[Money Trap] btcmax.me selectively KYC scamming, stole $8.000 worth of QORT

[allyouracid]

What happened::
It is time… after almost nine years in crypto, I got "scammed" (or money trapped or whatever you wanna call it).
Chinese scam exchange btcmax.me (and btcmax.com, same site) locked my account after deposit of 15.000 QORT and they come up with nonsense excuses about my deposit (which is from minted coins, so it really makes no sense whatsoever) triggering "platform risk control".
Their website stated that they will not KYC users with less than 1 BTC in trades, which I clearly didn't surpass; I actually didn't have a single trade on this platform.

When I told them that I won't send my personal details to an entity I know literally nothing about, they offered me to make some nonsense video, telling them who I am and that I am okay with any liabilities which arise from any illegal actions from my side. But I will certainly not do this, because it's legally meaningless, anyway.

When asking, they told me that their government required them to KYC users; however another Qortal user managed to talk to the CEO of this exchange / money trap and he told him that in the past, they were accused of messing with coin prices with fake coins, and to prevent this, they KYC users.
Doesn't make sense to you? Ya, to me neither.

This has happened only 4 days ago or so (update: meanwhile more than a week, I've prepared this text and decided to give them some time to respond, but they just didn't), and normally, I'd wait with creating a scam accusation. But as they broke their own TOS and do the widely known forced KYC thing, I think it's safe to do this now, because such behavior is a good indicator of shady behavior. Also, they don't react to mails with deadlines I set them to send back my funds, and it seems they have removed the Zendesk live chat option to talk with "support".

Scammers Profile Link:
They don't appear to have an account, here.

Amount Scammed: 15.000 QORT (~1.500+ USD) // Update 2021-03-09: almost 10.000 USD worth
Payment Method: QORT deposit on their platform
PM/Chat Logs:

Additional Notes:
Be careful using this platform. Expect your account to get frozen. If you don't wanna KYC with an entity you know nothing about, I recommend to stay away from this exchange. There are always other, more trusted (or trustless) options available. Also noteworthy: from inspecting their trading activity, it can be said with certainty that the absolute majority of the trading on this platform is fake / done by poorly programmed bots.


Update 2021-02-26: updated title from "[Money Trap] btcmax.me / btcmax.com locking user accounts, forcing users to KYC" to "[Money Trap] btcmax.me selectively KYC scamming, stole $8.000 worth of QORT "

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[sujonali1819]

Not sure how familiar this exchange to others. But I just heard about this exchange name.

very sad to hear that they locked your account and hold the money. There is no doubt it's shady behavior since generally, they are not asking for KYC lower than 1 BTC. But did you notice on their Service Agreements? Several times they have told about KYC and Money Laundering.

[allyouracid]

But did you notice on their Service Agreements? Several times they have told about KYC and Money Laundering.

Yes, the part which comes to mind is probably this:

6.1 In order to ensure the security of your own transactions and assets, you must strictly conduct transactions according to the process and rules, and verify the identity of the counterparty in accordance with KYC and AML requirements; otherwise you may face risks such as asset freeze due to suspicions of criminal activities and the platform shall not be liable for any loss of assets.

Considering all funds are minted, there is no chance the funds are obtained illegally.
With these TOS, exchanges generally give themselves a free ride on customers' money. Just in case. So whenever they feel like freezing an account, they can point toward their TOS.

Considering the circumstances, they should at least allow me to withdraw my funds and then permanently close my account.

Regardless of whether or not they decide to give me back my funds, I feel other users should be made aware of money trap btcmax.com / btcmax.me, and the chance of getting scammed out of their money if btcmax decides they don't like a certain deposit.

[Caztiel]

Its kind of shame to watch exchanges making lame attempts to trick people. First calling it KYC free exchange & then suddenly without any advance notice asking people to complete KYC to unlock their funds. Their T.O.S. gives them a higher hand though, but still its not at all acceptable.

[Traxo]

I am sorry to hear that... 

Very sleazy exchange!

I hope they repent and release your QORT!

[bitbollo]

thanks for share your bad experience. there is not much to do
in this case you are in a very bad situation since exchange could retain your funds even after you provide documents (typical shady activity). However this is the only situation, going through KYC and hoping to unblock your account.

[crowetic]

I would like to confirm this scam accusation. Same scenario happened to me, upon a test deposit of a couple thousand QORT. It seems to me that they are specifically targeting QORT, but I could be wrong about that, either way, they are definitely a scam.

[allyouracid]

thanks for share your bad experience. there is not much to do
in this case you are in a very bad situation since exchange could retain your funds even after you provide documents (typical shady activity). However this is the only situation, going through KYC and hoping to unblock your account.

I will not send them my data. I know nothing about them, and as far as I see it, they provide no information about themselves on their website. After collecting user data, they can do anything with it, and this is a risk I'm not willing to take.

However, I am willing to spend some time letting others know about this. When you google their domain, there is very little information, so it should be fairly easy to (rightfully) taint their reputation by getting this information into the search engines. It's not a big platform, so it's not a huge issue, but if a person or two can be saved from getting scammed, this way, then it was already worth it.

[Beparanf]

thanks for share your bad experience. there is not much to do
in this case you are in a very bad situation since exchange could retain your funds even after you provide documents (typical shady activity). However this is the only situation, going through KYC and hoping to unblock your account.

I will not send them my data. I know nothing about them, and as far as I see it, they provide no information about themselves on their website. After collecting user data, they can do anything with it, and this is a risk I'm not willing to take.

However, I am willing to spend some time letting others know about this. When you google their domain, there is very little information, so it should be fairly easy to (rightfully) taint their reputation by getting this information into the search engines. It's not a big platform, so it's not a huge issue, but if a person or two can be saved from getting scammed, this way, then it was already worth it.

This is the first time to hear this exchange and  I don't know if they really have a good reputation to protect at first place. Many well known exchange like coinbase, bittrex and hitbtc do this kind of shit on user account that still not KYC verified with a good remaining balance in there exchange wallet. It sucks to see that they are using ToS to hostage money from people that didn't want to undergo KYC.

You should avoid centralized exchange next time regardless if its trusted or not if you are not willing to undergo KYC because they will keep doing it to force you to do KYC or hold your account. They are using the AML policy to do it even though they are not a regulated exchange.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Not sure how familiar this exchange to others. But I just heard about this exchange name.

I'm not sure if I've heard of them before or not--some of these exchanges have very similar names and it's hard to keep track of them when there are so many.  I've never used them and after reading OP's post I will put them on my blacklist of exchanges I'll never deal with. 

Sorry you got dicked with this KYC scam and no offense, but it doesn't surprise me that it's a Chinese exchange.  I don't have any idea about how their crypto exchanges are regulated by their government, but I'd never expect a Chinese exchange not to scam you if they have a chance to.

I'm not familiar with what QORT is, by the way.  I tried looking it up on CMC and I couldn't find anything.

[allyouracid]

I'm not sure if I've heard of them before or not--some of these exchanges have very similar names and it's hard to keep track of them when there are so many.  I've never used them and after reading OP's post I will put them on my blacklist of exchanges I'll never deal with.  

There's a similarly named, a bit more known exchange called Bitmax. That's a different one, though. Just crossed my mind as in the community, there have been confusions between those two.

Sorry you got dicked with this KYC scam and no offense, but it doesn't surprise me that it's a Chinese exchange.  I don't have any idea about how their crypto exchanges are regulated by their government, but I'd never expect a Chinese exchange not to scam you if they have a chance to.

I'm not familiar with what QORT is, by the way.  I tried looking it up on CMC and I couldn't find anything.

Good opportunity to give some insight. QORT (Qortal) is QORA's successor. QORA was traded on Poloniex (and a few other exchanges) up until 2016, then got delisted and the Qortal team has been working first on improving / fixing QORA, then transitioning into Qortal ever since.
A few users (including me... oh the irony ) in the QORT community found there's need for a centralized exchange, and btcmax.com / btcmax.me was the first one to list Qortal. It's a young project (disregarding QORA's existence, that is) and still in its early phase, hence it's not on coinmarketcap.

[allyouracid]

Update: no update, so far
The scammers at btcmax.com / btcmax.me still didn't bring up the decency to send back my funds (or at least reply to my emails).
I just sent them another mail, informing them that a google search just for their domain shows this thread on page 2, and I asked them one more time to send back the funds, so we can part ways peacefully.

I also announced that I will escalate to the next level, should they decide to keep the funds which are rightfully mine. This means more search results also from other websites, and who knows, maybe China has some institutions where users can report fraudulent websites. I'll dig into that if they decide to continue ignoring me.

This isn't about the money. This is about the principle. Deciding to keep Qortal users' funds will hurt their reputation more than it will hurt us.

[allyouracid]

Just a short note: the money the scammers at btcmax.io / btcmax.me have stolen from my account is now worth almost 8.000 USD.

I'm at a point where I don't think that those scammers should get through with that, violating their own TOS and locking my account.
This isn't about the money, this is about the principle.  Does anyone know any lawyer in China (or is anybody lawyer in China, here?) who speaks fluently English and is willing to help with that? I assume that the coins are worth enough for a share of it to pay for the costs.


Btw, as a general update: I'm casually writing them mails, asking if they're willing to resolve this, finally. They don't even have the fucking decency to reply to my mails. Not a single reply since they locked my account and told me to do KYC (even though I haven't done a single trade with them).

Any help is appreciated. If you're a lawyer in China, please reply in this thread for transparency reasons. Thanks.

[allyouracid]

Another update: the scammers at btcmax.com still don't reply to my mails demanding the release of my 15000 QORT, so a few days ago, I threatened to contact the Trading Division of the Chinese Embassy in Germany. I read on the internet that this might make sense to do if you got scammed by a Chinese trading related website, which is clearly the case, here.

Yes, it does feel kinda stupid to get an actual embassy involved over that, but meh... I'm slowly running out of ideas. Let's see if they'll send me a reply or something.

The QORT I deposited there is now worth almost 10000 USD.

[wgd]

does anyone have any information about btcmax? the page has been down for over a week. It looks a bit like an exit scam ...

[allyouracid]

does anyone have any information about btcmax? the page has been down for over a week. It looks a bit like an exit scam ...

Not at all, but I know someone who at least told me he knows the owner.
He tried helping me resolve my mess, but to no avail. I will contact him again and try to get him to hand over the details of the owner.

Update: confirmed that the website is down and sent a DM to the guy who *might* be able to help. But please don't expect too much.

If there is any way to sue them (maybe something like a class action, but I don't know much about how this works, especially internationally, since they are in China), I will join.
They have scammed me out of a decent 5 figure amount, now.