5 Signs You’re About to Get Scammed on Telegram
1. This female is too hot for you ser
If you didn’t figure it out when you were in high school, the years since have certainly taught you what kind of attention you should be expecting from the opposite sex. Trust us, the long hours spent hunched over 2 monitors while you pretend you know how to chart on Dextools have done you no favors. You’re paler than Billy Corgan and probably look like you’re somewhere in your second trimester at this point.
Behold, a tiny circular image of an angel with perky chesticles has popped up in the midst of your 47 unopened TG groups. “Hey there, I see we’re in the same project. Can you help me with something?”. Yeah girl, I’ll help you with something. Go ahead, click. Expand that tiny picture. Dang, she looks good... and she messaged you. It’s okay to look. Done? She’s a man. He doesn’t need your help. He needs to get blocked. That was easy.
2. This dude says if I send him some of my money, he’ll give me back even more money
You probably didn’t get into crypto because you were a math prodigy. That’s okay, we can help you out here. A - B ≠ $$$$. Memorize that formula for the remainder of your crypto journey. If someone says the only way they can access your funds is for you to send them more funds, feel free to tell them where to stick their transaction ID.
You already have to tell your wife that you can’t afford those N’Sync reunion tour tickets, no need to double down and miss out on 98 Degrees at the same time. Hopefully she won’t be saying “Bye, Bye, Bye” and you can just sleep this one off on the couch.
3. These mods are all so helpful!
You’re usually just a TG lurker. There are so many chats and so little time, better to just pop in and observe from time to time. Most days that works well, but today is different. Today you have a burning question that no one has thought to ask in at least 24 hours. WTF is wrong with these people? Why isn’t anyone asking? That’s it, you can’t wait another second. This community desperately needs your forensic contribution to the project. You finally mash out your thumb powered query and crush that little paper airplane with passion.... “WEN MARKETING?!?!???”.
Great news! Rather than responding to your thoughtful question amongst the peons of the telegram universe, the mod has thoughtfully decided to DM you and ask what they can do to help. These people are even nicer than Shytoshi was! Bad news crypto warriors, any mod worth their salt would prefer to publicly berate you for your terrible questions in the public square of the group chat. You’re about ten minutes away from connecting your wallet to the shadiest site since $TITAN. Just hit block.
4. Am I seeing double???
You’ve been a valuable member of your favorite project for over 45 days now. These people are starting to become like family. And bonus, you never have to actually see them. You wake up one morning and go to check the chat for moon mission status, but there are two identical chats. Gasp.
Good news, you’re not going crazy. While you were sleeping, some nefarious fiend has duplicated almost everything about the real project’s TG. What kind of monster would try to replicate your IRL TG family?!? These people have no boundaries at all. There are probably a lot of ways to figure out which group is the real one, but I would probably start by looking for which group is offering some kind of airdrop you’ve never heard of before and report that bad boy to the TG police. And quick, go warn your friends in the project, they need you!
5. Shytoshi himself just reached out to you
All of that toilet time that you’ve spent on Twitter is finally starting to pay off. You’re getting the attention that your crypto opinions deserve, and just crossed 175 followers. Your Mum must be proud.
Just when you thought this day couldn't get any better, your future best friend, Shytoshi Kusama just slid into your DMs with a friendly message. Holy Shiba, what a day! Before you screenshot the convo to all your bros, take a deep breath. Your IRL friends barely even slide into your DMs. This dude is fake, you’re still broke, and your best friend is still your dog.
Conclusion
The ways to get scammed in TG, crypto and online in general are limited. With few simple rules you can cover the majority of problems. The 90% of scams are exploiting the weakest link in the chain. That is not the technology we use but the human psycology. These very common scams are called social engineering and you simple need to pay attention to your actions and be present when dealing with valuables.
For any other common attack vector (malware) you can prevent issues by simply using a hardware wallet and storing you seed phrase and private key safely.
When in doubt, ask Simona.
Thanks for reading!