Telegram is widely used in the crypto world. Lots of projects have their own channel and there are lots of great groups. But also it is a dangerous place full of scammers and people with other evil plans. In this blog I want to write some tips to help you to stay safe. Maybe you know most of them already, but you can never be too careful is what I learned until now.

Impersonators

I almost got scammed myself, but my alarmbells saved me. I got contacted by a friend (I thought...) but it was someone impersonating him. He copied everything, even the profile picture, bio etc. One thing he can’t copy is the groups in common part, you can see in someone's bio. Click on someone's name to open his bio and you can see if you have any groups in common. If it is not there, this can be a sign of a fake account

This fake guy talked so friendly, some smalltalk, understanding the things I said. He spoke like he had to offer a special ambassador role for me and if I would like it. It really wasn't a strange idea to be contacted for it because the real friend he impersonates is an admin at that specified project. At last he made the mistake to ask me to send some ETH and I knew the real guy would never have asked me this.

Fake Support

You receive a direct message from someone who says he is an admin and he can offer you help with your problems when you asked questions in the original channel. Possibly they are also in this channel but under a different name to find you. Check his profile and the ones from real support people in the channel to see the differences like above. Most admins or support people will never contact you first without mentioning anything in the channel about it!

False links

These can come in private message but also in channels. There will be an interesting message with links. Usually, the admins will clean them up but they can't be everywhere every second so this can sometimes not happen immediately. The offers are most of the time to good to be true or the name and bio of the poster are doubtfull. Always be careful when clicking on links in telegram. They can look like interesting articles about the project, official announcements or news channels. But the links will be leading you to fake sites.

Update your systems and apps

Keep your systems and apps updated with recent versions all the time. The desktop version has easy links for it and for apps use the tools of your phone.

Don't feel offended if a channel admin or a channel bot asks you to talk to prove you are not a bot. It is also possible they will ask you to set a profile picture and fill your bio. Some channels restrict forwarding and links posting for new members for a certain period of time.

I hope this is a useful post for some of you and I wish you a pleasant and safe time using telegram. You can follow me here or on Twitter to keep yourself informed.