I got scammed or suspect scam on Ethereum. What to do?

Question

This is a general question and answer on ethereum.stackexchange.com to all "I got scammed, please help" posts.

This applies to you if you think:

• You have been scammed
• You think something might be a scam

Popular scams include

• Fake investment sites promising xx% returns
  • including MEV bot scams
• Romance scams a.k.a. pig butchering scams
• Token tax and honey pot tokens: tokens you can only buy, not sell
• Scam tokens dropped to your wallet leading to phishing sites
• Reclaim crypto scams that claim to get your scammed money back, after you have been scammed once
• Password recovery and private key recovery scams that claim to restore the access to your account or wallet

These are so-called authorised transfer scams. As opposite to the hacks, the users voluntarily transfer away their money with their our authorisation.

Outside scams, there exist other cybercrime that may cause you to lose your assets

• Phishing links, including:
  • Fake airdrops
  • Fake NFT mints
  • Usually associated with a hacked, well-known social media account or Discord
• Malware esp. on Microsoft Windows desktop computers directly extracts the private key from the wallet
  • Your computer gets infected with a malware when you install pirated software or random EXE files from Internet

This is a generic question to address the flood of pleads of asking help for scams. Moderators are free to edit both the question and answer to add more information it.

Answer 1

What to do in the case of you got scammed

On public Internet forums, like this and Reddit, no one is able to help you. Watch out for parties who offer help to get your money back for more money, as they are scammers themselves.

• Generally, it is very difficult to get any money back from scams, like it is from any international crime. It's better to accept the fact that the money is gone at this point.
• File a report with a local police, because any counterparties like cryptocurrency exchanges are required by the law to not to disclose anyone's identity. Only a police has the authority to get this information.
• Contact a local lawyer specialised in cybercrime.
• For a remarkable sums of more than tens of thousands of dollars, professional asset recovery companies many help you. Getting any assets back always involves litigation, is often international, slow and very expensive.
• Any smart contract cannot be "hacked" or "modified" to get your money back. Asking about this and flooding the forums with questions like "how do I undo the MEV bot I saw in Youtube video" is unproductive, as no one can help you here.
• Do not use any wallets that have been compromised. Create a new wallet from the scratch - wallets are free anycase. If your computer was infected with malware it needs to be formatted.

There have successful asset recoveries through litigation from romance scams, so it is not unheard of.

How to prevent getting scammed

• If you suspect it is a scam, it likely is
• If the returns are too good to be true, it's a scam - there is no magical way to make money or profits from the thin air
• Don't try to trade, snipe or buy random tokens on sites like DEXScreener or Poocoin
• Don't use trading bots unless you understand the underlying trading mechanics
• Never give any payment for anyone you met in an online chat, or someone who you have not met in a real life
• Do not approve transactions you do not understand what they are
• Use a mobile app based wallet instead of a desktop wallet, as Android and iOS have much better cyber security than Microsoft Window

For Ethereum developers

• Githubs repositories of various blacklist databases used by wallets

Further information

• For more information see /r/cryptoscams on Reddit.
• See also Security and scam prevention on Ethereum.org.