Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin Fam, I've gotten myself into a bit of a situation and I need the wisdom of the community to help me out.

For reasons too long and convoluted to get into, I have a sizeable sum of money deposited on this exchange: https://a16zcryptos.xyz/

Is this exchange legit?

It appears as though it's associated with the company https://a16z.com/ which is definitely legit. Same branding etc. However I'm struggling to verify the link between the two entities. I have approached the company a16z on facebook, twitter, email and asked them if this exchange is associated with them, or if it's a scam exchange but I have received no response.

The reason I asked is that the exchange has disabled my withdrawals and the customer service person is demanding KYC information for some regulatory bullshit. However they're also demanding an additional 'deposit' equivalent to 20% of my account value before they can enable withdrawals again. Naturally I was immediately sketched out by this and now think the whole exchange might be a scam.

Can anyone please confirm?

Mate, you're in a pickle here. Honestly, I don't know if it is legit as I try to keep to exchanges that are well known and have a reputation to maintain, because if things go south you can at least manage it differently.

The best you can do at this point is run some background investigations to see who owns the domain, when it was built and check if it lines up.
From the looks of it, with a domain registered this year, doesn't seem that legit to me.

https://i.imgur.com/IlicJQT.png

Here's the full search report https://who.is/whois/a16zcryptos.xyz

Thanks for the reply my friend.

Yes, they recently changed the domain from a16zcrypto.xyz to a16zcryptos.xyz

Another red flag.

Enable deposits? Or enable withdrawals?
Any service asking you to make a deposit to be able to make a withdrawal is 99.9999% scam.

Don't send any document to them and don't waste more money making another deposit.
The only thing you can do now is to learn the lesson.

yes, you are right. I have made the change in my original post.

They want another deposit in order to enable withdrawals. This was final straw for me, this seems totally sketch.

How could you trust a website with a .xyz domain extension? And this domain is very cheap you can buy it for less than $1 or 1 cent.

There are no exchanges that use that domain extension except for scammers who didn't even think that most people are smart and will think that domain is a scam based on what he looks like. I would say those who use .xyz are dumb.

How did you found this domain?
Are you the owner of that domain?
Newly registered domain shouldn't be trusted.

Because I'm an idiot and I trusted someone I clearly shouldn't have done.

How would I be the owner of the domain? I'm the one complaining it's a scam.

I just got ripped off a fortune.

How did you find that website in the first place, what's their deal/promotion/offer to make you joined and deposit. Website having .xyz domain and domain name is already a huge red flag, and the looks of it will give you idea of how poor it was made.

Sorry but your funds is lost forever. Lesson learned, try not to be an idiot next time.

yeh, I guess don't be so stupid is the moral of the story.

I found it through a chick I met on tinder. Damn, I did not see that scam coming. Should have done though. Women are always my downfall.

LOOOOOL! ;D

And you didn't see it coming? Seriously? Talking about money with a chick over Tinder and you're expecting honest-to-goodness deals? Oh, man!

Anyway, there's your lesson. I hope that sizeable sum of money is not that big. If it is, well, what can you do? I just hope that between your two heads, the larger one, I mean the one on top of your body, should be the one to dictate on your decisions next time around, especially those relating to finance.

Literary everything about this so called "exchange" is shady.
- A weird uncommon name with a .xyz domain name that they probably got for free
- Was registered recently so it is brand new
- You heard about it from a random chick on tinder!!!
- The name is similar to another company aka abusing their brand
- Doesn't allow withdrawal
- Asks for more deposit

What else do you want to see to know it is a scam? :D

Its a scam and this is not the first story about tinder mate suggest to use and exchange and invest on a project. Maybe the same person behind this and creating new fake exchange again and again to trap new people.

Never forget that any legit exchange will ask you to deposit more money to withdraw your money, if they do then its scam that's the end of the story.

A familiar cause, Tinder is notorious for being a hangout of scammers offering trading return more than George Soros. I even think that there really isn't a girl on the platform.
By the way, did you grant their last request to send KYC? It is likely that the documents will be a mean to deceive the next guys.

I hope you haven't been talking with the girl for long... quite a lot of romance scams involves weeks/months or even a year of grooming so victims are less likely to notice the red flags (one of the nastiest schemes). Reach out to friends/fam/therapist if you're having a hard time.

Report your case in any applicable law enforcement OP. You will probably not get your money back but it could help in the long run.

If you haven’t already figured it out, it’s very likely that you didn’t communicate with a chick, but with some scammer who uses a fake female profile to catch people like you. It’s an old trick, and I still don’t realize that people don’t realize that on these dating platforms most profiles are fake and artificially created by that same company.

The situation in which you meet a person online, she advises you to invest money in any nonsense and you do it, is really something you are guilty of, regardless of the bad intentions of the person on the other side.

We know that men would really be men and when someone do approach you specially if its a good lookin one then we do easily get fooled but those

only for those guys who are maniacs or being dumb when they do met up someone online but its true that this had been already a classic way of scamming people but surprisingly there are still who do get fooled with this method.

Anything that someone will offer something too good to be true then its 101%  scam.

Well, this website don't even look seriously. No name website with .xyz domain claiming to be ''The world's leading digital asset trading platform''. And scammers don't even try seriosuly because how else you would explain such thing:
https://talkimg.com/images/2023/09/10/mq2So.png
And also, Gmail for contacts. There is more than enough red flags.

I know tha's already too late and probably you already learned from your mistake, but Tinder isn't best place to look for stuff related with money, even if nice chick is offering it.

How about dating a fake model from Brazil for 15 years and now knowing she's fake?
https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/2021/11/27/61a278d922601d0a288b45a5.html

The moment I opened that website, I was sure of it it's either Tinder or Instagram, although lately, I've seen poeple being scammed after being approached with fake profiles on Linkedin, those are a bit more elaborate, they even get the names of actual business and legit brokers.


Yeah, I think this is the shitiest one I've ever seen:
https://talkimg.com/images/2023/06/12/AKbmc.png
What the hell is Fait? "Deposit money treasure" ?. Definitely a new low.

Probably scammers have arrived at the conclusion that whoever might fall for their tricks won't see these anyway, so they've got pretty lazy.

This is almost unreal, 15 years of long-distance relationships and it never occurred to a man to go to Brazil and visit her ??? This one is definitely a competitor for the idiot of the century, and I thought athletes had at least a little above average IQ - obviously not.

Sorry just looked at the top-level domain (TLD) and its a red flag for me because a legit exchange invests in a genuine looking TLD , if am not mistake these TLDs can be got for free.. if not one can get a domain at $1 or so.


I have a friend that was scammed in a similar fashion and the ending was so terrible. And the funny thing about all this you dont even get to meet the chick ::) if I would guess these are guys pretending to be chicks!

Why would you be asked to deposit more money when you already have some on the account? If they are any charges it has to be deducted from your balance, ! Am afraid to say this is a SCAm don't go ahead with this request!!

This should have been the first question you asked the community here as soon as some "chick" on tinder suggested it to you. Why did you have to send money to some website you didn't know about suggested by someone whom you have never met personally?


How sure are you? It could have been lousy dude behind the fake beautiful pictures of some chic on tinder  ;D

Yeah, well it's a good thing you realized it now and not later, after you would have sent them more funds that you'd likely never have seen again.  Asking for money in order to withdraw is probably in the top ten methods scammers have (with variations on the theme) and use most frequently.

Lol.  I'm not into social media sites or whatever it is that Tinder has to offer, so I've never visited their site or used the app, but I'd bet money that you're correct that the "girls" on there (at least the ones who are apparently giving out links to crypto exchanges) are really humans with dickandballs, XY chromosomes, bearded faces, and yada yada.  Guaranteed.

OP, if you're going to use crypto exchanges, don't fall for these tricks.  I don't know how old you are, but you really ought to know better than this.

To add information to this very detailed mental image provided by The Pharmacist, do think for a while before engaging in future conversations with these so called "girls" OP. Do you honestly believe that this would be considered a normal behavior for a girl to have in these platforms? What are the chances of you finding a girl on Tinder, that turned out to be a very successful trader and she (he) also happens to be so generous that she (he) wants you to start using an exchange that no one has ever heard of? Next time at least take the person you're chatting out to a coffee first to see if the person is really who she claims to be - If this had happened you would only had lost a few hours waiting for her since she (he) wouldn't appear and suspicion would arise. As always, have your guard up whenever you're talking with a stranger online, especially when he/she asks you to "invest" money in a random exchange.