EN
Cryptocurrency is a hot investment topic nowadays. For most people, it is ambiguous and they don’t really understand the realistic rate of returns to expect from crypto investments. Scammers take advantage of this by using jargon and throwing around huge numbers.
ProlificMining-Expert.com is one such scam website which claims to generate 3% to 4% returns daily. Anyone who regularly invests would know that this is a ridiculous claim. Even a 15% annual profit is considered a good investment. ProlificMiningExpert’s promise is, essentially, a profit of 1,460% a year.
A reader from Nigeria reached out to us to share his story about getting duped by ProlificMiningExpert.com. This person has shared screenshots of important parts of the conversation he had with these scammers. This gives us an inside look at the conversations that scammers have with their victims, something we rarely get to see.
Before we have a look at the conversations, it’s crucial to know the red flags of such investment opportunities. Being aware of these could have prevented the person from getting involved with the scammers in the first place.
ProlificMining-Expert.com claims to be an investment platform which generates returns through Bitcoin cloud mining. Cloud mining is a concept where clients can remotely rent Bitcoin mining equipment and pay a commission on the coins mined. This model is genuine, however, scammers take advantage of the way the business model is set up by providing no proof that they are running a legitimate operation.
For a company which claims to be flush with profits, the website looks really low-budget. It is not properly optimized for mobile and the content is full of errors. In many instances, even the name of the company is spelt incorrectly.
There are a lot of dubious claims made on the website which will turn out to be false later. The website claims that the company is registered in the UK by the owner Robert Rose. There is no identification number provided to verify this information, which means it’s fake. It is also mentioned that the company was registered in 2016, even though the domain has been registered only on 5th August 2019. It is set to expire a couple of weeks after this article would be published.
An important point to note is that while ProlificMining-Expert claims to mine Bitcoin, Bitcoin mining is not considered a viable method to generate profits. The high number of people and companies already mining Bitcoin makes it difficult to mine new coins. Instead, genuine miners suggest mining newer cryptocurrencies and exchanging them for Bitcoin. This generates higher profits than directly mining Bitcoin.
ProlificMining-Expert also has a referral program which is structured like a multi-level marketing scheme. The company pays 3 tiers of referral benefits ranging from 3% to 9%. This puts the focus of investors on recruiting more people into the scheme. However, unless there is evidence of any income other than the deposits of investors, it seems that ProlificMining-Expert is a pyramid scheme.
The contact details are also highly suspicious. An incomplete UK address is provided along with a USA phone number. A ‘Company No.’ is given here but no company registration record could be found for this number. The phone number provided was a Nigeran one till recently, as shown in the screenshots shared by the whistleblower. It was later switched to a USA number which seems to be operated remotely.
It is wise to pay attention to such details before investing in any platform. Due diligence should always be taken seriously to avoid getting scammed.
The screenshots shared by our reader provide valuable insight into how the scammer’s string people along. What starts off as a dream turns into a nightmare, as the scammers hold the profits for ransom and demand fee after fee. Even after multiple payments, no profit is ever received. They also assume multiple identities in order to extract more out of the victims.
The person first made payments to a person named Hugo. Hugo then stopped responding and the conversation was taken over by a person named Alex. Hugo and Alex are probably the same person.
There are hundreds of websites like ProlificMining-Expert which falsely claim to provide absurd profits from cloud mining cryptocurrency. When these websites get exposed, they simply change their name and continue operating. The same is likely to be the case with ProlificMining-Expert once the domain expires on 5th August 2020.
The best way to avoid such scams is to never blindly invest money online without taking every step necessary to ensure that the company is genuine. Websites created by scammers are extremely low-quality and it is easy to identify them as scams once you know what to look for.
The hope of the whistleblower, as well as ours, is that this story serves as a lesson that the internet is infested with investment scams. This makes it very important to be aware of how these scams work to avoid getting trapped.
An easy way to get a hint of whether a website is a scam is to check it on Scamadviser.com.
Read the articles below to arm yourself with the knowledge of some common scams and how to identify them.
What are High Yield Investment Programs (HYIPs)?
High Risk Financial Investment Scams
This article has been written by a scam fighter volunteer. If you believe the article above contains inaccuracies or is missing relevant information, please contact Scamadviser.com using this form.
