It was some time in the early 2020s just near the end of serious cases of the COVID19 pandemic. Things were just starting to get relaxed then and the lockdown was loosening up. I was a 23 year old then and it was soon after my university graduation. I had just realised that the job market that I was promised in university did not exist and I was strongly looking for a way to survive to earn online. I only had $25 dollars to my name and very big dreams to earn money on the internet like everyone did. Then, a cousin of mine sent me a message that changed my life forever.
This was my gateway to the scam that would become the best financial education I never paid for
This might be boring but the good stuff is near the end, enjoy!
The message that was too good to reject
So, I was down in the dusty streets of my village thinking about how I would turn my $25 dollars into $100. Well, my cousin messaged me as I was still pondering on what to do. He had seen a nice deal on telegram and you would earn some USDT crypto by staking. According to my cousin, this company allowed you to stake any amount with 125% return. This meant that my $25 dollars would bring $30 dollar profit and if I reinvested by the end of the month I would have some nice bags. No work, no stress, just free money!
Please take into account the fact that, where I come from, the USD has a strong purchasing power so $200 dollars is a very significant amount. This kind of money meant that I could buy lots of groceries and a new smartphone. I didn't know then that by the end of the first 5 days, I wouldn't even be able to afford candy.
Onboarding into the pyramid crypto scam and running the stake
Onboarding onto this crypto scam was pretty easy. My cousin sent me their invite link and I created an account on the scam site. I was supposed to stake USD so, I created a Kucoin account and used crypto agents to deposit USDT. Now, reality started sinking in but slowly, because due to the agent charges I was only given 21.50 USDT. With one transaction, my potential profits had already been lowered. I then sent all the money to the wallet of the given website, and I received only 20 USDT due to transaction fees. Every transaction was eating into my small amount of money.
I set up my account and stacked all my money on the website and for the next 5 days I would come collect my earnings and restake the profits. All was going well and I was encouraged because my cousin had made his withdrawal. The idea of getting scammed never even crossed my mind.
On the last day of the week, like always I smiled my way onto the website which was working perfectly and claimed my earnings. After claiming, I hit the withdraw button and a processing message popped out; and then that was when all hell broke loose.
Waiting for the withdrawal to be processed forever
After hitting the withdrawal button to get my 45 USDT, I waited for the processing to complete and receive my funds. In between time periods I would pop open my Kucoin account to see if anything was deposited but I met zero every time.
After several hours, I started getting anxious because it seemed like the transaction was taking too long. I went to sleep full of anxiety and my heart beating wildly like the best African dance drum. Early in the morning of the next day, I checked the Kucoin account again and there was nothing. I visited the website which was still working properly and saw my withdrawal as being processed. That is when I called my cousin and asked how long it would take to withdraw. They said it was an almost instant process and five minutes was too much. This answer was not very encouraging.
That is when it sank in that I had been scammed. Early stakers had taken out their money and the latecomers like me became the exit package for the scam team. I tried researching the team and website and realised that there was no such company or team. When I visited their telegram channel it was no longer available, their group and an admin number now carried scam tags. My small amount of money had been turned into ground dust.
I was poor and I became destitute, I wanted to quickly multiply my peanuts and I was multiplied instead. That was life, what could I do, I picked my puny losses and moved on.
It was 1 year later that I came back to crypto using the same Kucoin account and hunting for knowledge. And from then onwards, I never looked back!
Lessons learnt from the misfortune of being scammed
Today, I am a full time crypto addict and writer because, was rug-pulled by an unknown scammer. Losing that tiny amount of money made me smarter and way more paranoid when it comes to crypto issues. Here are some of the lessons I learnt:
- If it sounds too good to be true, then it's probably a scam
The script of this scam was simple and I should have seen it coming. Stake USDT on this site and get 125% return in 5 days, this could have been a red flag and I should have noticed it but I was blind. The other red flag was the extra earnings from referrals and their referrals, a typical pyramid scheme scam characteristic.
I threw all of my pocket money with a hope of doubling it in 5 days and came out with nothing.
The lesson is that in crypto, if someone offers you guaranteed returns, run very fast because they are about to disappear with your money. There are so many promising projects but they have no solid structure to support the promised income. They are most likely sophisticated ponzi schemes.
- I was scammed of my USDT but what was USDT?
After the scam I was pissed for a long time, but I still had one question, I have heard about Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple but what the hell was USDT? After sifting through the internet for cryptocurrency information, that's when I knew that it was basically a stable coin of simply a digital dollar. This was my first time in contact with real crypto and I started learning more about the blockchain, blockchain networks and how people lost money in crypto.
It turned out that all the information about potential scams was readily available, I just never bothered to find it before losing something. My love for cryptocurrencies was ignited and I dove into whitepapers, joined telegram groups and learnt about real stacking and yield farming. I made sure to learn everything about how I was scammed.
- The crypto world rewards paranoia and FOMO is an enemy
After getting scammed, I might have become the most suspicious person in the crypto space. I take every post, opportunity, encouragement and new projects as a potential scam unless they prove otherwise. If I suspect even a little, that a project is a scam, I give it a hard pass.
I have come across people pushing several crypto scams, like Elon Masks Bitcoin Giveaways. I now know that if you want me to send money somewhere before I claim rewards, then keep your rewards. I see a lot of people falling for scams like sending Hive coins to this address and getting 30% arbitrage, but one day the money will not return.
The real moral is that FOMO is the real scam. If you feel like I am missing out, buy a beer and tell your brain, heart as well as intestines to relax. In crypto only those who question everything and suspect everyone survive.
- Scams teach you the real value of decentralisation
If my scammer had used a smart contract on Etherium, I would at least be able to audit it, even though I knew nothing about it at that time. But scammers are clever, they use centralized websites that can disappear with the click of a button.
The thing is that DeFi is an antidote to scams, because smart contracts cannot just vanish into thin air, transactions on the blockchain are available to the public and there are no middlemen here!
Real DeFi platforms like Uniswap, Aave and Compound, are safer, as you can see the code, audit risks and earn reasonable APRs not get rich quick scam types.
The moral is that if I am going to get scammed, at least I can do it in a transparent on-chain kind of way, not in the doldrums of a fake telegram channel.
Conclusion
I have made many times my loss through trading and legitimate staking as well as airdrops. I am now building my own crypto education group and I still lose money but in bad trading decisions not from pyramid schemes. If given a chance, I would not do it again, but I do not regret this episode at all because it shaped who I am today. I never trust any guaranteed returns, I always do my own research, and DeFi protects me from pyramid schemes. And if it sounds too good to be true, it's probably some dude in a basement somewhere around the world trying to take your hard earned money!
I hope you enjoyed the read, please comment and if you trade please create accounts using my affiliate links, maybe I will earn a bit of commission.
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