[2018-02-15] Austrian Bitcoin Scam: 10,000 Victims Lose 12,000 BTC- $115 Million

[tyz]

Austrian Bitcoin Scam: 10,000 Victims Lose 12,000 BTC ($115 Million)

An alleged scam involving investments in bitcoin in Austria has reportedly affected over ten thousand investors in the country and around Europe.

https://www.ccn.com/austrian-bitcoin-scam-10000-victims-lose-12000-btc-115-million/

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[Kemarit]

Austrian Bitcoin Scam: 10,000 Victims Lose 12,000 BTC ($115 Million)

An alleged scam involving investments in bitcoin in Austria has reportedly affected over ten thousand investors in the country and around Europe.

https://www.ccn.com/austrian-bitcoin-scam-10000-victims-lose-12000-btc-115-million/

Well it looks like a Ponzi run scheme from the very beginning.

A Die Presse report reveals investors were lured by the promise of soaring returns of 1.5%-4% per week on their deposited bitcoins. Investors were also rewarded for bringing new users into the fold.

Its gonna be a expensive lesson to learn here. But its very clear that this is HYIP, and if those investors are not that greedy and learn to do their homework, they wouldn't be scammed or could exit early and get back their initial investments with little profit. They probably re-invest that's why the Ponzi was able to run successfully until it collapses when no money was coming in. Good thing though that the perpetuators have been identified and it will be just a matter of time before they can be arrested and put to jail. Although this is another negative news but I do hope it will not make a bigger impact because bitcoin is currently on a bullrun.

[secondgarlic]

It amazes me that people still haven't figured out how a Ponzi scheme works and the alarm bells don't start ringing when they see that they have to bring in more users in order for the system to work?

Or perhaps, what is even worse, these people know that it is a Ponzi scheme but they are counting on the fact that they will have won their investments back by the time the system implodes, which would mean that they would be knowingly bringing people in and trying to scam them out of their money.

I don't know what is worse: Ignorance or malintent.

[darkangel11]

It amazes me that people still haven't figured out how a Ponzi scheme works and the alarm bells don't start ringing when they see that they have to bring in more users in order for the system to work?

Or perhaps, what is even worse, these people know that it is a Ponzi scheme but they are counting on the fact that they will have won their investments back by the time the system implodes, which would mean that they would be knowingly bringing people in and trying to scam them out of their money.

I don't know what is worse: Ignorance or malintent.

It's the second. 100% ignorance and denial.
You can see a similar behavior presented by people who invest in cloud mining. Most of these companies are proven to be stealing from their customers or have been operating as financial pyramids and yet people are constantly asking about them and sending them money. It's unbelievable.

And it pays you every time a member in your downline makes a deposit, not only for the first time but for every time. This is a typical feature of a scheme. As someone invests the referrer gains a chunk of their investment and the scheme operator takes the rest.

[richardsNY]

It's basically the same as what has happened with BitConnect -- if something looks too good to be true, then it is a scam by default. It's something the past has taught us, and yet people keep falling for these investment scams. I have seen a lot YouTubers shill for BitConnect bragging about how much they made, and that they were so convinced of its legitimacy, that they would invest another $10k very soon. All these videos have been taken offline by these shills for obvious reasons, where they even claim to be a victim as well, pathetic liars. Seriously, how can these people sleep knowing they made others lose their entire life savings? The people investing in these schemes are stupid, and maybe not even mentally capable of using common sense to begin with....

[superjeyy]

It amazes me that people still haven't figured out how a Ponzi scheme works and the alarm bells don't start ringing when they see that they have to bring in more users in order for the system to work?

Or perhaps, what is even worse, these people know that it is a Ponzi scheme but they are counting on the fact that they will have won their investments back by the time the system implodes, which would mean that they would be knowingly bringing people in and trying to scam them out of their money.

I don't know what is worse: Ignorance or malintent.

It can really be heartbreaking and frustrating to see people believe in such agenda when it is too obvious that there is something fishy about it. This is why awareness and education is really important. People should really start doing their research so as to avoid situations like this. I don't know when people would start believing that when things are too good to be true, the chances of it being real is very slim which is why we should not let ourselves be fooled by such "opportunities". Scam has been rampant, but people has yet to learn and it's saddening.

[akamit]

Austrian Bitcoin Scam: 10,000 Victims Lose 12,000 BTC ($115 Million)

An alleged scam involving investments in bitcoin in Austria has reportedly affected over ten thousand investors in the country and around Europe.

https://www.ccn.com/austrian-bitcoin-scam-10000-victims-lose-12000-btc-115-million/

Unbelievable, still peoples believe in hyip?   Now I don't only blame the hyip creators, but I will also blame those peoples who invest in hyips.
Peoples invests in hyips, shows interest and that's why hyip creators always creates hyips and later runs away with the money. Investors just let them success knowingly.
And investors knowingly gamble their money in hyips. When they makes profit, they smiles. And when they get scammed they complain and then waits for another hyip.  

To those 10,000 victims idiots,
Invest in me, I swear I will not run with your money. But I will offer you realistic returns on your investment.
If you are reading this, then don't hesitate to invest in me. If you can invest in hyips than why not me?

[orions.belt19]

It amazes me that people still haven't figured out how a Ponzi scheme works and the alarm bells don't start ringing when they see that they have to bring in more users in order for the system to work?

Or perhaps, what is even worse, these people know that it is a Ponzi scheme but they are counting on the fact that they will have won their investments back by the time the system implodes, which would mean that they would be knowingly bringing people in and trying to scam them out of their money.

I don't know what is worse: Ignorance or malintent.

It's the second. 100% ignorance and denial.
You can see a similar behavior presented by people who invest in cloud mining. Most of these companies are proven to be stealing from their customers or have been operating as financial pyramids and yet people are constantly asking about them and sending them money. It's unbelievable.

And it pays you every time a member in your downline makes a deposit, not only for the first time but for every time. This is a typical feature of a scheme. As someone invests the referrer gains a chunk of their investment and the scheme operator takes the rest.

This is probably why there are still scams that prevail - because there are still many who participate and this generates huge income, usually for the scammers. Some participants think that they can outscam the scammers and readily exit the scam before it bites them in the butt. Of course, this always backfires and many are victims of elaborate scams.

I still believe that a majority don’t know about scams and are just simply ignorant fools. They fall for the promise of high returns and some are just desperate to have some profits. Most scams are elaborate enough to attract those who think there’s such a thing where one may get rich in an instant.

[Theb]

One of the biggest reasons why Bitcoin really needs to be regulated by the government. In my own perspective anonymity is useless anymore if we want Bitcoin to grow as a currency, without the government regulating it we have less chance of tracking back your money from this kinds of ponzi schemes. Obviously if we are all linked in our Bitcoin addresses crimes likes this will be possible to trace and stealing their citizen's money would be harder. 115,000,000$ is really a big number let us hope that it won't happen again in the future.

[entrepmind23]

Austrian Bitcoin Scam: 10,000 Victims Lose 12,000 BTC ($115 Million)

An alleged scam involving investments in bitcoin in Austria has reportedly affected over ten thousand investors in the country and around Europe.

https://www.ccn.com/austrian-bitcoin-scam-10000-victims-lose-12000-btc-115-million/

When there is a fixed interest in a specified period of time and multi-level marketing in an investment scheme then it would already be a red flag. The scammers like them exist because there are people who are willing to invest even if it is obvious that the company may run anytime if they want to. I still remember Hashocean before in which I invested as well being a newbie and they are suddenly gone before the halving. That is my first time investing into a scam because I thought they would last long and they have a real mining farm. They scam 700,000 users that time and now another 10,000 are scammed. They will not stop as long as there are people who will be willing to be scammed. I believe USI-Tech has the same scheme and they are still active now so for those investors of that company, they better be careful.

[Kakmakr]

I can tell you from personal experience that people will not listen, when Greed is involved. Just recently, one of my friends said that they "Got into Bitcoin" and this was their exact words. I asked him what exchange he used and he mentioned Xapo, so it did not raise any immediate red flags.  

When he asked me how much interest I receive on my investment per week, the red flags went up immediately and I decided to investigate further. We know, Bitcoin has no fixed interest rate and the price is determined by Supply & Demand.

It turned out that these people were paying weekly interest at %14 and they had the typical Ponzi structure with "Downline" incentives and referral rewards.

I warned my friend and educated him on Ponzi schemes, but his judgement was so clouded by Greed, that he ignored my warnings and even invested more and eventually lost everything, when the scheme collapsed.  

Greed is a powerful drug!

[LtMotioN]

This is unfortunately a new thing to a lot of us, that we never got to experience. A lot of people never get the opportunity to make lots of money.
I joined beetkonnekt with some ETN I mined and sold as their blockchain launched. Sure I had a small amount in there but it was a constant thing where I had to tell myself "No, we only put the free money in. This is really high risk".
I luckily managed to keep myself from putting some of my actual portfolio in it. However the greed was something I havent really experienced before in my life. It was kind of hard to keep a cool head about it, I was tempted to put in more almost every day saying to myself "Man I would have made so much more profit by now"

As Andreas says in one of his videos, people will only learn after they have been personally burned. The problem here is the general education level of the public about Bitcoin. People just throw money at this, most of my colleagues even who own way more BTC than me(they didnt get their house robbed empty twice last year like me so they can afford to buy lol) cant even tell me what a blockchain is. This means that a lot of people would think these ponzi schemes are bitcoin.

We should all take it upon ourselves to try educate and help everyone we meet who is new to cryptocurrency. It's terrible how many people have lost their life savings or even their family members due to these scams. I think a lot of people experience greed for the first time in their lives with this. We never know how we will react in a situation untill it pops up.

This is also the biggest positive role I think regulators and governments can play, cryptocurrency IS the future. But the public needs to be educated around this.

Hope the victims of this specific scam can recover. If anyone reading this lost money remember that things will turn up again.

[1Referee]

It may sound harsh, but it has to be said like this. If you invest your hard earned cash or precious coins into anything of this scheme'ish nature, you deserve to lose your capital. People may not agree with me, but I don't care. If you don't have a basic sense of what's a potential scam and what not, you're mentally not capable of investing in anything. With such interest rates, one can only conclude that this scheme is going to implode at some stage, which in most cases is within a year of starting. It's almost easily to calculate forward where you can somewhat predict when it will start to implode based on previous schemes functioning as benchmark.

[darkangel11]

This is probably why there are still scams that prevail - because there are still many who participate and this generates huge income, usually for the scammers. Some participants think that they can outscam the scammers and readily exit the scam before it bites them in the butt. Of course, this always backfires and many are victims of elaborate scams.

I still believe that a majority don’t know about scams and are just simply ignorant fools. They fall for the promise of high returns and some are just desperate to have some profits. Most scams are elaborate enough to attract those who think there’s such a thing where one may get rich in an instant.

Right. There are like 3 types of people in most schemes.
1. Greedy and stupid. Those are at the bottom of the pyramid. Investors who think they are still going in in the first part of the scam and will manage to take their money out before it collapses. Most of these people lose money. They are the mules that carry the burden.
2. Greedy and smart. Those are people who make money on the referrals. They are using free promotions given by the scam operator, taking part in their events, giveaways, are advertising for them. Most of these people make it out with some money.
3. Greedy insiders. Those are people who know the operator. They loan him money to start the whole thing and are the real investors in the scheme. They know how it works and they are there to make it look legit. They finance all the events, giveaways, promotional campaigns, and ultimately make money along with the operator.

The common thing they share is that all of them know it's a scam and all of them are greedy. The only difference is some of them end up broke.

[zickle]

Invest in me, I swear I will not run with your money. But I will offer you realistic returns on your investment.
If you are reading this, then don't hesitate to invest in me. If you can invest in hyips than why not me?

Your brain could have awesome hashrate, but anyway you have too low ROI for that people.  

[CryptoBry]

It amazes me that people still haven't figured out how a Ponzi scheme works and the alarm bells don't start ringing when they see that they have to bring in more users in order for the system to work? Or perhaps, what is even worse, these people know that it is a Ponzi scheme but they are counting on the fact that they will have won their investments back by the time the system implodes, which would mean that they would be knowingly bringing people in and trying to scam them out of their money. I don't know what is worse: Ignorance or malintent.

One thing is for sure: Greed knows no bounds and it can affect all the strata of the society whether you are poor or rich, educated or not. Greed is a universal human trait and if we are not really careful we can be victimized by a scam scheme since we all want more and more money without thinking if the vehicle can be legit or not. And this news will never be the last because as we are reading this post am sure there are more programs being cooked right now made to duped people out of their money.

[FirEaSeA]

It's so upsetting that there are still a lot of people who get fooled in instant returns and the worst part is they are using bitcoin.

[jhenfelipe]

More than 10k victims, that's a lot. Invest and earn without doing anything PLUS have a bonus for every referral. Indeed many people still want an easy money As long as there is one person who will join a HYIP, there will be more who would fall for it due to referral (if they trust the referrer so much).

Both the referrer and the referred user are at fault, but I think worst are those who refer users knowing that the site is a Ponzi and could run any time, just for their own benefit.

[Mikhail 777]

It's certainly very terrible when you lose such big money, and it's so ridiculous (it was already said more than once that you should not trust your funds to any funds! It's all a scam! Just keep and wait for a good time for sale!

[whitecaramel1]

A lot of money but it is not a lot of money for the sector.but this is a negative news for the sector..