Scammers often operate around the most promising and fast growing industries, which makes the crypto world and its community a perfect environment. How can you avoid being an easy target? 

‘Scamming’ is one of the oldest professions, close to the thief in its origin but more sophisticated in its performances.  The main difference would be - instead of hiding in the shadows and stealing your belongings secretly, scams will openly approach you in the light of day to convince you to “invest” your resources voluntarily.  It is natural that the most dynamic, quickly growing industries attract a lot of scam activists. 

The whole concept of cryptocurrency, mining crypto and NFTs is relatively new, extremely promising and can bring you amazing benefits if you are smart enough to avoid scammers on your way. 

The aim of this article is to help you to recognize the most common types of scams in order to avoid them. 

Reduce the chance of contact

Make it more difficult for a potential scammer to approach you, and you will have less chance to fall for his scheme. 

• If you have the option to filter out and block message requests, use it. 
• Make sure your OS and apps are up to date.
• Secure your crypto funds offline using a hard wallet.
• Don’t open any attachments from unknown senders. 
• Make sure you disable auto-download of images and files (WhatsApp and Telegram are really bad for this, and many people get hacked by malicious files - nobody will give you an NFT for free!)

You can find more general advice against both scammers and hackers here.

Always double check URLs

When using your favorite websites and platforms - bookmark them and always make sure you are using the official version. In attempts to trick you, scammers can use very similar URLs with minor typos that are hard to notice.

A perfect example of a fake NiceHash URL would be www.nlcehash.com or www.nicehesh.com. 

Carefully check the email domain when getting emails

Most scammers will try to use very similar domain names in the hope of catching you off guard. This type of attack is called phishing. You can set up an anti-phishing code which will help to prevent most of the phishing attempts. You can learn how to do this here.  If you became a victim of a phishing attack you should report it immediately.  Not sure if the email you got is actually coming from NiceHash? You can check our official email addresses here. 

The same goes for social media accounts 

Always make sure you are using the official page. Double check the URLs and make sure that the name of the company is written correctly and there is a blue tick near the name.  You can check which NiceHash pages you can trust here.  Here is an example of fake Facebook pages pretending to be NiceHash. Only the page at the very top of the picture is the official NiceHash page. It is spelled correctly, has a lot of followers, and a blue tick of verification:

Be cautious with contests, giveaways, and investment offers that are 'too good to be true'

Never send your coins or sensitive information to someone who promised you high returns or suggested a “send-return” scheme.  This type of scam is currently operating on many Facebook pages, often posting spam comments, pretending to be the admin of the page. Below is an example from the NiceHash Facebook page. Even though our moderators are working 24/7 and daily report hundreds of fake pages, these bots never cease to pop up. These spam comments always come with several supportive comments from other pages to confuse you even more:

Always be suspicious of anyone who contacts you first

Be cautious of all emails and dms you get from people you don’t know. Legitimate projects will never approach you with an offer to buy a coin or NFT as well as other types of sales or investment suggestions. 

Protect your personal information

Don’t tell anyone your passwords, 2FA codes or wallet seeds, even if they offer you help or assistance. Keep in mind that NiceHash support will never contact you first and will never request sharing this data.

Fake support teams 

Keep in mind that NiceHash does not offer support via phone or WhatsApp and does not have a Telegram support channel. Anyone who approaches you via these means of communication using our name is a scam and should be reported. Remember that NiceHash will never reach out to you offering support in private messages and does not have live support, if you see these, they are FAKE! 

Support is ONLY through https://www.nicehash.com/support/my-cases/new

Fake job offers

If you were approached by someone with a job offer from NiceHash you can always check here. NiceHash will never ask you for any upfront payments for training or for the position itself.  

Other things to keep in mind

Currently NiceHash does not have it’s own token and does not make/sell NFTs. Anyone who approaches you with the request to support our community by purchasing one of those is a scam and should be reported immediately. 

There is no limit to scammers imagination and we advise you to be extremely careful as new versions and schemes appear on a regular basis.