Bitcoin Forum

Hi, I have a friend that has got scammed yesterday.
He was searching on youtube about Bitcoins and he found a video about a Bitcoin Generator. He trusted it (He is noob at pc and money so he didn't know about scams).
He downloaded the program, he launched it and there was "You have to deposite 0.01 btc to [wallet address] to activate the generator". He deposited it   :-\
He restarted the program and nothing happened... he lost the money.
He want to report this to the police... can he do that? Will the police do anything? Will my friend get back his bitcoins?

He can report to the police, but he will not recover its 0.01 btc. The most important thing is that if he reports this to the police ( or directly report  to youtube) its possible that youtube will delete the video , and other ones will not fail on the same scam.

waste of time

What happen to your friend is not even scam if you ask me, but its a pure case of being greedy and that what a lot of people have been guilty of thinking there is free money somewhere. The question he should ask himself is that, is it even possible to put fiat somewhere and expect double of it in a matter of minutes?

Reporting to the police might even land him in more trouble especially if its the police department that know nothing about bitcoin which is common is several countries in the sense that, you have to explain to their understanding how you come to own the bitcoin that they cant see nor is in your account among other curiosities that will be raised which I am sure he might not have the answers.

In all, he has learnt his lessons and its time to count his losses and move on.

Depends on the country, you can always report theft of 50$ at the police, but, it is HIGHLY unlikely they will even look at your file. It is a complete waste of time for them.

Chances that that scammer lives in the same country as you, is, pretty small, and even if the police catches him, your friend will probably not see his bitcoins back. they're long gone.

Such a waste time to report because got scammed 0.01 btc.
Your friend should be learn from his mistake and don't believe with anything he found on youtube (he is really noob)

Cryptocurrency crime is something new for the police. Even cybercrime detectives are vaguely familiar with the methodologies behind these types of scams. You can report the incident, yes, but I doubt your friend will recover his bitcoins, let alone 0.01 btc. Depending on your jurisdiction and if the perpetrator is identifiable, the police will usually proceed with an arrest and will submit the matter for prosecution if there is a realistic prospect of conviction. Balancing public interest and the costs involved in prosecuting a 0.01 btc theft, I don't think you will see any thief put behind bars for this scam.

Advise your friend to be more careful in the future. That would be the best and only way to resolve this. The money is gone.

Another thing I can advise is to report the Youtube video. Removing it will prevent others from being scammed.

Reporting to the police usually will not help as most users might be in international territory to you and Police have no reach there, only if an international lawsuit is filed with solid evidence to back yourself up with. (I think this is how it works, but I may be wrong). It is just a waste of time to report him now as there will be nothing done against the scammer in question. Usually you will have no concrete evidence to get a proper response from the police.

I'm not sure if police already have some information about crypto, and its uncontrollable I guess cyber crime have its different rules from each
countries so I'm not sure if he can get any help from the local police, what he can help now is he can report it inside youtube to be deleted and
not to convince more people being victims too.

Your friend is lucky he only got scammed with a small amount,  others get scammed in way larger amount. Consider this as a lesson let it be charged to experience. Even if you file a case with the police I doubt they will process this unless you can pin point the person responsible.

The police will just say "you are really a noob and didn't know the obvious". The police will needs lots of resources to determined the inside stuffs behind the video and it will be a difficult task for just a BTC0.01 lost. Just treat that amount as a loss. Just say move on to your friend as BTC0.01 is not that big amount and can be recovered in no time.

Hope that experience will be a lesson learned from now on. There's no easy money without doing such effort.

It may be 10 btc, solving this kind of problems is useless.

Literally that guy did not scammed you, you just sent him money.

In this case, you first need to know which jurisdiction is applicable.

Ask youtube for more details is the first step. If they let criminals knowingly use their service, then they are liable.

There is no way for your friend to retrieve his bitcoins back as bitcoin transaction is irreversible, the police will not be able to help your friend too even if your friend makes a police report in his country as it is really hard to track down bitcoin scammer with just a wallet address, your friend should take this as a lesson and never trust any site that promises huge returns for investing into their site, there is no free lunch in this world.

You had already opened thread here in Bitcoin Discussion section and you already got real answers, can't understand why did you decide to open the same thread here? Do you think that answer will be different and people will say fake yes?
No man, you or your friend can't get money back and that's all. Police didn't caugh cloud mining scammers who went away with much bitcoins (more than 1000btc) and who will take care for your 0.01btc?
Forget that, you lost it and that's all, learn on mistake and don't open useless threads here.

Police: You said it was an anonymous internet user? How do you spell anonymous and what is bitcoin?

This event will be charged to our experience to not to easily trust a person specially strangers. The Police cant help for this matter except if your friend knows the scammer personally with a complete name and address but in this case your friend completely dealing with a stranger plus your friend will need a deep proof that he was scammed, showing wallet transaction alone is hard to proof as evidence so lesson learned here.

Yes, he can do that. You can report everything to police.
99.999999% not.
No.
Tell your friend to use brain next time, money doesn't grow on trees.

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New service is coming in 2018., youtube-protect - to serve and protect youtubers  ;D

He knows the name (He had is name on his YT account but he changed it), and he knows the country (he lives in the same country). And the scammer is 15 years old  :P

If he knows the name of the offender and lives within the same country, then he can simply go to any police station and report this scam.

You friend is stupid and he is not getting anything back.

Your friend who was deceived deserved it because he wanted a shortcut. It was a pure case of greed. I once was caught up too in this web early this year when I got newly into cryptocurrency and thought it was easy out there making 1btc a month. I got burnt a couple of times by some Bitcoin doubling sites like: http://bitcoin-maker.biz and others before I learnt my lesson and moved on. Let your friend love on. He has paid for his greed.

No. I reported a case of a person from my own country who scammed me of 0.15 BTC. The police told me not to repeat the mistake and trust unknown people while members here tried to blame it on my mistake of trusting the person. when you get scammed, all you can do is learn not to repeat the same mistakes else even if the person's address is known, you still won't get your money back. It's not the case when money is hacked from bank accounts which can be recovered as bitcoins cannot be traced online and police are least bothered about doing so.

Downloading a fake software is the worst mistake anyone can do and lose their money. Again if this was a case with the bank account getting hacked, possibilities were high of getting those hacked funds back but not with BTC.