I do not know how many people are actually falling for these scams, but I feel it is my job to point them out. The thought of people losing their hard earned money is sad enough, but what really worries me is the fact that the more people that fall for this kind of nonsense... the more we will see it.
The sad part of it is, that I am not sure how ready people are to do their own research. Before you drop money at ANY site, you must do at least a few hours of research. It is just the way it has to be if people want to be responsible for their own finances. The newest scam that I see everywhere is the scam ICO for telegram. Would-be investors in Telegram's multibillion-dollar ICO are the newest target for these no good con-artists and scammers.
Most of the fake sites that I have seen are telling investors that the token sales end soon. But for those of us who keep an eye on these things, we see the immediate issue when we see these fake sites. The issue is that the Telegram token sale is not a public offering and at least as of yet, any sales of the token (I believe named TON) have been restricted to certain investors, and are not available to the general public. The Telegram ICO is operating under an agreement for future tokens framework, which means that the tokens that are purchased will not be distributed until certain waiting periods have passed.
Here are the fake sites I have found so far stealing your money.
http://gram-token.org/
All of them of course using the actual YouTube video found below to add legitimacy.
So, please be careful out there. Another one that I personally think is fake is Tokia. It has been running it's ICO for almost 3 months! Yeah, you heard me correct. If you look at a response made by the CEO of Tokia on the bitcointalk forum, you can then click her name to look at her past posts. The account has clearly been purchased, as the previous posts before the response in that thread have nothing to do with this coin and are by all stretches of the imagination, not the posts you would expect to see from a Founding partner and current CEO at Tokia Ltd. Her linkedin profile found here https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-lunhu-15841618/ is a total mess. To add more illegitimacy to the entire operation, the original end to the ICO was scheduled for mid February but all sites have had the date moved to mid March.
If you then read the reply she wrote in regards to the accusation in that post, it is written in almost perfect English. Now watch the CEO Anna speak here, or should I see read here. This girl has no clue at all...
I just noticed this video has been pulled, so I no longer am in any doubt. https://www.tokia.io is 100% a scam!
Beware. I mean c'mon... do you really think this is the CEO of Tokia as the website states? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1353653;sa=showPosts
So many scammers and why would they let up when people fall for it every single day? Just this week, Facebook announced that it was banning cryptocurrency advertising from the platform entirely saying, "that many ads for cryptocurrency investment opportunities, like initial coin offerings, were not currently operating in good faith.” And love them or hate them, Facebook has a point. You need look no further than Mumbai-based OneCoin, a highly sought after blockchain startup that was discovered to be a scam but not before its founders funneled at least $350 million through Germany. Or you can take a look at Confido, which took $370,000 from investors and disappeared. Or Prodeum, a cryptocurrency startup that appeared online Thursday. By Monday, it was gone. They didn't take much and if you go look at their website today... you will find just one word: PENIS
So, I am new to steemit and don't know if it is even worth it to write articles like this, so here I am giving it a shot. If it is read by 20 people, then it isn't worth it. People will learn the hard way. If I saved you any coin and you'd like to donate a bit or two, that'd be awesome, my addresses are below. Or you can up-vote this post or whatever happens to make it trend. As I said, I am new here.
BTC: 14QwKQnesM8MaDiGQvTrnk5sU4tyFaBaL9 or
ETH: 0x3d07501c76ca57522A0377034fE44749D1AcCCbc
Hope you all stay safe. Peace