How to Avoid Getting REKT By Scams on OpenSea!

OpenSea is one of the biggest NFT trading marketplaces on the internet. It is the world’s first digital marketplace for cryptocurrency collectibles and NFTs. Their vision is to allow open protocols like Ethereum to build a new and vibrant economy. However, although OpenSea is excellent for buying and finding new NFTs, the site can sometimes be riddled with scams. This is especially unhelpful if you are just starting with NFTs and crypto. This has been happening a lot this year. However, once you are aware of these scams, there are ways to recognize them before you become the next victim. Let’s look at some ways to avoid getting rekt by scammers.

How Does OpenSea Work?

OpenSea is the marketplace that allows you to buy and sell NFTs. It’s a decentralized marketplace using smart contracts. OpenSea users can protect their NFTs, maintaining complete control and ownership.

OpenSea has an open-source blockchain, maintaining a digital record book of all transactions and history. This allows NFTs owners to be confident in their NFT ownership when using the marketplace. Additionally, OpenSea is integrating Polygon blockchains. This will mean that buying and selling NFTs on the platform will be quicker and cheaper for all parties involved.

Scams on OpenSea

There have been several scams on OpenSea in the last few months. Accounts are posing as NFT collection accounts and scammers changing currencies. Recently, scammers have offered NFTs at a low offer and attempting to take you to an off-site link. Purchasing or selling to these accounts would mean you would lose all your money and end up with no valuable NFT.

Bidding Scams

A common scam on OpenSea is the bidding scam. This will occur when you try to sell your NFT on the platform. Once you have put your NFT up for sale, you may quickly get high bids. These are usually scammers, but you will probably be inclined to sell it to them because you are receiving an increased offer.

Now, if you accept one of these high offers, the scammers can change the cryptocurrency used for the bidding. This can be done without you having any idea. For example, if a bidder bids 20 ETH for your NFT, you will expect to receive the going rate (around $8,000-$10,000).

Some scammers have been known to quickly change the type of crypto to something less valuable, such as 50 Dogecoin. This will essentially lose you all your money, leaving you with less than $10. If you are concerned about this scam, always ensure which currency you are being paid in before and after the offer. Never accept anything less than what you agreed on.

Low Offer Scams

Lately, there have been NFT collectibles with low best offers in OpenSea users’ hidden folders. When a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. The offers you will see on the assets are often low, with some being as low as 0.95 ETH ($1,000) on the Polygon network. Some users may be susceptible to this if they have been particularly crippled by the crypto market. So, for some people, this may seem like a tempting offer.

At first, you may be inclined to assume that it was a mistake and you’re getting a good deal. However, this is not the case, and you should know that it is almost definitely a scam. Scammers can post these offers on many different assets simultaneously, meaning that only one person falling for it will benefit the scammer. We’ll speak more about this popular scam and tell you how to avoid getting affected by it.

How to Avoid Getting REKT By Scams on OpenSea

Avoid any NFT collectibles with a low offer.

As we said above, these offers are not genuine offers. This scam on OpenSea is probably the most common, and you should always be aware. Essentially, the scammers are looking for people to bite on these offers. They expect people to assume these low offers are a mistake and see them as a great deal.

For example, a genuine-looking collectible may appear in your account with a low offer. YouTube crypto expert, The Defiant attempted to see if this was a scam and tried to accept the offer. Instead of the usual process, he was faced with a message. This message stated that OpenSea ‘could not get permission to approve these tokens for trading, as the collectible’s ‘contract might not be implemented correctly, with a message to contact the developer. Now, most people would potentially recognize this as a bad idea. But, those who assume this is a good deal may continue trying to get the NFT in exchange for the total earnings. There will always be a creator fee with any genuine NFT collectible such as Illuvium. NFTs with low offers without a creator fee will also be likely to be a huge scam.

Additionally, collectibles with descriptions offering an unlocking fee in exchange for the NFT are also a scam. OpenSea is an NFT marketplace, meaning you should be able to handle everything within the site. If any description attempts to get you to click on a link to another site, you should definitely avoid it. This is likely to be bad news and is too good to be true. All genuine NFT creators should be implementing a creator fee for the work they created. There have been exceptions with NFTs sold for extremely high amounts.

Final Words 

OpenSea is usually a trusted and safe NFT marketplace for buyers, sellers, and searchers. However, there have been times when they have also been susceptible to scams. Scammers will access the site, offer high bids, great deals, and attempt to take you to another website. These are almost always scams, and you should avoid these. In this article, and with the help of The Defiant on YouTube, we have provided you with some ways to prevent getting rekt by these scams. Nobody wants to be scammed, but it is especially crucial when dealing with cryptocurrency and high-value assets.