The Bitcoin world is much like the early days of the Wild West. It’s best to approach cautiously until you figure out who the good guys and bad guys are and which saloon serves the coldest beer. If you fall victim to a scam, you’ll have little to no protection.

This section covers three common scams that are prevalent in the cryptocurrency world. They all revolve around stealing your coins and look a lot like traditional cons you might already be familiar with. This list isn’t exhaustive, and crooks are nothing if not creative, so be very cautious when using Bitcoins. You never know what’s around the next corner.

Websites that look like exchanges or web wallets but are fakes have plagued some of the top Bitcoin websites. This type of scam is common in the Bitcoin world and on the web in general. Scammers hope to make money by stealing login information from users or misleading them into sending Bitcoins.

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“Send me your Bitcoins, and then I’ll ship you the goods.” Smells fishy, right? Scams like this are similar to money wire fraud. In this type of fraud, an individual pretends to sell you something but never delivers.