A report published by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) says that cryptocurrency-related scams are continually growing, becoming the second most risky of 2019 among North Americans.
According to research from trust-gauging organization published on March 2nd, scams averaged about $3,000 in losses for businesses and charities within Canada and the United States.
The usual tactic, the study claims, is that of false promises of a "significant" return on investment in cryptocurrencies.
With such figures on the table, it represents a notable uptick since their 2018 report’s numbers, which put average losses at $900.
Trading in crypto exchanges with security breaches listed in the study
Following the same line, the BBB also lists as crypto scams losses from trading on exchanges vulnerable to hacker attacks.
The organization considers cryptocurrencies risky assets due to transactions that cannot be reversed in the event of theft or hacking.
The same report cites only one testimony from an Arizona resident about someone allegedly scammed by investing in cryptos. The BBB also specifies that most frauds in the field begin with email contact.
According to the BBB, a third of crypto scams involved the purchase of tokens, listing the cryptocurrency exchange company C2CX as responsible for one-third of the quoted losses (31%).
Employment-related scams as the riskiest in the ranking
Crypto-related scams are not the sole focus of the report. The BBB cited 9,050 instances of fraudulent online shopping sites. For comparison, the firm tallied only 273 cases of cryptos scams within the same year.
Another scam method is the fake employment offer, which is listed first in the BBB’s ranking, with the risk index showing a figure of 153.6, followed by crypto scams that have a 93.8 and online purchases with a slight margin of difference of 93.6.