What are the most common scams? – Blockchain Support Center

As with any financial product, it is your responsibility to ensure you are not putting yourself at risk for scams or phishing attacks. Scams and phishing attacks are common types of fraud that seek to deceive you and take control of your assets.

When it comes to Blockchain.com’s Wallet and platform, the most important way to protect yourself is by never sharing your Recovery Phrase (also called a backup seed), your Private Key, your password, or your Wallet ID, and by setting up Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) as an extra layer of security on your account.

This information or access to your wallet should never be shared with anyone, not even with someone who says they are a Blockchain.com employee.

Scams and phishing attacks come in many forms in the crypto world. Here is a list of some of the most common scams you should watch out for:

Impersonation – Someone claiming to be a Blockchain.com employee may contact you via email, phone, or social media. We would never call you via phone or contact you via social media, and any email from us would come from an official Blockchain.com email address ending in blockchain.com or blockchain.info. We will never ask for your login information, through any form of communication. If you have any doubt, open a Support Center Ticket here to confirm the validity of a request.

Phishing Emails or Websites – Always be wary when receiving an email that was not prompted by you. If an email asks you to go to a website and reset your password, do not do it unless you have specifically requested this. These types of scams often result in a malicious third party recording your login details and stealing your funds. Blockchain.com employees will never ask you for your Secret Private Key or Recovery Phrase. In case anyone asks you to provide this information, you can report it in our Support Center here.

Fake Investment Proposals – This type of scam may ask you to “pay a fee” or “pay a tax” in order to release a bigger amount of funds to you. The scammers usually refer to official authorities such as the SEC or other institutions. Fraudsters can go as far as to forge official-looking documents or fake ID cards.

Please note that Blockchain.com will never initiate communication about paying fees or taxes in order to unlock some funds on a cryptocurrency wallet. If you have been approached by a party that claims to be part of Blockchain.com and asks for payment of taxes, assume they are scammers and report these attempts in our Support Center here.

Fake Refunds – We do not provide refund services of lost funds from third-party platforms. If someone asks for payment in order to recover/refund lost or previously scammed funds from third-party platforms or old forgotten wallets, then this request is definitely a fraud. We would never ask you to pay us for such a service.

Romance Scam – This is a deceptive practice involving impersonation of an eventual partner or a promise of a fake relationship that can be used as a persuasion technique to manipulate victims in order to extract funds or sensitive data, such as login credentials, recovery phrases, etc. Please be very cautious when you come across a new person on social media.

Money Transfers / Deposits / Withdrawals – Never perform money transfers on behalf of another individual, either for them or by giving them your login details. Not only is this a potential violation of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing regulations, but you are also putting your own funds at risk if you give someone access to your account.

Platform Clones – Be cautious of modified URLs such as b1ockchain.com, bl0ckchain.com, blockchain.io, etc. Make sure you are using our official website with the correct URL to access your account. The login page of the Wallet platform is https://login.blockchain.com/#/login and of our Exchange platform is https://exchange.blockchain.com/trade/login

Recovery room scams - Recovery room scams involve fraudsters who target individuals who have fallen victim to investment scams, offering to help them recover their lost money.

These scammers, often posing as employees of legitimate organizations, like Blockchain.com, gain the victims' trust and often promise “specialized” services to help retrieve their lost funds.

They then request upfront fees, disguised as legal, tax or administrative fees, before disappearing with the money, leaving the victims defrauded once again.

All Blockchain.com users should remain vigilant of these types of scams - make sure to double check any message you receive from someone appearing to be Blockchain.com by contacting our Support Team.

Other types of scams and phishing attacks could include: blackmail, fake exchanges, fake airdrops, malware such as one that can affect Clipboard, an XLM transaction with malicious link as MEMO, Sim Swap, and “pump and dump” schemes, among others.

Please also note the following:

Any email purporting to be from us but ending with something other than blockchain.com or blockchain.info is most likely malicious.
If you received a phone call from someone claiming to be a Blockchain employee, it is likely a scam. We would never initiate a call via phone.
If an email was sent to your spam/junk folder, then please verify the real sender of the email by looking at the email's headers.
Do not open links or files from emails you receive, or in general, from unknown sources.

In order to verify the actual email address that you are in contact with, you can check the email’s headers. This is necessary, as fraudsters can mask their actual email addresses to look like one of ours. To check headers, please refer to the guides below:

Please download our Blockchain.com mobile apps from the official store pages only. The links are below. Never download our mobile apps from other sources.