Before we dive in let's remember that in the same period of time, over £2 BILLION worth of credit card fraud was committed - a leap of almost 40% higher in just over a year.
The answer to 'why does this happen?' is simply 'if it's money it's a target' and even then lately it seems the word is out - Bitcoin is traceable. In countries like UK and US it's become a huge challenge to take that final step of converting crypto to fiat without first having to confirm your identity with an institution that will do it.
The stats come from Action Fraud, which is where UK fraud victims are asked to call and report scams they encounter.
People getting scammed is hardly a surprise to anyone in the cryptocurrency world, as you cannot participate in the online communities on Reddit, Twitter, Telegram, Discord, or Facebook without seeing scams daily. It was actually a surprise that the numbers aren't higher!
I believe the key reason is: most people tend to only get scammed once in the crypto world - then become so paranoid it doesn't happen again (with the exception of the ultra-dumb, which I will mention below).
Unlike getting your credit card stolen, no one reimburses you for stolen cryptocurrency. Because of this, the first time stings, and it will be remembered.
A couple of other interesting pieces of information - many could have been avoided becoming a victim with a simple Google search of the name of the website they were sending money to. Scammers have been pushing the same garbage for awhile now and a search will bring up more results saying it's a scam than pages from the scammers themselves.
Also, some people say they were DOUBLE SCAMMED! After being tricked into sending the thief their money, someone contacted them saying they can recover it, for a fee. That fee was then stolen and the person disappeared.
You may ask, why wouldn't someone say 'i'll pay you a percentage of the funds you recover"? Well, because we're not talking about the brightest people with that one.
If you're ever skeptical, put the community to work for you - ask people with more experience. They're easy to find. Just make sure you aren't talking to another scammer by posting it publicly somewhere like Reddit or BitcoinTalk.
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Author: Mark Pippen
London News Desk
1 comment
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