How to Avoid NFT Scams in 2022

The year 2022 has just barely begun, but it can already be called the Year of Scam in the NFT world. Every single day, users of Twitter and other social networks complain about becoming the victims of Discords hacks, phishing emails, and other NFT scams. Fraudulent methods are getting more and more sophisticated, which explains why earlier mostly newcomers were victims of scammers, and now experienced NFT owners and buyers are also falling for scams. At the same time, new projects emerge so quickly that it becomes difficult to understand which ones can be trusted and which ones should be 100% ignored.

We are writing this article because we believe that NFTs are the future, and despite the growing number of scammers, you should not be afraid to enter this industry. All you need to know is how to detect dangerous situations and avoid them.

Here are our tips to help you protect your NFTs and money and not to get scammed.

1. Don’t trust — verify. Always #DYOR

We wish we could provide you with a list of trusted NFT holders and projects, but unfortunately, this is impossible. The thing is any account, even the account of Vitalik Buterin or any BAYC owner, can be hacked and used to commit fraud.

In order to verify the authenticity of a specific account or a project, you can do the following:

• Check the project’s social media account

Check if the account has real followers and read the comments. Those who have been scammed often leave their negative comments under the account’s posts. If an account is posting suspicious ads, that’s not a good sign either.

If an account you’ve known for a long time is behaving oddly and asking you to join their project or buy their NFTs (especially via DMs), that’s another red flag.

• Do research about the project team

Although project participants often remain anonymous, they still reveal their real names in a number of projects. This is a good indicator of the quality of the project. You can google them and check their social media accounts to make sure they really exist and their project is not a scam.

• Follow your favorite OGs to learn about the projects they take part in

It will be good for you to follow the latest NFT news and find OGs you can trust. If you don’t know which NFT projects to choose, you can check which ones your favorite OG is involved in. But, as they say, trust everyone, but always cut the cards. Don’t forget to do your research before buying or selling NFTs.

2. Don’t ignore red flags

It is highly recommended to make a simple list of things to check when considering investing in NFTs. The list may consist of technical, social, and business questions that need to be answered before making a decision.

We suggest paying attention to the following points:

• Anonymous devs/ un doxxed

Do not get involved in the project where the developer hasn’t revealed its name and hasn’t provided detailed info.

• Bots instead of real subscriber

Check if the account is followed by real people or bots, but also remember that there can be so-called social media wars where hired bots comment under posts of trustworthy projects to ruin their reputation.

• Unreasonable mint price

Startups and most community members are always trying to choose a blockchain that will provide affordable transaction fees and reasonable mint prices. If the price is ridiculously high, this can be an NFT scam.

• Too much hype

Dev teams often invite celebrities to promote their project. This type of marketing is not new, but you should be careful. Google if the celebrity is officially hired or the partnership is not real. If the project came out of nowhere, that’s also not a good sign.

• Odd behavior

Any oddity is a red flag. These can be threats, floor sweeps, the disappearance of tokens, etc. Depending on your goal, revise the points and add new ones that are important to you. Don’t forget to follow the NFT community news to find out about new problems and NFT scam cases. For example, in early 2022, there is a lot of talk about scams and hacks in official Discord communities.

3. Keep your digital wallet secure

While NFT marketplaces and the underlying blockchain technology are fairly secure, you can still lose their tokens and crypto as scammers are good at psychological tricks and take advantage of ignorance of basic cybersecurity measures.

First of all, you need to take care of your hot wallet security. Here are several simple protective measures that will help you save your money and nerve cells:

• Never click on malicious links, especially those sent through DMs or email. Even if you have an email from OpenSea or any other service — don’t click. Go yourself to the service in the browser — avoid clicking any links.
• Enable 2FA as users without 2FA are the most likely to get scammed
• Set up a strong password and store it offline
• Do not share your seed phrase with anyone, not even your relatives, and never store it online
• Use only verified wallets such as MetaMask
• Use a hardware wallet to store your NFTs. It should be purchased only from official manufacturers

• Always check the transactions you conduct through your wallet. You can compare the hash in the wallet and on the site and make sure everything matches

• If you experience any problems with signing a contract or connecting your wallet, contact only the official customer support

• Do not share your wallet address publicly. Do not share your screen with anyone, not even support. If someone asks to share the screen with your wallet or desktop — it’s a 100% scam and fraud. Official customer support has all the needed information and stats about you to help.

• If you’re on a video call with someone, do not share your screen, especially if your account page and wallet information are displayed at that moment. Use only official support channels, don’t click any links or “support forms” in Discord, e-mails, Twitter. Just check official channels on the project web page.

  
  

In addition, if you are a fan of different airdrops, it is better not to use the main wallet. Fortunately, you can create as many as you want, so even if the project is a scam, you won’t lose everything.

Final Thoughts: Avoiding NFT Scams

The more popular the trend, the more scammers are trying to capitalize on it. NFTs are no exception.

Our team is working on a project to help everyone avoid the risks associated with exploring the NFT world. Marketplace analytics, NFT side-by-side comparison, top NFT gems, Risk and Alerts anti-scam analysis, and many other CheckNFT.iO tools will help you not to lose your money in the NFT space, and it is free.

To join our waitlist for early access, please complete the form below.

Thank you for reading our article! Since NFTs will be the key building blocks of Web3, let’s develop this technology together and create a new version of the Internet! #wgmi

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