Gas fees are transaction fees paid to validators on Ethereum. OpenSea does not receive these fees and is not able to refund them. OpenSea also doesn’t control gas prices nor does it profit from them.

https://support.opensea.io/hc/en-us/articles/1500006315941-What-are-gas-fees-

Also, gas fees happen on autopilot in a purchase transaction (no separate steps involved!) – the seller’s wallet gets debited for price and transaction fee with an NFT credit whilst the buyer’s wallet gets credited for the price and debited for the transaction fees as well as the NFT.

Obviously I refused and asked him to complete the transaction through opensea if he wants to purchase my NFTs. He sent several messages on how he can only purchase validated NFTs (not rough art) and that unless I transfer the money, my NFTs are not validated. He sounded quite desperate to get me to make the payment. 

Of course, from this point on I blocked him on Instagram! On the one hand I felt quite relieved that I did lose money by overriding my suspicions and intuition. On the other hand though, I felt super drained and exhausted, so much so that the rest of my Sunday was pretty much a washout! 

Meanwhile there was another profile on Instagram expressing interest in my NFTs and wanted me to scan a QR code to receive funds. Again, this did not make sense. Its well known that scanning QR codes is to make payments and not the other way around. Finally, I figured why some artists have blocked all content on NFTs from their Instagram profiles.

Here are the Red Flags from my experience:

• Offering to buy NFTs which are not pure digital or phigital art at inflated prices which feel ‘too good to be true’. I digited my physical artworks as early as Oct-21 but was lucky enough to meet a genuine NFT Collector via Instagram who advised me that NFT Collectors are into pure digital or phgital art vs. digitised versions of physical art. Since then I have resorted to offering NFTs in lieu of Certificate of Authenticity for my Physical or Traditional artworks whilst trying my hand at learning digital tools (Such as Procreate)
• Sharing snapshots of balance in wallets, failed transactions which seem genuine at first glance.
• Trying to sound too technical so it intimidates you into believing they know better.
• Incorrect grammar, poor sentence construction in English if you read closely.
• Building up a story to get you to click links or scan QR codes

Refer to a recording of my NFT Masterclass – Part II with Fintech Circle where I go through the steps involved in creating and purchasing NFTs here:

• NFT Masterclass Part I https://www.bigmarker.com/fintech-circle/Non-Fungible-Tokens-NFTs-in-Practice?utm_bmcr_source=FTC%20Website
• NFT Masterclass Part II https://www.bigmarker.com/fintech-circle/NFT-Master-Class-Part-2

Did you know the 5 most common NFT scams in 2023?

• Rug-Pull Scams: NFT creators or developers hype an NFT but pull out after receiving substantial funds from investors (Frosties NFT rug-pull)
• Phishing Scams: Hackers send out fake links often through email or popular social media channels and forums like Twitter and Discord, once you click the link and enter your details they use spyware to access your account and compromise it)
• Bidding Scams: When you put your NFT up for sale, scammers place the highest bid but they can change the cryptocurrency used for the bidding without your knowledge. Imagine a bid for 20 ETH which could get switched by the scamming bidder to 50 Dogecoin which is worth <$5.
• Pump-and-Dump Scams: Fraudsters artificially inflate the price of an NFT by misrepresentation and spreading misleading information. Once the price goes up, they ‘dump’ the NFT and disappear without a trace, leaving investors with worthless assets.
• Counterfeit or Plagiarized NFTs: NFTs are all about creating unique tokens. Unfortunately its quite profilic on many platforms. Opensea recently reported that >80% of NFTs minted using its tool were fake. The value of an NFT purchased will obviously drop as soon as it becomes clear that its fake.

Some less common NFT scams are listed below:

• NFT Giveaways (Airdrop Scams): Fraudsters ask you to promote an NFT and sign up on their website in exchange for a free NFT – once done, they’ll send you a link to receive the NFT but in essence they steal your account details to steal any valuable NFTs and/or funds in your account.
• Investor Scams: Fraudsters create legitimate NFT projects and tout them as worthwhile investments however in reality the projects are worthless. After stockpiling enough investor funds, they disappear without a trace.
• Customer Support Impersonation: A type of phishing scam where fraudsters pose as customer support agents of an NFT marketplace – typically contact you via Discord, Telegram or Twitter with an issue regarding your account and send through a link requiring you to enter private wallet keys.

Read about NFT Scams in details here https://www.cloudwards.net/nft-scams/

Safety Tips

Some safety tips as a rule of thumb are highlighted as below.

• Research adequately before purchasing NFTs
• Store all NFTs (and digital assets) in cold storage – the wallets connected to NFT marketplaces or the internet in general are considered hot storage and are vulnerable to theft
• Don’t click on any random links
• Don’t scan any QR codes whilst receiving money
• Don’t share your password or wallet secret recovery phrase. Enabling two-factor authentication on your account helps add an additional layer of protection.

Use a virtual private network (VPN) to encrypt and anonymise your NFT traffic. I personally haven’t used this but have heard from my network that this is quite effective.