We want raise your awareness regarding the ever growing thread of crypto phishing attempts by showing you three of the most used scams out there. All these have in common that they usually ask you for your private information inform of your private key or seed phrase (also called recovery phrase). We have to remind you to:
Never Share Your Recovery Phrase or Private Key with Anyone.
The scammers pretending to be us or somebody else will have instant access to your wallet and will steal all your funds immediately!
How Can These Scams Look Like
So far we have identified a couple of ways scammers are trying to steal your funds. Some of their favorite tools include fake Facebook pages, Telegram giveaway groups or disguised phishing Websites. We will show you how to identify them and how you can help to fight back the scammers.
These scams usually come in form of a Facebook page that sends out private messages or marks one of our users where the scammer claims that the user has been chosen in some official giveaway and just has to visit a website to claim it. This usually leads to a fake Trust Wallet / MyEtherWallet page that immediately asks you to enter your private key or recovery phrase.
How to Protect Yourself
Always make sure you are visiting our official Facebook page @trustwalletapp We will never message you directly with any giveaways or promotions Visit @trustwalletapp and look if there is a ongoing promotion (We will only post these there) If in doubt Message us directly on Facebook How to Fight Back Always make sure to report the page to Facebook and also let us know about it too so we can share it with our internal anti-scam team.
Telegram
Scammers often pretend to be one of our moderators or Trust Wallet team members and message you directly claiming that they can help you with your problem. They usually disguise as our founder Viktor but have also impersonated other staff
Scammers usually claim to recover your funds or fast track your support ticket which always involves them asking for your private key or recovery phrase. Trust Wallet moderators or staff will never ask you for your recovery phrase or private key.
Recently we have also seen an influx of fake Telegram giveaway groups that just invite users out of our official Telegram channel and lure them to visit phishing websites through competitions or giveaways. Trust Wallet will never invite you in any special Telegram giveaway group.
How to Protect Yourself
Never respond to anyone messaging you directly on Telegram pretending to work for Trust Wallet. If you message us directly, make sure you only do so by clicking on our admin nicknames in the Telegram welcoming message. Change your Telegram privacy settings (Settings > Privacy & Security > Groups > and change your Group invite settings to My contacts) to avoid rouge group invites. Only join our official English Telegram group and Announcement channel How to Fight Back Whenever someone Messages you who hasn’t messaged you before, you get the REPORT SPAM option on the top of the Message. The same works for unwanted group invites. Please don’t post any photos or pictures of scammers in our Telegram group as this only confuses new users. Message an Admin directly if you want to report someone.
Phishing Websites
The other common thing you will encounter are phishing websites impersonating our official Website, Blog or Medium site. They usually appear and look like our official sites, but are actually malicious phishing websites. They usually add another subdomain level or use a somewhat similar domain name to fool users.
How to Protect Yourself
- Make sure you check the domain you are using , if in doubt type it manually into your browser (trustwallet.com)
- Never enter your private key or recovery phrase on any website that asks you to.
How to Fight Back
Bookmark our official domain trustwallet.com and https://community.trustwallet.com in your favorite browser so you always know that you are not on a phishing website. If you spot a phishing website make sure to Contact Us immediately.
Take These Rules
* RULE 1: **Never** enter your private key or recovery phrase on any website unless you know what you are doing.
* RULE 2: Trust Wallet moderators or staff will **never** message you directly.
* RULE 3: Trust Wallet moderators or staff will **never** have a reason to ask you for your recovery phrase or private key.
* RULE 4: Trust Wallet will **never** invite you in any special Telegram giveaway group.
* RULE 5: Always check the domain or username to make sure you are on the official Trust Wallet website or social media.
Posted: Dec 24, 2018