Scammers’ Income Decrease Reaches 30% in March

COVID-19 scams are life-changing for some of us. However, crypto fraudsters’ incomes fell approximately 30 percent in March. Chainalysis is the publisher of the data that were announced on April 10. The report indicated that the average value of transactions performed by the wallets of unidentified scams decreased 30 per cent in the past month.

Scam is aimed at victims who downloaded an app that was described as a special sort of software used for charity organizations. In most cases fraudsters misinformed people and sent them fake facts and news relating to the pandemic caused by the coronavirus. What experts see is that COVID-19 led to a dramatic fall in crypto scammers’ incomes.

It seems that scammers’ efforts to steal funds by offering people to donate money and help the world invent coronavirus cures have failed – their revenues are far lower in March than they were before.

Virus Threats from Email Fraudsters

Despite the fact that last month’s crypto crash greatly impacted the revenues of crypto scammers, COVID-19 is still one of the major reasons why the percentage of crypto fraud is high.

Nevertheless, there are many other ways in which fraudsters increase their incomes. Statistics show that, all in all, the percentage of transfers reaching scam wallets decreased. The drop was around 61% over 2 weeks. Before that, the numbers reached 10,000 USD between March 13 and March 31. The value rebounded and reached 7,000 USD after a period when it was around 5,000 USD.

Chainalysis keeps tracing the data, analyzing them and informing users. The information is used to find out new ways to protect people from fraud and scam as well as develop special software to improve privacy. The company admits that the recent concerns increased the virus-themed fraud. As one of the most common ways to scam people, fraudsters urged them to invest in Ponzi schemes.

Email scammers are active and keep manipulating people and their fears. They send messages and make their victims give access to wallets. They sometimes trick people into transferring cryptocurrency. Fraudsters are creative enough to impersonate various donation centers and disease prevention institutions. False pretenses allow them to make requests and encourage people to provide financial support or help research programs working on the coronavirus treatments.

New Forms of Blackmail

The representatives of the company note that blackmail scams appear in new shapes and forms. They also actively manipulate people’s fears relating to COVID-19. They develop new schemes to trick victims. It is not new or strange to receive an email where the fraudster claims to use compromising information and spread it among the person’s family and friends unless the victim sends some compensation.

The same scheme is used by scammers to spread the coronavirus to the victim’s friends and family if the individual does not agree to transfer a certain amount of cryptocurrency. Being aware of the issue is essential. It can help people protect their funds and not let fraudsters gain from people’s fears that the pandemic inevitably raises.