Two more scams to keep on your radar

Over the weekend we got two separate emails from readers who were in the midst of two different scams. I replied to them as quickly as possible. We hope we’ve helped them avoid being scammed further.

One however had already sent a significant amount of cash to the scammers, who were now asking for more (the reader was unaware of the scam) but they were checking with us if what they were being asked was real or not.

Two scams, two different approaches, two different ones to those I wrote to you about only a couple of weeks ago. One, a bitcoin “trading” platform scam, the other a bitcoin giveaway scam.

Today and tomorrow we’ll look at these scams, because while it might be a bit scary, knowing how to avoid the pitfalls helps you to keep what you’ve earnt and protect your wealth from evil.

Scam #1: the fake trading platforms

This email I got was from a reader of mine who was asking if there was a need to pay capital gains tax (CGT) on bitcoin.

Now initially this seemed like a straight forward question and answer.

The answer is that it depends on where you live and the taxation rules of where you pay tax. Some countries there’s no CGT on crypto gains if held for over a year. Some places you get a discount on CGT is held for a year.

Some places there’s just no CGT. And even some places are flirting with the idea of CGT on unrealised gains from crypto!

Point being, get an accountant!

Track all trades and transactions, pay your taxes where you’re supposed to (albeit I despise CGT because it’s a penalty for success that the government appropriates from us).

Anyway, the CGT question was ok… but it got worse.

You see the question came because this person was trying to withdraw their funds from a crypto investment platform they’d been using called Ledger Markets. This group was saying they wouldn’t release any funds until CGT and a brokers fee were paid, totalling 30% of the balance.

MASSIVE RED FLAG!

Soon as I saw that, I knew this was a scam. Here’s how it works.

1. You see an advert for a bitcoin or crypto investment platform (often on Facebook, Instagram, and X.com). You register and send in some money, usually only a small amount, maybe $200–$500. The promise is for huge gains on a daily basis trading and investing in bitcoin and crypto for you.

2. Soon your balance is growing, fast. Then you get a call from a VIP account manager (or some variation of that) talking to you, encouraging you to add just a little more. Maybe $1,000 this time. That grows fast too. Soon enough that little bit has maybe grown 10x (or more) according to the numbers showing on your account.

3. Then the phone calls ramp up, they press you for more. This time it’s for $5,000 or $10,000, or more. The number in your account continues to rise, so you’re convinced you’re making loads of money.

4. Except you’re not. It’s all FAKE. The numbers in your platform, the trades, none of it is real. You can’t make 10x on bitcoin trading when the price has range traded 10% for the last three months.

5. At some point, you see so much money, you decide to take profits and suddenly things get real.

You can’t withdraw without having to deposit more money and meeting some set of ridiculous criteria. Typically some kind of “broker fee” or CGT that you were never told about at the start. Worth noting, you don’t have to pay CGT to a platform like this, you do that with the tax man. That’s why the CGT request is a massive red flag.

None of it is real. Those gains never happened, so the numbers are just numbers on a screen. As soon as you send money, it goes, disappears, it’s gone.

They tell you a withdrawal takes 90 days (or more), which is garbage. That’s just time for them to shut down, disappear and make it hard to catch them.

These scams rinse as much as they can, then disappear and then reboot as something else, “Bitcoin Markets” or “Bitcoin Maximalist” or “Crypto Revolution”. There are a thousand names for them. Every time it’s the same thing, a scam.

It’s sad to see this sort of thing still taking people for a ride. I’ve seen millions over the years being scammed from people this way. Ideally though, you don’t even want to go near these scam ads. I want you to see these ads and immediately identify the scam.

In tomorrow’s Crypto Alarm, I’ll show you one more scam that was sent to us, and how the only time someone gave away $500,000 in bitcoin was 15 years ago, and never since.

Trust in crypto,

Adam Atlantic