Case Study: Widow Left Nearly Destitute By Scammers

Lost money to a crypto or trading scam? Read this first:

If your losses exceed £3,000 (in the UK) or $10,000 worldwide The Crypto Adviser can offer advice on recovering your funds. 

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It’s no exaggeration to say that scammers ruin lives.

And this was certainly the case with a client we helped recently who had been profoundly impacted by a scam, both psychologically and financially.

Laura* approached us towards the end of a scam that ended up costing her nearly £200,000.

She’d been encouraged to invest in a crypto project that she was told offered ‘guaranteed’ returns by someone she’d met online and developed what she thought was a friendship with over a number of months.

Vulnerable after death of husband

She admits she was in a vulnerable position; her husband had died suddenly a few months earlier and just weeks after they’d moved into a new house which they were planning to renovate as part of a retirement project.

The builder they’d chosen vanished with a large sum of money and she was desperately trying to recoup her losses by investing in crypto, even though by her own admission she knew very little about how it worked.

The crypto scam started in the way that most so-called pig-butchering scams do – she was befriended then introduced to an investment that promised eye-watering returns.

To start with she put small amounts of money into the scheme and was allowed to make a few withdrawals to ‘prove’ that her investment was safe and that she could access her funds whenever she needed to.

Satisfied with the results, she started depositing larger chunks of cash, despite multiple warnings from her bank that the money was potentially going to a fraudulent scheme. In total she sent £125,000 to the platform she’d been directed to use by her online ‘friend’.

Profits grew rapidly

Again, the profits grew exponentially and it wasn’t long until she’d recouped the money stolen by the builder and was sitting on a tidy profit as well.

She decided she wanted to withdraw half the money to enable her to continue with the renovation project knowing that it would be what her husband would have wanted.

But this is when the problems started, as is often the case with all scams of this nature.

The platform blocked her from accessing her money and she was told by an ‘investment manager’ that she’d need to deposit a further £50,000 as part of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations before her funds could be released to her.

Despite her misgivings and further warnings from the bank, she moved the additional funds onto the platform after converting the cash to cryptocurrency using a mainstream exchange.

Scammers demanded huge ‘gas fees’

Once the money appeared in her account she tried to initiate a withdrawal, but she was immediately told there was another problem and that a ‘gas fee’ of £20,000 was required to facilitate the transfer. Her contact said this was refundable and would be the last payment she needed to make.

She transferred the additional money and waited for her investment to be moved across to her crypto exchange account to enable her to sell it and access her cash. But the money never arrived.

Her investment manager informed her that there was one more unexpected hurdle to overcome.

He said she needed to pay Capital Gains Tax on the profits to comply with UK law and that this needed to be deposited in her account before he could legally authorise the transfer.

Due to previous experiences she was familiar with how Capital Gains Tax worked and knew that what the person was telling her was simply not true.

Deep down she’d known that something wasn’t right about the situation, but this was the final straw. It was at this point that she contacted The Crypto Adviser.

During our initial conversation it became clear just how devastated she was about what had happened. She’d lost nearly all of her savings and had taken out a loan which had left her with crippling repayments. She was having to remortgage her house just to survive and was facing a bleak retirement on a meagre State pension.

Victim felt ashamed

She also said she felt deeply ashamed and embarrassed at having fallen for the scam and had lost all trust in people. She was also suffering alone as she couldn’t bring herself to tell her children or anyone close to her about what had happened.

Due to Laura’s specific set of circumstances we were able to connect her with a partner that specialises in reclaiming funds lost to scams from the originating bank on a no win, no fee basis.

Fortunately for Laura, she was able to get a large portion of her investment back which went a long way to restoring her standard of living and giving her a brighter future than the one she was facing.

Listening to Laura recount her story  and the callousness of the scammers was truly shocking.

Even when she explained to them that her husband had died and she’d been scammed by a builder they still demanded the payments, going as far as asking her to borrow from friends or to sell her house to find the money.

Laura’s story serves as a cautionary tale to anyone considering investing in crypto, especially if you’re being introduced to a scheme offering profits that seem too good to be true by someone you’ve met online.

And it serves as a reminder that of the depths fraudsters will sink to in order to enrich themselves.

We Can Help

If you’ve been caught up in a crypto scam we can help so contact us today.

*Not her real name