Last month, I almost got tricked out of a sum of money. When I look back on it now, I’m still breaking out in a cold sweat. I want to share this experience, hoping it can help everyone avoid falling into the same trap.

This is how it happened — I saw a USDT balance in my wallet. The amount looked pretty legitimate; it was my salary. I wanted to withdraw it, but the system popped up asking me to pay a 20% activation fee to unlock the funds. At the time, I felt something was off. Only after I contacted the wallet customer service did I understand what was going on: I had connected to a fake custom node.

This is the playbook for node scams. The scammers persuaded me to add a “custom node” in my wallet. It looked normal, but in reality, that node had been manipulated — it was only there to show a fake balance. My wallet was actually empty, and my real salary never even arrived. They wanted to lure me into sending more USDT as the so-called “activation fee” using that fake balance. I was lucky to catch it in time, but if I hadn’t contacted customer service, I might have already been scammed.

Later, I learned a few key defensive moves. First, never blindly trust custom nodes of unknown origin — only nodes added from official sources are safe. Scammers use fake nodes to mimic fake token balances. Second, you must double-check with a blockchain explorer, such as Etherscan, BSCScan, or TronScan. Paste your wallet address into the explorer and see the real balance shown there. If your wallet shows tokens but the explorer finds nothing, that’s definitely a scam.

You also need to pay special attention to certain red flags. Any request for an “activation fee” or a “unlock fee” is a scam, with no exceptions. If you receive a private message from a stranger on Telegram, Discord, or social media, saying something like “technical support” or “node upgrade,” just ignore it right away. If it feels like things are moving too fast or the vibe is off, stop and verify. These defensive measures may seem simple, but they can save you a lot of money.