Scammers and fraudsters are rife in the crypto world, and they are now taking to the Google Play Store in a bid to take hodlers to the cleaners. This time round, scammers are trying to impersonate the Trezor wallet in a bid to get users to give up their seed phrases and private keys. It’s the first time we have seen a fake Trezor app pop up on the Google Play Store, and we’re very confident that it won’t be the last either.
Getting Users to Give Up the Goods
Trezor’s crypto wallet is incredibly popular, so it comes as no surprise that scammers are impersonating it. This latest scam looked authentic, being the second result on the Google Play Store when “Trezor” was used as a search term. The app then asked people to input their seed phrase to recover a wallet – fairly standard for a wallet – as well as names, email address and mobile number, but instead of recovering the wallet, it sent the data back to the scammers. From there, the scammers had all the information they needed to steal a good amount of crypto. The app was uploaded by a user called “Trezor Inc”, so even by doing due diligence, it’s easy to see how people got scammed.
Only Download Apps from Manufacturers
The Google Play Store is essentially a giant library where developers can upload apps without any real verification checks. This means that until the app is reported, scam apps can roam free. In order to prevent this from happening, it’s always best to follow the download link directly from the project’s website. This will help keep you and your crypto safe as the link will take you directly to the genuine app – no guess work required.
Scammers Making Bank
Scammers in Australia managed to make a whopping $4.3 million in 2018 alone. This was a huge 190% increase from the same period in 2017. The alarming statistic highlights just hoe prevalent scammers are becoming in the crypto world and how vital it is to be safe. However, not all scams are really scams. A group of Nigerians have begun calling Paxful a scam after a few broke the terms and conditions and had their accounts closed. In this case, Paxful did nothing wrong and was acting correctly.
If you’re downloading a crypto related app from the Google Play Store, triple check it’s the genuine app by visiting the project’s website and following a link from there. While this might take you a bit longer to do, at least you know your crypto will be safe from scammers.
