Is that friendly crypto DM a scam?
If a stranger who contacted you first is steering you toward a trading platform, yes — this is the pattern of pig butchering, the most expensive scam category the FBI tracks.
"Pig butchering" is the industry name for long-con investment fraud: the scammer 'fattens' the victim with weeks of friendly or romantic conversation before the 'slaughter' — draining them through a fake crypto platform. It usually starts with a wrong-number text ("Hi, is this Amanda? Sorry!"), a dating-app match, or a social-media DM. Reported losses run into the billions of dollars a year, with individual victims often losing life savings.
After days or weeks of rapport, your new friend casually mentions their success trading crypto and offers to teach you. You're directed to a professional-looking exchange or a 'liquidity mining' app — one you've never heard of, or a lookalike of a real one. Small deposits show instant profits, and small withdrawals even work at first. When you invest big, the withdrawals stop: suddenly there are taxes, fees, and frozen accounts, each requiring another payment. The trading dashboard was fiction the whole time.
How does the scam work?
- 01
Contact looks accidental or organic
A wrong number, a match, a group-chat add. The scammer — often a trafficked worker in an overseas fraud compound — follows a script designed to build a real-feeling friendship or romance over weeks.
- 02
Investing enters the chat naturally
They never ask you for money. Instead they show off their own 'returns' and generously offer to walk you through a small trade on their platform, sometimes 'lending' you starter funds.
- 03
The platform is a stage set
The site or app shows live-looking charts and your growing balance, and honors small withdrawals to build trust. None of it is on any real market — deposits go straight to the operators' wallets.
- 04
Withdrawal fees bleed you until you stop
When you try to cash out a large balance, you owe 'capital-gains tax' or an 'unfreeze fee' — payable in more crypto. Every payment produces a new obstacle. Then the platform, and your friend, vanish.
What are the red flags to check?
They contacted you first, and stayed persistent
A stranger who turns a wrong-number text into a daily conversation is not lonely — they're on a quota. Genuine misdials end with 'sorry, wrong number.'
The relationship and the investment arrive together
Whatever the pretext, the path always bends toward money: their trading success, their 'uncle who works at an exchange,' an opportunity closing soon.
The platform is unknown or a lookalike
The exchange isn't listed on major app stores or crypto data sites, or its URL is one letter off a real exchange. Fake platforms are often only days or weeks old — domain age is checkable.
Guaranteed or absurdly consistent returns
Screenshots showing 10–20% gains per week, every week, describe no real market. Consistency that good only exists in a database the scammer controls.
You must pay fees to withdraw your own money
Real exchanges deduct fees from your balance. Any platform demanding fresh deposits — 'taxes,' 'verification,' 'unfreezing' — before releasing funds is confirming it will never release them.
Unsure even after checking these? That’s exactly what the $2 Instant URL Check is for — paste the link and get a researched verdict with evidence, instead of guessing.
What should you do right now?
- Stop sending money now — including any 'final fee' to withdraw. Each payment funds the next demand, not your withdrawal.
- Don't announce to the scammer that you're onto them; quietly save the chat history, wallet addresses, and transaction records first.
- Report to ic3.gov and your real exchange or bank. If you're in the US, your state securities regulator also takes these reports.
- Be wary of 'crypto recovery services' that contact you afterward — demanding an upfront fee to recover funds is a follow-up scam. We don't sell fund recovery, and anyone who guarantees it is scamming you twice.
What the check does: a one-time, researched risk report on the URL you paste. What it doesn’t do: continuous monitoring, takedowns, fund recovery, or legal advice — and we’ll never pretend otherwise.