://www.whois.com/ to gather as much details. Go to your local police and give them this information. At the very least, they can stop the hosting of the scam.
Here are more examples of scams being perpetrated by the same people as the xverge fraudsters:
The Xverge people also have
https://dev-solana.cloud
According to the whois: the solana scam is hosted in Myanmar.
https://www.whois.com/whois/dev-solana.cloud
https://ethereumclassic.cloud/
According to the Whois: for the ETC scam. It is in the United-States. Hosted by hostinger.
https://www.whois.com/whois/ethereumclassic.cloud
https://dev-tron.cloud/
Here also, the scam is hosted by the same company in Myanmar.
https://www.whois.com/whois/dev-tron.cloud
Telegram scams
Lastly, another popular scam that happens on telegram is people pretending to be a dev, or a member of the verge community. No one will ask you your private keys, as this is your money. We will also never message you first. You must be vigilant, as once someone has your private keys, they have your money. Blockchains are fantastic record keepers, and as such, if your coins are lost, we cannot give you your money back.
This is a fake group that impersonated Verge, now it’s impersonating ConFlux.
At least now telegram labels it as a potential scam.
What to do if you are added to a telegram channel?
First verify if you know who added you.
Second: visit the official website of the project
Third, see if the official website telegram matches the group
Fourth: if it does match, you are safe. If it doesn’t report the group and leave, do not engage, assume they are all bots.
