According to a recent report by the Washington Post, scammers are picking up domain names with close connections to existing domains and making a quick buck. The domain names are simply mistyped and this has allowed them to lure in visitors hoping to visit the legitimate crypto sites.
What has happened?
We’ve all been there – quickly searching for a website only to misspell the URL. Well, for those looking for crypto sites like Coinbase.com, similar sites are likely to appear in its place when you do so.
According to the report, scammers have been paying up to six figures for the similar domains such as conibase.com. This domain cost $16,000 (£11.7K) but others have gone for higher. For example, one Brazilian spent over $200,000 (£146.8K) in Bitcoin buying wwwblockchain.com, hlockchain.com and blpckchain.com!
Targeting high net worth individuals
With the crypto market growing every single day, this kind of phishing scam is becoming more popular. It is very likely that these sites have been set up and purchased in an attempt to target high net worth individuals.
There are people out there with millions in their crypto accounts and if they were to simply mistype the URL, they lose a lot of money.
For any crypto affiliate managers, it is extremely important to understand these kinds of scams. They are very sophisticated and could easily get in the way of a well-executed affiliate program.
Keep an eye out for these fake domains and continue to grow your program successfully.
