#TL;DR – If you’re new and use telegram, go to settings, privacy and security, and turn off your phone number visibility, and calls. People who dm you are trying to steal your money on pretty much every platform out there, including reddit sometimes.
I just now joined a Telegram group for an unnamed centralized exchange. As soon as I did I got four different phone calls from different people one after another from people who were posing as the admin of the telegram group and another message from a user whose name was “blablabla (admin)”.
For clarity’s sake: **I am not surprised I was getting DM’d by scammers. I was amazed that I was getting DM’d by scammers in such large quantities.**
Pretty much every telegram group out there will warn you not to answer phone calls from people on telegram, if not completely ignore any direct messages you get from anyone on telegram. **However, the scammers pounce so quickly that once they see you join the group, they hope that they can grab your attention before you have a chance to read warnings / safety etiquette in telegram.**
Why did I get Telegram calls instead of DMs? Theory: coordinated social engineering attacks – it could potentially be easier for scammers to steal crypto from a wallet on an exchange than in cold storage or a hot wallet. It was four different guys and each of them had similar accents from that group.
Didn’t know this at all.
Just turned off my phone number visibility.
Surprised Telegram doesn’t automatically hide it for you.
Thank you for this post OP
Solid security info. Thanks for sharing.
Wait what, I tought hot girls wanted to hang out with me… I am sad now
Yeah don’t leak your phone numbers and try to have a unique phone number dedicated to crypto if you can.
Protect yourselves !
And I was wondering where all those scams calls are coming from.
Thanks OP!
Top trick, have 2 sim cards and put 1 number as crypto account access and another for personal calls
Learning the risks of Telegram and Discord has been part of my learning curve. I have never had any reason to use either one until I got into Crypto.
+1 OP
-1 for telegram having garbage default opsec
>including reddit sometimes.
I think reddit sometime’s an understatement
Thanks for the reminder. Just double checked I have disabled it.
Always good to remind newbies about this
Telegram is indeed awash with scammers. So is Discord.