Bitcoin Forum

Hello,

First of all, I have been using localbitcoins.com which works really good for buying and selling Bitcoins

I am new in this kind of investment. I purchased 150 dollars of bitcoins in localbitcoins first and then put it in a wallet of a trading platform.

Then, it went well, I obtained almost 300 dollars of benefits after two-way transactions.  Then, I thought it could be better, so I bought 0.3 bitcoins and took them to the trading platform. After almost 1 month, I earned up to 2 bitcoins. Once I withdraw the bitcoins and sent them to localbitcoins.com in order to sell them, the trading platform administrator sent me a message telling me that the transaction has been blocked because an unusual profits. Then, I have to send my documentation and 10% of profits to unlock the operation.

Which oponion do you have of this situation?

Appareantly, this platform seems to be good. But I don't know, I would like to ask you about your opinion based on experience.

localbtccontract.com

Thank you.

you have been scammed.

As a rule of thumb: if anybody asks you to pay them in order to receive money you're due, it's a scam. Think about: they owe YOU money, they're holding money that would legally belong to you... Why on earth would they ask you to send them more money in order to "unlock" funds you legally own if it wasn't to scam you?

Think about a FIAT equivalent: you're standing on the street and somebody you have never seen before asks to borrow $100, and promises to meet you in the same spot after 1 week to return your $100 and $10 intrest.
The next week, you're standing on the agreed upon spot, the guy appears but instead of giving you $110, he says: "i'm currently in possesion of $110 that belongs to you, but i don't trust you, so you'll have to give me another $20 and let me walk away... When I come back, i'll give you the $130"... Mind you: you've never seen this bloke before, you don't have his phone number, you have no way of tracking him down... Do you think many people would fork over another $20? Why would crypto be any different?

I'm a bit confused

What's the relation of https://localbitcoins.com/ and https://localbtccontract.com/ ?

Do you invest in localbtccontract? Because the sites is unavailable to reached right now, it say "403 Forbidden"

If so, then sorry... you've got scammed

Thank you mocaccino. Then, how can I report this legally?

Jawhead999: the website is this one:
https://localbtccontract.com.ipaddress.com/

Regards,

Well, you can go to your local law enforcement agency.... In most cases: the local police station.
This being said, most police officers won't even know what you're talking about, so the odds of actually getting your money back are slim to none.

But, if you don't open an official police report, you miss out on the tiny chance of getting your money back if they ever find the guys who did this... If there is no report, law enforcement will never know you were scammed... Don't get your hopes up tough!

You can help others by opening a proper scam accusation (following the scam accusation format that's been described in the sticky post in this subforum) and maybe report it to google safesearch aswell... That way you might help some other people, but it won't make you get your money back i'm afraid.

Consider it a very expensive lesson... Tough luck :(

I appreciate that. I will let you know more about this if you need.

I sign in with this URL, then , I enter to my wallet and can operate with trading.  It is better to use this with the mobile phone.

https://www.localbtccontract.com/#/login

What do you think?

I am going to try to verify their IP adress

Thank you.

euhm, isn't that the site that scammed you by not releasing your funds unless you payed them 10% of your balance to "unlock" your own money?
In that case, you are not really trading, you are just being scammed... So no, it's not better to use with your mobile phone, it's better to remove all apps related to this site from your phone and step away... They scammed you, there is no reason to visit them ever again, unless it's to take a couple of screenshots/recordings to go to the police.

You don't need to verify their ip address, you need to save their ip, try to contact their hosting provider and DNS provider, go to the police to report you've been scammed and fill in the google safesearch forms... That's all... Don't log in to "trade", they're not going to pay you anyways (at least, that is if this was the site you were talking about, the one that forced you to deposit more money before they promised you'd be able to withdraw)

I have a question, had you attempt to withdraw your funds when you earn profit the first time that you made $150 to $300? I am wondering how you made a new deposit of 0.3BTC without test the platform if it's working the right way. Also, I heard the first time about this website. How did you found this site? It's surprising as a beginner you multiply your capital within a short time. Wasn't it quite suspicious? Honestly, they are just scamming you with an easy method. Any legit site wouldn't ask for a 10% profit where they are holding the funds. Why not ask them to keep 10% from the balance and send back the remaining funds to you? If you send any funds to them just you are going to lose again. Don't trust them, whatever is gone, it's just forever. Bitcoin is irreversible, any organization wouldn't catch them very easily. You can say 0.01% chance to expose them. Don't use any worst exchange and seek for a reputed exchange. Remember, your greedy behavior is responsible for your loss if I am not wrong.

Thank you for your reply, Coolcryptovator

I totally agree with you. I have been a fool .. made profits quite fast and it is not normal for anybody who is beginning.

I carried out a withdraw my first earnings (100 to 300) and could sell them in localbitcoins.com.  I guess that was the first "trap".  Of course, this time I am not going to trust them and send what they require. I told them to have the 0.1% of the benefits and this is a reply:

You are now frozen due to an abnormal account. So you can only follow the requirements in the email sent to you by the platform, and then you can re-use your account. Because the platform has already begun to review. You cannot use your account and funds now. You need to submit the information that the platform requires you to provide. And recharge and pay a 10% deposit to use your funds and account again



Thank you again.

Let's go back to work and recover the losses..

sorry to say this I doubt you'll get you money back. even if you pay the 10% you'll just get scammed again. also, the webserver is from Singapore(based on the link you provided above) you can try and contract their cybercrime department if they have one and ask what you can do about the issue.

Thank you acroman08 for your suggestion. I will try to contact cybercrime department in Singapore.
Regards,

What do you think about this link?

https://www.localbtccontract.com/?vip=f7Twkg#/

This one is what I am using to log in. It is an https and it requires a verification code sent to my email which I used to register.


I have found the contact of Monetary Authority of Singapore. Do you think they are aware of this issues?

Thank you.

Having an ssl certificate and having a 2FA procedure means nothing at all... I can slap certbot on any server and have a valid x3 certificate in minutes... SMS's can be bought in bulk and cost fractions of a cent, sometimes the sender doesn't even have to pass KYC.

Stop messing with dodgy sites, it allmost seems like you're trying to up this scam's pagerank or something...

You said they asked money for the sole purpose of unlocking money they owed you... That's a scam... step away and stop posting their links...

Hi, I read your post, sorry you have been scammed, my company launched an interesting project for victims of crypto scam and fraud. Its a platform where you can report crypto scam for free.

Thank you jelenaFDB. I will try it.

mocacinno, sorry I won't post more URL.

Just one question, I was looking for my wallet address I created in that page. I found the transactions in Blockchain. com, and I saw all the transactions I have made . Does this mean that my digital wallet still exists? Is there a way to get my 0.44 bitcoins from there?  I mean, I need to transfer those bitcoins to my Localbitcoins.com account.

Thank you for any answer.

You don't own the private keys for the addresses that were funded do you? The scammer owns them... So no, there is no way to get those funds back just by knowing which address was funded...
Sorry to be the barer of bad news, but that's just the way it is i'm afraid...

Either the scammer gives you your money back (wich is higly unlikely), or law enforcement catches him and forces him to refund his victims, or your money is gone... There is no other option i'm afraid.

Hello Ricky I have problem like you with loccalbtcontract

I wrote to the police in Singapore, as it is recommended by them. Looks like they have more problems with this type of ... scams... :'(

 
Obviously, you are an amateur.

1. You can get verified crypto law firms on your case

2. Get crypto forensic team trace where the coins were cashed out

3. Send court order to exchange where coins were cashed out through real identity of people who used those address.

4.  You impound assets they bought with stolen coins /licit money, you put scums in jail, and investors get part of their investments back minus law firms
     and company fees.

can you find out the companies that are looking for the lost cryptocurrency?

The criminal uses one coinjoin, mixer or non-KYC exchange to a privacy-coin and all those firms are worthless.
Sure, if you're faced with a dumb criminal, transactions can be tracked... But this is rare, very rare.
I've been around for a long while, and the odds somebody falling for a scam like this gets his funds back are allmost nonexistant.

It's a different case if a big exchange or person that used to have an IRL presence goes scam, but in this case, i would refrain from giving the op false hope.

What do you mean? if you are a victim of crypto fraud you can file a claim on our website icifdb.org and get connected with verified crypto law firms.

Most of the large volume scams are done by a stole document / fake identity on exchanges that support KYC or criminals are buying assets ( villas, yachts, penthouses) directly with cryptocurrency from specialised protected shell companies. However due to introduction of travel rule and mandatory KYC/AML through most of the exchanges the belt is tightening. Barrier to entry into crypto scam is increasing and its not easy to be a criminal. On top of that there are many forensic companies that hold the information about the whole chains of addresses that are involved into fraudalent activity and they are constantly monitored. It is true that no one can stop crime 100 % but the percentage of non KYC methods of transfer are in decline and criminals have less and less space to hide away. Our aim is to help as much as we can, we do not claim we can recover each case but we will do our best to put all of our staff technology and connections in order to make crypto space a bit more secure.

Ricky can you write me on personal message?

Hello everybody, sorry this post didn't send updates to my email. I am reading JelenaFDB and mocaccino. Thank you for your interesting words and feedback. I am interested in this, of course.

 I can see my wallet adress (WA) (public WA) but I haven't got my private keys. Where are they generated? In LocalBitcoins.com?  Are they in my Dashboard?

I remember that there was a first message saying "write this on a piece of paper" as I signed up to LocalBitcoins I am going to check this out. If I had the private key, would it be possible to restore my BTC?

JelenaFDB what you are telling us makes sense. BTC should be a secure blockchain and trading for simple people like me should be secure. As this discussion is not allowed to have urls and so on, can you send me a list of forensic companies so I can see by myself if this is true? 

mocaccino, what you say  is that anybody can "hack" bitcoins ... right?

Please note: I am just asking!

Thank you so much.

Well,

If i'm able to follow your story, you moved your funds from localbitcoins (which is a real site, it is known for locking accounts, but they are real) to a scam site. This means that the scammer has the private key for the address that's currently funded with your money. He (or she) is the only one who can spend it.

I think there is some miscommunications: nobody can hack bitcoins, with some exceptions due to flaws in wallets. In this case, they don't hack bitcoin, they exploit a flaw in a wallet to steal from somebody else, but they're not actually "hacking" bitcoin.

As for JenelaFDB: it seems she is promoting some new service... The domain they're using is quite old, but it seems like google cache and the wayback machine don't have any pre-existing data about them, making me think they're new...
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2884270;sa=showPosts
What she says makes some sense in some ways, but in my experience i've allmost never seen an unknown scammer (like yours) getting caught. Big ones, public ones, the ones that used a real company under their real name in order to scam people: sure... They end up behind bars... But small websites using fake company's under fake names, using whois protection on some bulletproof host: allmost never... Not for the lack of trying, but because it's allmost impossible to track them down.
Most scammers use a mixer, a coinjoin transaction or exchange their BTC for XMR. They also tend to keep their "earnings" for a long time, and tend to withdraw them from sketchy exchanges in different country's. It's possible they use a fake identity, but there are sooo many people exchanging BTC to FIAT on every given day, that it becomes impossible to know who is the scammer that scammed you.

I'm going to give an IRL situation: a bank robber is stealing money from a bank. The bank manager says: we always write down the serial numbers of all banknotes we have, so we will catch the robbers when they deposit our notes using a fake identity.... Sure, this is true IF and only IF the robbers don't wash their money trough a network of little stores first. If they do, sure, they'll still deposit stolen money, but it won't be the same bills they stole from the bank earlyer. Sure, if you knew exactly who to look for, you could arrest them, but you don't know who to look for: $50.000 was stolen from bank x on the 1st of januari, and some unknown dude is depositing $45.000 of laundered on the 1st of may in a bank in a different country, there is no way of connecting them.
In the crypto ecosphere it's even easyer: you don't need a lot of small stores, you just need to use a mixer. Everybody could do this, it's very easy and cheap, so there's no reason any real hacker wouldn't use them.

I'd be carefull using new services... I'm not saying they are fake, i'm just saying that i don't know them, and a lot of scammers prey on people that are new in this community. It's not unheared of that scammers target scam victims. Once again, i'm NOT saying this is the case here... I'm just telling you to look out not to get scammed a second time.

you can send trusted crypto firms that deal with stolen bitcoins?

Rickyy I was also deceived by the site localbtcontract only I have more than yours, if we unite efforts we can achieve a better result, your business is to ignore me or not

Hey

If I have few photos of "an agent" who kinda represented me on localbtccontract...

Would it help me some how?

Usually scammers steal images to be used on their webpages and profiles... Use google image search.... If it's a stolen photo, it has 0 value. If it's a real photo it might have 0.0000000001 value: in other words, it only has a value IF somebody recognizes the photo AND if you find somebody in the same country as the person in the photo that is willing to start legal proceedings against this person.

Sorry , I have been busy and couldn't read propely your posts.
mocaccino, great information, thank you very much. Thank you for your advises too. I am not going to be scammed again.  About what you have explained, yes, I guess there are so many transactions that it is almost impossible to track them.  :'(

JelenaFDB, if you have some information or advertisements, please send it by private message. Looks like we should not post any names or something  in these messages.

Star Ter, I thought I sent you a message last week. Appareantly , it wasn't sent. I will try to , otherwise, please send one to me.
SF213, looks like we have the same scammer.. we cannot share photos but send me a message describing the situation please.

In addition: I have a question. If somebody finds the scammer/scammers or the organisation where they work for, would it be possible to have the bitcoins back?  Will the police or whoever catches the scammers  be able to return the bitcoins to us?

Good luck to Star Ter and SF213. If your situation is similar to mine, again, don't hesitate to message me (I am trying to do it)


Thank you.

Regards,

Hi,Don’t know how to begin with, even I fell in this trap, I lost a huge money. Please let me know if you guys gets any leads to get this culprits. Now they change the domain to www.localbitcoinco.com

Thanks  lot Cricragu. How did you know it? Is it possible to track them?

Regards,

Rickypren, I guess they have multiple domains. They shared this link to transfer the bitcoins. I have no clue how to track them. Let’s work together and get those culprits.

Hello,

Cricragu,thank you very much, I would like to get the culprits, but I don't know how to do it. As mocaccino said, it can be really complicated. I don't have the tools to do this. I tell you what I did:
 - I sent an email to the police in Signapore but they haven't contacted me yet. I guess my european email has reached their mailbox as a possible Scam. Otherwise, they are so busy that they cannot take care of this because it takes a lot of time for them.
 - I have found a telephone number  of the Monetary Authority of Singapore but I have to be sure that they could take care of this business . I would not like to disturb them.
 - I have been using the BTC sniffer found in the website posted by JelenaFDB to find my wallet address. I can't , but I can see the transactions in Blockchain . com

By now, I am waiting for  SF213 to see if we can share the email and verify the "agent" who contacted us. In addition, I would like to contact Star ter but I cannot send private messages through this forum


Suggestions? Take into account that we don't want to call the attention from this organisation or whatever they are. If anybody can give advices, they are much more than welcome. In my opinion, in my point of view, I don't know what to do.


Regards,

Cricragu we can work together

Hello, any news?

The url which Cricragu sent , localvbitcoinco , is not working anymore. They are moving that "webpage" a lot.

Hello All, Any updates from anyone? Please let me know if you guys find any leads. I lost huge money. Any help would be much appreciated.

Hello, not news at the moment. I thought about creating a new email contact so we can all talk by message using another way, because I cannot send private messages.  What do you all think?

Regards,