Hi Steemers,
Today i want to talk about imposture on the steemit platform .I don’t want to spoil the party but i think it's an important topic that needs to be discussed.
Steemit is very lucrative compared to other platform and this is a golden opportunity for scammers.
It is evident that imposters are looking at this site very closely ,whenever money is involved there are scam opportunists. I have had a first hand experience with imposters/fraudsters that i want to share with you.
My experience with imposters
I used to be a bitcoin seller on localbitcoins.
I would receive offers from buyers willing to buy coins, my BTC would then automatically go in escrow and I would wait for buyers to transfer the money into my bank account. When the money is in i would release the bitcoins.
Usually the trade would go smoothly but in some instances it would go wrong.
A bank transfer is reversible unlike a bitcoin transactions, which means that if a buyer make a fraud claim on the transfer after I'd released the coins, the payment would get reversed and i would be screwed.
This is the main reason why localbitcoins seller have very strict verification policy and asks a lot of documents, ID, selfie + note, bank card,etc..
Although i always check documents thoroughly, I have had a lot of transfer reversed and fraud claim on my bank account.
The pics i was given from these fraudsters looked totally genuine yet some of the persons I was trading with were not the same persons on the selfie,id documents .Apparently some fraudsters uses certain software like team viewer to lure their victims, they would offer them some reward to get the person to pose for pictures.
In this digital age faking a profil on steemit would be trivial for scammers. There are a lot of tools available that they can use to fool people.
Here is a pics that seemed to be totally genuine but in reality was not. The pic is not photoshopped ( i don't think so anyway) it's just that the impostors lured its victims into posing and shortly after emptied its bank account. ( to transfer me the money)
Making profit from stolen content could be as simple as ABC
There was a post recently from a new user that caught my attention because there was absolutely no evidence that the poster was the content creator.
Here is the post https://steemit.com/makeup/@charmedwards/pink-and-gold-glam-makeup-tutorial
It may very well be the real creator but my point is that it is very easy to steal content from others and cash in on it.
I really can’t stand scam opportunist which is why i contacted this person to make sure her work is not getting stolen and i suggest when you see content with no proof that you do the same.
Solutions
Fortunately there is a very simple thing that users can do to prevent this type of imposture which to my surprise i haven’t read yet which is to ask content creators to post from their twitter, facebook,youtube account a message like “steemit is cool” and link to that so that anyone can quickly verify if this person is genuine or not. Similar to how people verify their onename.com blockchain ID.
This would have the added bonus effect of advertising steem on other platforms :)
Hacked account could bypass this but at least it makes it harder for people to game the site.
Selfie requirement could also mitigate the imposture issue but as i said previously it is easy to get someone to hold a paper with steemit on it and take a pic. That’s why i prefer to ask for an external reference. I also think it is more respectful to ask for a link than a pic.
Final thoughts
There are a number of ways imposters could exploit this platform, that’s why we as a community need to be really vigilant that scam artist do not invade this place.
With today’s technology it is trivial for anyone to steal content, edit and re-publish it.
It is the community that will decide the fate of this revolutionary platform, if scammers and imposters run the show the future of steemit may be uncertain and might not be as bright as we think it will be so let’s show these crooks who run the show!
Let me know in the comment if you care about this issue or not and your reasonning. Thanks for reading