This is the actual timeline of the events that happened with a victim who got trapped in a Cryptocurrency investment scam and lost $3,500 over 9 months in the process. Take a look into how cryptocurrency investment scams unfold.
December
- First deposit of $500. The victim thought this would be the only payment to made.
- After 1 week of ‘trading’, the fake platform showed a profit of $5,410
- The victim was asked to pay 10% as ‘tax’, $450 as ‘withdrawal fee’, $500 as ‘signals fee’ and ‘referral fees’ of $550 each for 2 referrals
- Therefore, the victim has paid $2,605 including the initial deposit and various fees to withdraw a ‘profit’ of $5,410. No withdrawal was made even after paying the fees
January
- Without even providing any withdrawal yet, the scammers now asked the victim to reinvest in ‘forex trading’ instead of withdrawing profit
- After 2 weeks, the fake platform showed a profit of $29,000. The victim was once again asked to pay 10% ‘tax’, 20% ‘manager’s fee’ and an ‘upgrade fee’ to make a withdrawal
March
- The scammers disappeared after the victim made the payments. They replied again the next month saying that withdrawal was not allowed as a payment of $400 was still pending, even though the payment was already made
- The victim had to pay $410 again and was promised a payment withdrawal in 2 weeks. The scammers disappeared again
August
- The victim kept following up and got a reply in August that the payment would be made on 13th September. Later the ‘manager’ said that the company has gone bankrupt
- The ‘manager’ who first approached the victim via Instagram to invest changed his username and blocked the victim
The lesson here is to never trust strangers who approach you to invest on unknown platforms. Investments such as cryptocurrency and forex are extremely risky. Scammers portray these as guaranteed ways to make enormous profits, even though it is not so in real life. Any platform promising more than 1% to 15% profit per year in the best-case scenario is likely to be a scam.
