If it seems too good to be true...

For the more seasoned cryptocurrency crowd, this little public service message might seem unnecessary and painfully obvious. But every day that I look through my Twitter feed, I see at least one or two people falling for these scams. It's infuriating.

It might be a Justin Sun @justinsunntron with two n's instead of one. It might be a binance__2017 with two underscores instead of one. It could be an announcement from a John_McAfee or John MackAfee or a Jon__MacAphee__2017. They're all fake. And they're trying to take advantage of you.

Now, to me, it seems really obvious. Firstly, there should be a little check mark by any Twitter user of any level of celebrity status, to prove it is the legitimate person. Secondly, and more importantly, you need to think about their message.

If the message goes something like this...

"Hey I'm feeling very generous because (fill in reason). If you send 100 (fill in currency) to this address (whatever address), I'll send 500 (of the same currency) back to your wallet!"

...it's a scam.

Think about it. When have you ever encountered a legitimate offer that would get you to send a small amount of money in exchange for a larger amount of money? Maybe in a letter from a Nigerian prince. But, that's not legitimate... right?

If you encounter an offer on Twitter that seems too good to be true, please stop. Think twice. And keep scrolling.

Don't encourage this behaviour.

And here's another thing - those people you see falling for the scam - they might just be planted there to encourage you to join in. It's a sort of peer pressure to encourage you to feel like it is a legitimate deal. Don't fall for it!

It is strange that an established company as large as Twitter doesn't seem to be able to stem this tide of scammers. Maybe in the future some kind of identity technology (like Civic, which I just mentioned in another article, for example) could help alleviate this problem. In the meantime, you will just have to use some discernment with a dash of paranoia to keep yourself safe.

image source:

https://stocknews.com/news/twtr-longer-tweets-appear-to-be-paying-off-for-twitter-inc/