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Banks regularly deny claims for unfair reasons. A fraud gets called a civil matter, a generic pop-up gets called a warning, or a convincing scam gets judged with hindsight. None of those reasons is the final word. Decisions can be challenged and escalated to the Financial Ombudsman Service, and we know where they most often go wrong.
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The total amount we've got back from scams, for our clients.
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How to spot Crypto Fraud
Crypto scams often start via social media, cold calls, or fake celebrity endorsements. Warning signs: pressure to "start small," fake profits, requests for remote device access, wallet transfers, transaction screenshots, and upfront withdrawal fees or taxes. Once money's sent, it's rarely recoverable.
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- You came across the person or advert on social media or through a cold call You will come across fraudulent companies in a number of ways on social media. Sometimes the person may have added you or called you out of the blue. Sometimes it might be a fake celebrity endorsement (always be wary of celebrity endorsements). Other times, it’s a little more subtle. You may have read a newsletter or article about investing in cryptocurrencies with quotes from an apparently legitimate broker. If you follow those links or fill in a form, it’s likely that you will be reaching out to a fraudster. Once you’ve provided your details you’ll usually find that you are relentlessly pursued by one or more fraudulent “companies”.
- You were encouraged to invest by “starting small” to test the investment Often with these scams you’ll be asked to put in as little as £200 or £250 to see how it performs. Miraculously, you’ll see your investment perform remarkably well which will be used to encourage you to invest more. The fraudster may even send you a little bit of your profit back to try and convince you that this is real. What you are seeing is unfortunately all fake. While it may all look real and appear to track real life events, fraudsters are able to create extremely convincing looking platforms that they can manipulate to back up whatever story they want to tell you. They will create whatever elaborate story they need to convince you to invest more - sometimes this will be crippling losses you need to “save”, sometimes it will be once in a lifetime opportunities to invest.
- The investment seems like such a good opportunity that you find yourself wondering why they are telling you about it A great thing to do is to take a step back and consider whether, if what this person is telling you is true, why would they be telling you? I know for sure that if I had secret information about a great new coin that was certain to make profits or 800% returns, I’d be investing myself and telling all my friends and family rather than a stranger. Yes, some people have made lots of money investing in cryptocurrencies but that’s mostly because they bought coins many years ago and simply sat on them and got lucky. Many new coins turn out to be scam cryptocurrency such as the infamous Squid Coin.
- You’ve been asked to put your money into a crypto wallet first and then send it to the scammers wallet Don’t do this! If someone asks you to set up a wallet to send the money to their wallet, it’s likely to be a cryptocurrency investment scam. Once the money is gone, there is virtually no way of getting it back via these unregulated platforms. Usually the platforms used are legitimate (e.g. Kraken, Coinbase, Binance, Crypto.com, Moonpay.)
You may have a case against your bank if there was a UK bank involved at some point. In these cases, you should speak to Refundee.
Likewise, never give away your private key for your wallet to anyone else as they’ll be able to steal your funds if you do. - You’ve been asked to give remote access to your device via software like AnyDesk or TeamViewer This is quite simply a huge red flag. No legitimate broker would ask you to give remote access to your device. They do this simply because it gives them the opportunity to click or hide any warnings and also because the process of actually transferring cryptocurrency from one wallet to another is confusing for someone without any crypto experience.
- You’ve been asked to send screenshots of your transfers to the “broker” This is not some kind of security measure, this is because the platform is fake and they need to be sure you’ve sent them money before they show the transfer appearing on their platform. Remember, they are carrying out these investment scams on thousands of people every day so it will be hard for them to spot your funds appearing.
- You’ve been asked to pay withdrawal fees or taxes This is a last roll of the dice for fraudsters and is common across all investment scams such as the Group 500 or Genesis 11 scam we wrote about previously. While you won’t have been told about the fees or taxes before, the fees you are asked to pay will look reasonable in light of the overall “profit” that you’ve made which is a deliberate tactic used by the fraudsters to get you to invest more. Don’t pay these fees as you won’t get your money back and they’ll invent new fees or taxes after this. If fees need to be paid, why can't they just take the money from your account balance? There is no good answer to this other than that they are a scam.
Cryptocurrency Scam
Started as a bond investment, then led to a cryptocurrency scam
A fake bond investment built trust before the scammers moved our client into crypto and a £231,000 loss. The bank and the FOS investigator both said no. Our appeal to the Ombudsman overturned that decision and recovered £115,000.
Published Date
Cryptocurrency Scam
£220,000 recovered for cryptocurrency scam victim
An Instagram advert led our client to a fake trading platform and a £475,000 loss. Revolut said nothing could be done because the money went to crypto. We escalated to the Financial Ombudsman, which found the bank partly at fault and awarded £220,000.
Published Date
Cryptocurrency Scam
Victim lost £22,000 to a crypto scam advertised by a fake Martin Lewis advert
A Facebook advert using Martin Lewis's image led our client to a fake crypto platform and a follow-on recovery scam. Revolut rejected the claim, so we took it to the Financial Ombudsman and recovered £11,000, including the money sent to the 'recovery' scammers.
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