Since the times when bitcoin faucets first appeared online, Internet users divided into haters and fans. From the viewpoint of a fan, a.k.a. freeloader, getting things for free is amazing. And it's possible to do with little to no effort. However, the haters' team rings all the bells on the popular forums saying that bitcoin faucets are simply scams. Who should you believe? To understand this, let's see the difference between a legit faucet and a scam.
If you have a short attention span, bitcoin faucets will surely become one of the things that will tick you off. You won't last long with them and quit using them the next day. Why? Imagine this. You need to complete a captcha to claim your free coins. But, the faucet site has set the timeframe limit for the claims so that you can make only one claim in 15 minutes. So, to make a maximum of 4 claims an hour, you need to come back to the screen once in 15 minutes, leaving anything that you could do behind.
An important meeting at work? Wait up, guys, I need to claim at a faucet.
Is your child crying? Eh, that can wait - or else no satoshis!
Do you have dinner with your spouse? Wait, honey, I'll be right back.
It just doesn't work like that in normal people's lives.
However, some people do start their crypto journey in faucets. , for instance, announced that they had given away 1,060 Bitcoins for the last year. That means that more than $4 million landed in the crypto wallets of people around the world! So, the conclusion here would be that those legit faucets exist. To make no mistake, go after the most popular ones with a big following online, a live customer support center with real humans in there, and good reviews on trusted resources.
Alternatively, you can also use faucets that give away other cryptos. What's the trick? It's simple. Since something like Litecoin costs way cheaper than Bitcoin, eventually, you have to make fewer claims to earn a good amount of crypto coins. As soon as you reach a withdrawal amount, you can and happily spend it in real life.
Now let's get to the real scams. Generally speaking, scams exist everywhere, meaning any business. Whether you want to purchase something online or donate money for a charity reason, there is a probability that you're dealing with fraudsters who will take your money and won't fulfill their part of the deal.
And as long as Bitcoin is in high demand, you'll most probably find some people online who want to use this fact as an incentive to lure you into high promises with no return.
Here's a list of the bitcoin faucets scams that have been reported online by users who got into their trap:
They Ask You To Deposit Your Coins/Tokens
Some scam faucets asked their users to deposit a small number of their crypto coins to claim more free coins at their websites. After spending some time with the faucet, the users tried to withdraw the earned amount on top of the crypto which they deposited, and that never happened. The button didn't work, or the site constantly redirected them to support where they have gotten automated useless replies.
They Ban You For No Apparent Reason
Yes, that happened too, to thousands of people who wanted some free coins online. They had been using the website or app for a while, and until the moment they tried to withdraw, everything went well. But when they claimed their BTC, they suddenly got banned. There was no way to contact support or create a new account. Some faucet websites like these even collected a sufficient amount of such users and then went to a site reconstruction. Of course, they never came back.
Too Many Ads On The Page
Other types of ad-based faucets do work, but some flaws make them look too much like scams. So you should also be extra cautious when using them. When you go to a page to claim your coins in exchange for viewing an ad, things get hazy at these faucets. You see many of the ads on the same page.
It's not obvious which one to view to get the satoshis. If you accidentally click the wrong ad, you will be redirected to another website that will promote gambling or exchange, and you'll get no satoshis at all.
Withdrawal Conditions Suddenly Change Once You Hit A Limit
One of the most popular scam types. For example, they've set a minimum withdrawal limit of 20,000 satoshis. You try so hard to reach this amount, and when you do, you take pride in yourself. The next thing you want to do is enjoy your earned coins, so you go straight to the withdrawal section. But suddenly, you read a message that you are not allowed to take away your coins, and now you have to wait seven more days, play more games,/ earn more satoshis. The excuses might be different, but the result is one. This cycle goes on and on, and you're never able to get those coins that you've got.
Mining Scams
These guys will promise you to do some serious business instead of playing games and useless stuff. They say that you're going to participate in a full-fledged action! Sounds so good. You go to a website or install an app, and they show you some Linux screen with, an ongoing mining process. So you wait and wait, and then, out of the blue, they've mined 1.5 BTC for you! So you're in a hurry to get them in your wallet. The transaction is about to proceed, but before that, there's just one step. The site asks you to pay a blockchain fee to complete the transaction. It sounds reasonable until you realize that they could've deducted this fee from the amount mined. So why don't they do that? The answer is obvious. It's a scam.