PST.NET REVIEW. IT IS A SCAM!! HOW I LOST $27,000 IN BTC. THREAD BELOW

[Maris Lunt]

When I first created my account, it was just to try out the system, and I didn't anticipate putting a significant sum in my PST.NET account. So, I didn't bother about the name and focused on my privacy. After buying and using my card for a bit, I decided to transfer $120 from the $28,000 I got from a business partner's contract into my PST.NET account to buy a virtual card. However, I mistakenly sent $27,500 to PST.NET because I had the PST.NET BTC address copied from before.

Once I recognized this error, and given my lack of trust in your company, I immediately contacted the PST.NET support team via telegram. I even suggested that they keep $1000 if they could return the rest to my wallet, as I needed it to pay my partner's contract fee. But PST.NET informed me that the minimum withdrawal was $300 and must be done in USDT (TRC20) and would take 14 days to process. I was willing to give PST.NET another $1,000 since I needed the money for a business contract and a 14-day wait could ruin the contract and put me in a difficult position. PST.NET declined, so I requested a withdrawal to my TRC address on July 25, 2023.

After making the withdrawal request, their support team asked for KYC and source of funds proof, which I submitted via email, including my utility bill, US ID, Webcam ID verification on Sumsub, and my Consolidated Retirement Plan from Dole Food Inc as my source of funds. After this, I noticed a $591 deduction in my account for card charges, which their team refunded after I questioned them, claiming it was compensation. This raised my suspicion about their credibility.

Their support team then asked for information about every party that has used my wallet address, which I found impossible, given the length of time I've used the address and potential issues like the death of a business partner. They asked for my name confirmation, and after further discussions and clarifications that I'd provided all documents I could, they deleted my account and brought up a fake AML report.

When I verified my wallet address through Bitcoin Who's Who and Chain Abuse and there were no risk or scam alerts. This proved that their AML report was fabricated to take my $27,500. I also conducted a BIN check on the card they initially provided and found a discrepancy in the issuing bank's name, further pointing to fraudulent activities.

After fully completing their KYC process, they deleted my account with a remaining balance of $591 and a pending withdrawal of $27,500, claiming to have reached out to FINTRAC without a specified response time. They provided no evidence of contacting FINTRAC and seem to be illegally withholding my funds.

Additionally, their office address, which I found to be a virtual one managed by REGUS.COM, and their real roots traced back to Russia, convinced me they're a scam. They deactivated my account, claiming to be investigating money laundering. It doesn't make sense for me to launder money through PST.NET, and I don't understand why they won't return the money to the original wallet::

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3548015:

Here are links and proofs:

Withdrawal Request



 Verification Request



Verification Passed



Account Deactivated



PST.NET flagging my review on Trustpilot.


$27,500:

Payment method: BITCOIN:

Proof of payment



Message from them after i requested withdrawal

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[Cuenta Alternativa]

Have you reported it to the authorities? It seems that they are a legally registered company in Canada, and if they have defrauded you they should be held accountable by the authorities. It all sounds strange to me, and I have no way of judging whether it is a scam or not.

[Pmalek]

What documentation did they ask you to provide but you didn't do it? One of the screenshots mentions that. Is it the information about the business partners that have made deposits to your address?

It unfortunately does look like a scam. File a police report and report them.
Even though your explanation of wanting to protect your privacy and providing a fake name makes sense, you have to realize that it doesn't look good if you register with one name and then undergo KYC with a completely different one. In the future, you should avoid doing that. It's better to stay clear of services that will ask you to verify your identity for your own safety. And if you use them, sign up with your own information to avoid issues.

[PSTNET]

Hi Maris


We must note, that none of you money was taken, they were frozen at your account until the investigation is complete. As mentioned previously, your account was suspended as you failed to provide the necessary information to our Comliance officer. Again, we’re sorry that you had to face all the severity of fintech sphere, yet we are open to communicate through official channel, that being Compliance department from our side. We’re ready to keep you posted about all the steps of the investigation as soon as we reveive the infromation from FINTRAC.


We have already explained why we are obliged to check all the incoming transactions and how it is done, and we would be happy to communicate with you and your lawyer on this matter through our compliance department, as this is where we can provide most up-to-date information about the legal matters for this case. Moreover, any information from your side about how your retirement bonus became 100% high risk crypto will be most welcomed and would help much the investigation process.


Our compliance department hopes to hear from you soon!

P.S. Besides, if you look more precisely in this case with $3300 withdrawal, some user's miss the notification that money are refunded in 14 days, thus they allege us being dishonest.

That is untrue and we take pride in our clear business model, and we strive to provide our users with the service of high quality and do not stop them if they decide to stop working with us.

We advise your friend to drop a message to our support as well to check the status of his/her withdrawal. The fastest way to do so is connect with us through our TG support account or TG bot (the latter is available 24/7)

[aioc]

That is untrue and we take pride in our clear business model, and we strive to provide our users with the service of high quality and do not stop them if they decide to stop working with us.

We advise your friend to drop a message to our support as well to check the status of his/her withdrawal. The fastest way to do so is connect with us through our TG support account or TG bot (the latter is available 24/7)

To OP I'm not victim-blaming but this would not have happened if you are you are mindful of the transaction, you are holding and transacting big amounts so it should always be your habit to check and double-check, are you in a hurry when you transact?

To PSTNET I hope you are true to your world and that you will try to resolve the issueue, the money is not yours and mistakenly transfer based on OP's word, if he passed the verification and submitted the documents you can resolve the issue, you have more years to operate your business profitably and you can make more than the amount here.

I check your Whois information you are just starting out and your domain is extended up to 2029 so I'm sure you want to operate for many years with a clean record.

[rat03gopoh]

We must note, that none of you money was taken,

There was a $591 balance deduction for compensation that I caught on the OP's report which was later returned, is that correct? And is a unilateral deduction a legal business model while all the OP's funding status is being investigated? As far as I've learned about your ToS, administrator compensation will be taken once a customer is determined to have violated the ToS.

[Maris Lunt]

Have you reported it to the authorities? It seems that they are a legally registered company in Canada, and if they have defrauded you they should be held accountable by the authorities. It all sounds strange to me, and I have no way of judging whether it is a scam or not.

It appears that they're operating out of a virtual office with no one directly accountable. I am also making efforts to contact the office holder, "Regus.com", in an attempt to identify those responsible for running pst.net - 1321 Blanshard Street, 800 Yates St Suite, Victoria, BC, Canada V8W0B6. Their FINTRAC Regulation is set to expire this year, suggesting a potential shift towards fraudulent activity - https://www10.fintrac-canafe.gc.ca/msb-esm/public/detailed-information/msb-details/7b226d73624f72674e756d626572223a3136363430342c227072696d617279536561726368223a7b226f72674e616d65223a225053544e45542046494e414e434520434f5250222c2273656172636854797065223a317d7d/.

What documentation did they ask you to provide but you didn't do it? One of the screenshots mentions that. Is it the information about the business partners that have made deposits to your address?

It unfortunately does look like a scam. File a police report and report them.
Even though your explanation of wanting to protect your privacy and providing a fake name makes sense, you have to realize that it doesn't look good if you register with one name and then undergo KYC with a completely different one. In the future, you should avoid doing that. It's better to stay clear of services that will ask you to verify your identity for your own safety. And if you use them, sign up with your own information to avoid issues.

They asked that I complete identification verification, submit my utility bill, and provide a webcam verification with both my face and documents, which I duly complied with. They also requested evidence of my source of funds, which I provided. However, they then demanded details of all the parties using my wallet. How could I possibly provide this? What if these parties are dead? Does this grant them the right to deactivate my account and hold onto my $27,500? Why didn't they request this information when I was funding my account or when I made my first card purchase? It seems like they're making these demands to stall the repayment process, falsely claiming they've contacted FINTRAC, perhaps pending their disappearance from the internet once their regulation expires this year.

Hi Maris


We must note, that none of you money was taken, they were frozen at your account until the investigation is complete. As mentioned previously, your account was suspended as you failed to provide the necessary information to our Comliance officer. Again, we’re sorry that you had to face all the severity of fintech sphere, yet we are open to communicate through official channel, that being Compliance department from our side. We’re ready to keep you posted about all the steps of the investigation as soon as we reveive the infromation from FINTRAC.


We have already explained why we are obliged to check all the incoming transactions and how it is done, and we would be happy to communicate with you and your lawyer on this matter through our compliance department, as this is where we can provide most up-to-date information about the legal matters for this case. Moreover, any information from your side about how your retirement bonus became 100% high risk crypto will be most welcomed and would help much the investigation process.


Our compliance department hopes to hear from you soon!

P.S. Besides, if you look more precisely in this case with $3300 withdrawal, some user's miss the notification that money are refunded in 14 days, thus they allege us being dishonest.

That is untrue and we take pride in our clear business model, and we strive to provide our users with the service of high quality and do not stop them if they decide to stop working with us.

We advise your friend to drop a message to our support as well to check the status of his/her withdrawal. The fastest way to do so is connect with us through our TG support account or TG bot (the latter is available 24/7)

Hi PST.NET SCAMMERS

You and your compliance team seem to be perpetrating a scam. How hard is it to issue a straightforward refund? You profess to have a transparent business model, yet you've chosen to withhold $27,500. What type of investigation justifies locking my account and retaining my funds? You're fully aware that cryptocurrency operates without central authority, which leads me to believe you're scamming me, and you must return my money. Why did you deactivate the account of the individual who tried to withdraw $3300? I assume this is one of your dubious tactics. If you truly reached out to FINTRAC, why wasn't I included in the correspondence? I challenge you to provide evidence of your communication with FINTRAC regarding this transaction, whether it's through email, phone call, or fax.

That is untrue and we take pride in our clear business model, and we strive to provide our users with the service of high quality and do not stop them if they decide to stop working with us.

We advise your friend to drop a message to our support as well to check the status of his/her withdrawal. The fastest way to do so is connect with us through our TG support account or TG bot (the latter is available 24/7)

To OP I'm not victim-blaming but this would not have happened if you are you are mindful of the transaction, you are holding and transacting big amounts so it should always be your habit to check and double-check, are you in a hurry when you transact?

To PSTNET I hope you are true to your world and that you will try to resolve the issueue, the money is not yours and mistakenly transfer based on OP's word, if he passed the verification and submitted the documents you can resolve the issue, you have more years to operate your business profitably and you can make more than the amount here.

I check your Whois information you are just starting out and your domain is extended up to 2029 so I'm sure you want to operate for many years with a clean record.

It appears their FINTRAC registration expires this year, leading me to suspect they're full-fledged scammers. Here's the link: https://www10.fintrac-canafe.gc.ca/msb-esm/public/detailed-information/msb-details/7b226d73624f72674e756d626572223a3136363430342c227072696d617279536561726368223a7b226f72674e616d65223a225053544e45542046494e414e434520434f5250222c2273656172636854797065223a317d7d/ I'm astonished how FINTRAC could regulate these individuals. It's disconcerting that with just a virtual address, they're not even real people.

[stompix]

Moreover, any information from your side about how your retirement bonus became 100% high risk crypto will be most welcomed and would help much the investigation process.

Are you out of your mind? High-risk crypto?
You're business deals with crypto and you're asking a customer why he has put his funds in crypto?
Who are you, the morality police?

The user has provided you with a statement about the source of funds and that he owns those, at this point you freezing his funds is just abuse!

P.S. Besides, if you look more precisely in this case with $3300 withdrawal, some user's miss the notification that money are refunded in 14 days, thus they allege us being dishonest.

If you have filed a request for investigation with FINTRAC you're breaking the law by using any of the freezing assets even if it's just for accounting, then again you've taken $591 of that, do you actually realize what you're doing?

Are you deactivating a user account while under investigation?
You can only freeze the sum (the thing you didn't since you've already helped yourself to a chuck of it) but you must let the user have access to his personal account every single moment of this, have you seen banks just deleting and disabling IBANs for accounts under investigations?

[Pmalek]

Moreover, any information from your side about how your retirement bonus became 100% high risk crypto will be most welcomed and would help much the investigation process.

What does that mean? In what way are the coins "high risk"? What are the requirements for coins to be considered high risk, and who decides this? Please open your wallet and take out your dollar bills, then arrange them on the table according to their risk history and teach us how you did it!

However, they then demanded details of all the parties using my wallet. How could I possibly provide this? What if these parties are dead?

Do those details include the same type of ID and address verification data they asked from you? That is indeed a ridiculous requirement, and who in their right mind would give that information to someone over the internet? It's not your job to collect KYC data of those who send you BTC or ask them to send it to PST.net. 

You're fully aware that cryptocurrency operates without central authority.

It does if you use it properly. If you send it to someone like PST.net, you start playing by their rules and TOS they created.

[dkbit98]

I think PST.NET deserves to receive negative feedback and red flag against them for doing this, unless they return coins they received from user.

We must note, that none of you money was taken, they were frozen at your account until the investigation is complete.

And I guess that could last for months, maybe even years right?

We have already explained why we are obliged to check all the incoming transactions and how it is done

If I understand correctly this was his outgoing transaction because he was trying to withdraw money, and you could simply reject his incoming coins if you think they are problematic for some reason, and return them to him.

Moreover, any information from your side about how your retirement bonus became 100% high risk crypto will be most welcomed and would help much the investigation process.

What kind of stupid statement is this?
I could also ask you why you even started ''shady'' risky business dealing with cryptocurrencies and cards, when you could simply be safe selling popcorns and hamburgers in the street?

[Maris Lunt]

I think PST.NET deserves to receive negative feedback and red flag against them for doing this, unless they return coins they received from user.

We must note, that none of you money was taken, they were frozen at your account until the investigation is complete.

And I guess that could last for months, maybe even years right?

We have already explained why we are obliged to check all the incoming transactions and how it is done

If I understand correctly this was his outgoing transaction because he was trying to withdraw money, and you could simply reject his incoming coins if you think they are problematic for some reason, and return them to him.

Moreover, any information from your side about how your retirement bonus became 100% high risk crypto will be most welcomed and would help much the investigation process.

What kind of stupid statement is this?
I could also ask you why you even started ''shady'' risky business dealing with cryptocurrencies and cards, when you could simply be safe selling popcorns and hamburgers in the street?

You can see they are not responding anymore. PST.NET is a SCAM!!!

[robelneo]

I think PST.NET deserves to receive negative feedback and red flag against them for doing this, unless they return coins they received from user.

We must note, that none of you money was taken, they were frozen at your account until the investigation is complete.

And I guess that could last for months, maybe even years right?

Not only negative feedback but a flag if they will not resolve this as soon as possible, to warn people on how they behave when it comes to large sums of money, OP is very cooperative in resolving the issue, the ball is in their hands now to resolve this and I don't think this should take a month to complete the verification.

I advise OP to follow their recommendation to show how serious you are in resolving this issue and update us on the development, let's see how serious they are also in resolving this issue, your money is at stake here and so is PSNET, who's reputation is being questioned.

We advise your friend to drop a message to our support as well to check the status of his/her withdrawal. The fastest way to do so is connect with us through our TG support account or TG bot (the latter is available 24/7)

[dkbit98]

You can see they are not responding anymore. PST.NET is a SCAM!!!

Is there any chance you can find rest of information they are asking from you or no?
I gave them temporary negative feedback for now, but you can go ahead and create flag against them, so that other members can review and support it.
My feedback can be corrected later if they change their decision or consider returning confiscated coins to you.

[robelneo]

You can see they are not responding anymore. PST.NET is a SCAM!!!

Is there any chance you can find rest of information they are asking from you or no?
I gave them temporary negative feedback for now, but you can go ahead and create flag against them, so that other members can review and support it.
My feedback can be corrected later if they change their decision or consider returning confiscated coins to you.

I also encourage OP to create a flag and drop my feedback on this will make them resolve the situation as soon as they can
it's going to be bad for their business if the search engine shows this topic to those looking to use their business so far OP scam accusation is the only one existing and he is active in giving PSNET bad feedback.
I believe this is one of his feedback
https://trustedrevie.ws/reviews/pst.net

[CODE200]

I think PST.NET deserves to receive negative feedback and red flag against them for doing this, unless they return coins they received from user.

Yes, they do deserve that negative feedback, the issue can be easily solved by simply sending it back to the owner but they haven't done that and OP has the evidence that there's money sent to their address. I am sure that they're not going to return that money, that's a lot of bitcoin for no work at all besides being a scum of society so I doubt they will deal with that problem, pretty sure that they will prolong the issue here and talk about different reasons why they can't return the money and blame the victim.

[Maris Lunt]

I think PST.NET deserves to receive negative feedback and red flag against them for doing this, unless they return coins they received from user.

We must note, that none of you money was taken, they were frozen at your account until the investigation is complete.

And I guess that could last for months, maybe even years right?

Not only negative feedback but a flag if they will not resolve this as soon as possible, to warn people on how they behave when it comes to large sums of money, OP is very cooperative in resolving the issue, the ball is in their hands now to resolve this and I don't think this should take a month to complete the verification.

I advise OP to follow their recommendation to show how serious you are in resolving this issue and update us on the development, let's see how serious they are also in resolving this issue, your money is at stake here and so is PSNET, who's reputation is being questioned.

We advise your friend to drop a message to our support as well to check the status of his/her withdrawal. The fastest way to do so is connect with us through our TG support account or TG bot (the latter is available 24/7)

I've done all the verification steps and even supplied my Source of Funds documents. They're just rouges!

[Maris Lunt]

You can see they are not responding anymore. PST.NET is a SCAM!!!

Is there any chance you can find rest of information they are asking from you or no?
I gave them temporary negative feedback for now, but you can go ahead and create flag against them, so that other members can review and support it.
My feedback can be corrected later if they change their decision or consider returning confiscated coins to you.

How can I create a Flag against them?

[Maris Lunt]

I think PST.NET deserves to receive negative feedback and red flag against them for doing this, unless they return coins they received from user.

Yes, they do deserve that negative feedback, the issue can be easily solved by simply sending it back to the owner but they haven't done that and OP has the evidence that there's money sent to their address. I am sure that they're not going to return that money, that's a lot of bitcoin for no work at all besides being a scum of society so I doubt they will deal with that problem, pretty sure that they will prolong the issue here and talk about different reasons why they can't return the money and blame the victim.

This is the reality - they're merely fabricating unreasonable excuses. I don't understand the term "high risk crypto". If it's indeed high risk, why are they retaining it and shutting down my account? Why can't they just give it back?

[NeuroticFish]

do you actually realize what you're doing?

Well, if they have only a virtual office and so on, they do realize what they're doing and I would not be surprised if it was planned from start: look legit until some bigger funds come in, then scam. Nowadays we've seen far too many scams hidden under the KYC and "high risk funds" umbrella. I fear that what they do now is that they're stalling, maybe they get another big fish before they have to change their colors to "rinse and repeat".

I think that the best choice may be to ask the authorities for help.

How can I create a Flag against them?

You can start with https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;addflag=3548015

PS. Try to edit and add to posts instead of creating consecutive ones.

[coin-investor]

We have already explained why we are obliged to check all the incoming transactions and how it is done, and we would be happy to communicate with you and your lawyer on this matter through our compliance department, as this is where we can provide most up-to-date information about the legal matters for this case. Moreover, any information from your side about how your retirement bonus became 100% high risk crypto will be most welcomed and would help much the investigation process.

Does OP need a lawyer for this case? OP just mistakenly sent his money and he even offer $1000 so you will send it back to the sender's address, there are too many explanations, I don't think OP created a fraud for him to go through this strenuous and depressing process, this will ruin your business and it will cause your bankruptcy because it's an honest mistake that you cannot correct by sending the money back.

Let's see in the coming days if OP will give us a positive update, I hope OP gets his money back, there's no fraud here, it's just an honest mistake.