Crypto calendar invite scams: what to do when a fake event appears on your calendar.

A calendar invite feels routine, which is exactly why scammers use it. Instead of an email you might ignore, a fake event appears directly on your calendar, often with an alert, a link and an official-sounding name: a “BTC transfer pending,” a “wallet security review,” an “exchange compliance call,” or an invitation to an interview or a podcast.

These calendar invite scams are part of a much larger problem. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received 181,565 cryptocurrency-related complaints in 2025, with reported losses of about $11.4 billion, more than half of all internet-crime losses reported that year.

How crypto calendar invite scams work

Many calendar apps, including Google Calendar by default, add invitations to your calendar automatically, even from strangers. Scammers exploit that in several ways:

• Fake payments and giveaways. The event claims you have received crypto or qualified for an airdrop, and links to a site that asks you to connect your wallet. Connecting alone shares your address and balances; it does not let the site move your tokens. The danger is the next request, to approve a token or sign a message, which can give a drainer permission to spend your assets. Entering your seed phrase hands over the entire wallet.
• Fake security or compliance calls. The invite impersonates an exchange or custodian and warns of a frozen account. The “agent” on the call walks you into moving funds to a “safe” wallet the scammer controls.
• Fake renewals and invoices. Google’s June 2026 fraud and scams advisory flagged fake renewal notices added directly to calendar invites, built to push people toward fake support lines.
• Fake interviews and media requests aimed at founders. In 2025, researchers at Trail of Bits documented a group they call ELUSIVE COMET that posed as Bloomberg producers, scheduled calls through fake Calendly pages, and then requested Zoom remote control during the call to install malware and steal crypto.

The Google Calendar setting that stops most fake invites

In Google Calendar on a computer, open Settings, choose Event settings, find Add invitations to my calendar, and select Only if the sender is known. Invitations from unknown senders will then wait in your email instead of landing on your calendar. If an assistant manages your calendar, also turn on “Let others see all invitations if they have permission to view or edit my events” so they can still see pending invitations.

For a fake event that is already on your calendar, use its Report as spam option where offered, or delete it. Don’t click its links, and don’t reply; a response can confirm to the sender that your address is active.

Red flags

• An event you didn’t schedule, from a sender you don’t know.
• Any request to connect a wallet, share a seed phrase or private key, or install software or a “meeting update.”
• Pressure: a payment “expiring,” an account “frozen,” a deadline measured in hours.
• A scheduling page or meeting link that doesn’t match the company’s official domain, or a refusal to use official email.
• During a call, any request for screen control or remote access.

What to do if you clicked or lost funds

1. Match the response to what happened. If you only opened the link, close it and report the invite. If you connected your wallet, disconnect the site and sign nothing further. If you approved a token or signed a transaction, revoke the approval and move your assets to a new wallet. If you entered your seed phrase, treat the wallet as compromised: create a new wallet with a new seed phrase on a clean device, and don’t send funds into the old wallet to pay gas, because a sweeper bot can take them instantly.
2. Preserve evidence. Keep the invite, emails, wallet addresses, transaction hashes, screenshots and chat logs. Capture the event before you delete it.
3. Report it. File with the FBI at ic3.gov and the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and notify any exchange that received the funds. Exchanges can sometimes freeze funds that reach accounts they control, so speed matters.
4. Beware of “recovery” offers. Scam victims are often targeted a second time. The FBI counted 10,516 complaints involving impersonated government officials and recovery firms in 2025, with about $1.4 billion in losses, and in August 2025 it warned specifically about fictitious law firms targeting crypto scam victims.
5. Talk to a lawyer about your options. Depending on where the funds went, legal tools can include court orders directed at exchanges and lawsuits against unknown defendants. No lawyer can guarantee recovery; an honest assessment will tell you what is realistic. Read our guide, what a crypto scam lawyer can and can’t do.

Our outlook: knowledge is the antidote to fear

Our thesis: the window for stopping stolen crypto is widening, and speed and good records are what open it.

More of the market now runs through regulated chokepoints that can act. The T3 Financial Crime Unit formed by Tether, TRON and TRM Labs reported in May 2026 that it had frozen more than $450 million in illicit crypto assets since launching in 2024. As issuers and exchanges build those controls into their infrastructure, a fast, well-documented report becomes more valuable every year.

Scams work by manufacturing urgency and fear. Knowledge removes both. One settings change, the habit of verifying before you click, and a plan for what to do if something goes wrong put you back in control. The on-chain economy can only work for everyone if people can trust it, and that trust is built one informed decision at a time.

Frequently asked questions

Why did a crypto scam show up on my Google Calendar?

Google Calendar can add invitations automatically, even from people you have never dealt with. Scammers send invites so the event, its link and its reminders appear on your calendar without you accepting anything. Changing “Add invitations to my calendar” to “Only if the sender is known” stops most of them.

Is it safe to delete a spam calendar invite?

Yes. Use the event’s “Report as spam” option where it is offered, which removes the event and flags the sender, or delete it. Avoid clicking its links or replying.

I connected my wallet through a link in a calendar invite. What now?

It depends on what you did next. Connecting alone does not let a site move your tokens, so disconnect it and sign nothing further. If you approved a token or signed a transaction, revoke the approval and move your assets to a new wallet. If you entered your seed phrase, assume the wallet is compromised, move to a new wallet created on a clean device, and do not send gas funds into the old one. Preserve evidence, report the theft, and consider speaking with a lawyer about whether the funds can be traced to an exchange.

Can a crypto scam lawyer get my money back?

Sometimes legal action helps, particularly when stolen funds reach an exchange that can be ordered to freeze them. Results depend on the facts, and no lawyer can guarantee recovery. Be wary of anyone who does.

More alerts and red flags: Crypto Scam Watch.

Crystal V. Venning, Esq.

Founder and Managing Partner, Crypto Law Hub. Admitted in New York, Texas and Georgia. Educated at Yale University and Columbia Law School (J.D.). She advises founders, funds and institutions on digital-asset law, from stablecoins and token offerings to disputes and cross-border launches.