This is a short follow up to my other blog entry about bitcoin cloud hashing. While there I reviewed and assessed different services from an investment perspective, they seems to be legit and adhering to what they sell, although not 100% upfront on the risks, but that's not probably their job to do so.
I just wanted to write up to warn and make you doubt about bitcoin cloud hasing sites in general, as this is a niche very prone to scams and people, beats me, tend to trust a good amount of money to strangers.
As an example, on my other blog entry I was referenced to bitcoincloudhasing.com, which I looked at seemed just too good to be true, and apparently, it actually was: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=414314.0
They go to a lot of work to look legit, the have a phone number which they answer, they even have customer support chat online and are very responsive by mail, so they behave as a legit company.
First and most important, you should understand where you are putting your money into: You should understand the risks in bitcoin mining and what kind of return you would get from that investment and project the return properly overtime, and you should do that on every site you find. More information on this on my bitcoin cloud hashing review
Here is a bullet points of things that you should be aware of and eventually use for your better judgment of where you are putting the money.
- Search online and in forums: This is probably the first thing you should do. There are very good bitcoin forums, such as bitcointalk.com and you should do a proper search on those for scam references or customer opinions. Scam reports appear quickly, but not immediately, so give them time, like a few months or until someone says something about it. Also be aware that scammers also write reviews of their own services in these forums, so check for how new they are in the forum and what other posts they had. If they only speak about one company and those are the only posts they have and they are new, it's likely that they are part of the scam.
- Payment method only in BTC: While quite a bit legit companies accepts only BTC, bear in mind that it's an overall anonymous form of payment, this means that you don't need a business, a bank account, a verified identity, or anything to accept BTCs, so this makes it very easy for scammers to set it up. Accepting a credit card or paypal, although not entirely scam proof, at least adds a bit of real (or fraudulent) identity tied to it, but at least is something.
- Lack of social network references: If there's no reference to a Facebook or Twitter account in which you can at least look for customer feedback, again, be aware, those places are great for looking into real people's opinion. You will definitely find complains, but at least about specific things and not about ripping your money off.
- Phone number and address: While a phone number is very easy to have without being anywhere in particular, a physical address is slightly more difficult. Google that address and see if other businesses are using it, see if it has been used elsewhere, etc. If you can, go visit it, or request someone to visit it.
- To good to be true prices: Although I believe most cloud hashing company are overpriced, they somehow set a market value for this kind of services, so if a new kid on the block appears as a bargain, you might as well doubt at it for a little while.
- Company and site's age: While most companies are and will be fairly new on this, give them some time before putting your money into it unless you know for a fact they are trustworthy. Even if they say the stock is limited and such, there's always going to be an entry point for doing this, you don't need to hurry.
I hope this prevents anybody for getting ripped off, as they have been way too many scams on this.