Beware of These Common NFT Scams to Stay Safe
NFT scams today have become more sophisticated that many people don’t even notice that they are already becoming a victim.
Before you jump on the NFT bandwagon, here are some NFT scams you need to watch out for to keep your digital assets safe before you earn profit from them.
Counterfeit NFTs
Just because you mint a digital file as an NFT wouldn’t make you its owner or turn it into a new piece of intellectual property. What happens here is that you just turned a digital file into something that can be stored on the blockchain.
It is all too easy for scammers to steal the work of a digital creator and open launch an account on an NFT marketplace where the counterfeit piece will be listed for auction.
If you end up buying a counterfeit, it will make the NFT useless the moment the community realizes that it is not the real deal. You wouldn’t get your money back once it happens.
Fake Giveaways
Scammers can pose as employees from top platforms for NFT trading and reach out to you through social media to ask you to be part of their NFT giveaway campaign. These people will promise to give you an NFT for free provided that you share the giveaway and create an account on their site, which, as expected, is just a phishing website.
The moment they convince you to have your digital wallet credentials linked so you can claim your prize, scammers will record everything you type, giving them access to your account and possibly stealing your NFT library.
Fake Marketplaces
If you are a first-time NFT investor, the number one thing to do is look for a platform where you can sell and buy NFTs. Millions of search results will pop up after a quick search online. Unfortunately, there are lots of phony NFT marketplaces among these results.
These fake websites don’t offer legitimate NFTs so the moment you purchase one, the site will take note of your credentials based on the details of your transaction. These sites might even request your 12-word security seed phrases or private keys and use these for draining all your assets in your digital wallet.
Fake Offers
Most NFT scammers usually impersonate legit NFT trading platforms and then send fake emails to you claiming that your NFT has received an offer. The goal of these phishing emails is to make you follow the embedded link that will then direct you to a fake NFT marketplace.
Just like other types of phishing scams, the link will lead you to the fake page asking you to have your digital wallet linked and to have your seed phrase submitted, thus giving the bad people the perfect opportunity of hacking into your wallet.
Fake Technical Support
Another very common NFT scams are fake technical support or customer service representatives. For instance, you are facing some technical issues on a famous NFT marketplace and seek help from a public forum. Someone claiming to be a representative of the marketplace will offer their assistance.
This fake support agent will ask you to share your screen to see what is happening, which will make you unintentionally reveal the credentials of your cryptocurrency wallet.
Once you do so, the scammer will take screenshots of the seed phrase or even the QR code connected to it. You might even be redirected by the scammer to a site that looks almost similar to the authentic ones. They will convince you to type your personal details like your seed phrase, leaving your digital wallet prone to theft.
Watch out for these NFT scams to avoid falling prey to the hands of scammers.
