How to Detect and Bypass a SCAMMER in Telegram
There is no denial that the most used messaging service in the cryptoverse is Telegram for its versatility and user friendliness.
If you are a part of any group in Telegram then please beware of scammers and know how to restrict yourself from getting scammed.
Let me share my encounters with scamers with you:
Spotting a scammer on the SOLA Telegram Group.
SOLA is a Social Network which incentivises the users with its Native ERC-20 Token SOL in its offchain wallet. Withdrawal to your ETH wallet takes a little time as it is done manually by the team after a fraud check is performed.
After I had an issue regarding an unwanted withdrawal, I reported in its Telegram group. Before getting a reply from any admin, I received a DM from a user who claimed to be the admin and asked me details of the incident. Since I had spoken to the real admin previously in DM whose name and photo the scammer used, it was easy for me to detect the scammer.
In this case: The user name of the scammer was different from the real person.
In the meantime the CTO of SOLA sent me a DM and asked me about the problem to find a solution for it. The previous incident already made me sceptical and I told him to send me a message on the group to check for his admin tag. He was real who proactively found a solution for the issue that I had.
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Though he was real admin yet I told him to message me on the group
Spotting a scammer on the EOS Authority Telegram Group.
EOS Authority is an EOS Block Producer with a user friendly website for EOS holders.
I spent some money on EOS during its ICO and I had problem registering my account after EOS mainnet was launched. I took this issue to the EOS Authority team on its Telegram Group and got it resolved by another user who is not an admin. However I spoke to Rohan (EOS Authority Team member and an active admin on the Telegram Group) privately.
Later I discovered that someone sent me a DM on the same day I raised the issue. It was none other than the impersonator who was using Rohan’s name and profile photo. The most shocking factor was, the scammer managed to create exactly the same ID of Rohan.
This time also it was easy for me to detect the scammer as I had a previous chat history with the real peron which was missing in the impersonators chat window. I immediately intimated Rohan regarding this and he asked me to copy the impersonators ID and forward it to him. After pasting the impersonator’s ID on real Rohan’s DM, I clicked the linked and that took me to the impersonator’s profile, and that a little sense of relief to me.
Spotting a scammer on the Blockpass Telegram Group.
After knowing about the Infinito Wallet and it’s giveaway of Free EOS account, I tried my luck and failed. But I got to know about Blockpass from there, and got myself registered.
To get yourself verified on Blockpass you’ll need to have a little amount of PASS Token in your ETH wallet. My verification failed for not having them and the PASS Token Airdrop was also over by then and I was left with the only option to buy some tokens from an exchange.
On their Telegram group, I asked them about the minimum amount of token I’ll need to have in my ETH wallet. Before getting an answer from anyone on the group, I received a DM where s/he asked me if I’m interested in the token sale. I immediately reported it to the real admin about the imposter and thought to deliver the imposter’s ID by simply copying it from his/her profile which I did during the EOS Authority issue. I was shocked to see what happened after pasting the imposter’s ID on the real admin’s DM window. Clicking the imposter’s ID was taking me to the real admin’s profile.
How to bypass these scammers
Do not share any private information to anybody who claims to be an admin of a group and send you DM proactively because no real admin will ever ask you those.
To check if the person is a real admin tell him/her to message you in the group and verify the admin tag beside the username and get yourself redirected to the DM by clicking over his/her name from the group itself.
Do not click any link that you receive from any random person or on a group that you didn’t join by yourself.
Scammers will try to stay a step ahead of us let us demoralize them.