20 BTC stuck with BASEFEX.COM [POTENTIAL SCAM - WARNING - BEWARE]

[naturecollision]

What happened:

being a successful but privacy-minded trader, I kept hopping derivative exchanges when eventually all would introduce KYC requirements.. of course my beloved brother got wind of my success, and he asked me to copy-trade my trades on his funds on a separate account. so I did.

so we went from bitmex to bybit and made nice gains over the years, then when bybit didn't let us withdraw more than 2btc, we needed to look out for new exchanges, luckily basefex seemed legit enough to try, so I did check it out, and it seemed and still seems great, fast, secure, good reviews, looked super professional, volume was low, but that was not enough of a red flag to deter me, nor my brother who trusts my judgement (cause it made him good money I guess). so I made two accounts, and I basically copied the trades, did one long, a limit order, no shenanigans or tricks. it filled rather quickly albeit low volume. this was some time ago. So I had transferred about 8 BTC per account to cover the 500k position on each account, and when when price went close to 50k recently, I tried to take some money off the table, cause I was expecting the market to rise further and there was already more than enough in it. long story short, around Aug 10 I received the last promotional mail (or any mail for that matter) from basefex.com - I tried withdrawing a small amount and kept hitting "resend" for the email confirmation code, but the system would not send any withdrawal confirmation request code. I tried it with the account I manage for my brother, no luck there either, no mails. failed attempts to contact support or attempts to create another account made me realize the whole email system is either down or the exchange is trying to exit-scam / pull the rug.

today I decided to close our longs, and both accounts now hold roughly 10BTC, a lot of money for me an my bro.. anyways, there currently seems to be no way of either

• withdrawing
• signing up
• getting responses from the team via email
• getting hold of the team on twitter (account got suspended sometime in the past, had not checked prior)
• getting hold of the team founder CEO and whatnot on linkedn (profiles hidden)
• getting hold of support or responses on their telegram channel

so today I decided to write two mails to support, urging basefex to manually withdraw our funds to a specified address for each account. I will likely post a copy of the mails in here without the addresses for privacy reasons.

as it stands now, I have to assume this is a fraudulent rug-pull and scam attempt by the exchange. they might have just walked away with our money. this accusasion remains intact, until I either get email reponse to my inquiry, or basefex chimes in to defend against this accusation.

until this happens: STAY THE F. AWAY FROM BASEFEX.COM. YOU CAN'T WITHDRAW and they likely STOLE a lot of money.


Scammers Profile Link:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2549992
Reference Link:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5171514.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5356102
Amount Scammed:
20.3962 BTC
Payment Method:
Bitcoin
Proof of Payment:
will follow in case BaseFEX disputes this accusation - for reasons of privacy this will not happen right now.
PM/Chat Logs:
none so far, exchange has not communicated at all, email-system seems down or this is a rug-pull-scam. no comms so far. - if exchange representative disputes my accusations, or calls me a liar, I will post proof of my side of communication attempts. for privacy reasons I will not post this right away.
Additional Notes:
if someone steals your money, make sure he pays back by whatever means necessary. if you are not willing to go this length, then don't trust any exchange with amounts in this example, and hold your BTC in cold storage which is way safer than trading anyways. I gained and lost a lot of money in the past, as trading is more like a past-time hobby of mine that turned profitable cause I usually spot macro-trends quite well. I usually also never get scammed. crypto is a minefield though, and I am still confident I can get back the money for me and my brother. should this thing not resolve and turn out into the worst case (confirmation it was a scam/rug-pull) I will likely sell the debt to anyone interested, maybe even at a discount. I don't care how anyone collects what they owe them at that point, but if those people stole from me and my brother, they will pay one way or another. we won't leave it at karma, not in this timeline. I hope everyone learns something from this. will keep everyone updated and truly hope the basefex representatives chime in here to quickly solve this issue pronto. will also answer questions to forum members if anything is unclear or anyone is just curious.

@BaseFEX: you can PM me if you want to save face, you can also publicly answer to my accusations or via the two mails I sent you (of which I have proof of having sent them to you of course).

edit: felt a little bad for not providing any proof for the reasons mentioned, so here at least some heavy evidence so far as a starter.. yea this is real.. https://imgur.com/660xo2h

edit2 9/10/21: watch newest post of mine, oh the tragedy.. topic now locked - solved - is basefex a scam? well I got my money back, late, very late. still no support answering though Oo - my money is gone though, for other reasons, see newest post...

[tokyohd]

Man why do you go to unknown exchange ?
You let binance and known exchanges
I think you have a problem with your judgment.
However the bitcointalk profile of that exchange never being active since January 2020
So I doubt they will return sooner
Goodluck.

[OmegaStarScream]

I'm not sure of the reason, but it appears that @BaseFEX is banned: https://bpip.org/Profile?p=BaseFEX

So you shouldn't expect him to P.M you, not from that account anyway so if someone does contact you through the forums, make sure that he's an actual team member before providing any personal details.

[naturecollision]

::update::

so today I decided to give it another try and attempt another withdrawal, and lo and behold, email system is back(!), and my email accounts even showed me countless delivered codes from each and every withdrawal attempt, so maybe there was actually some infrastructure disruption, maybe part of klaus schwab's cyber polygon, who knows.

anyways, I tried to do one withdrawal again, and the process worked like on other platforms, no bells and whistles, even got email confirmation that a withdrawal to specified address is being processed. so I am currently waiting for the predicted 24h period to pass, to see if any excuses or technical nuisances will get thrown my way..

again, my initial post pointed out that the exchange was rather sleek and polished, so if this goes through smoothly, I will might actually recommend the platform, as I can not exclude external factors for the disturbances so far. I will let you know.

just wait for my confirmation for everything having worked out ok before attempting to do business with them.

if it's really a scam, they probably re-activated the email system to lure in new traders, while they might want to feed me excuses like other threads on here have suggested (which have not been ultimately proven beyond any doubt) - if this thing isn't solved (aka. btc transactions done) in 24 hours, chances are 99% this thing is sketchy a.f. / not legit. not having heard from support isn't a good sign in this regard either, as I wrote them before and they have not responded so far.

[TalkStar]

::update::

so today I decided to give it another try and attempt another withdrawal, and lo and behold, email system is back(!), and my email accounts even showed me countless delivered codes from each and every withdrawal attempt, so maybe there was actually some infrastructure disruption, maybe part of klaus schwab's cyber polygon, who knows.

You have mentioned their forum profile link on your main topic. I don't know actually you hav already given them PM or not. If you haven't done that yet then i will suggest you to visit their profile and send a PM including your thread link. Waiting for their explanation is nothing wrong here IMO.

anyways, I tried to do one withdrawal again, and the process worked like on other platforms, no bells and whistles, even got email confirmation that a withdrawal to specified address is being processed. so I am currently waiting for the predicted 24h period to pass, to see if any excuses or technical nuisances will get thrown my way.

If their email confirmation code is working again then you can wait little longer for the final transaction report. Although i am not wishing anything bad for your fund but expectation is positive.

Lets wait for the transaction deadline and after that if they show no wish to release your withdrawal only then you can open flag against them from your end. Hope you got my point.

Note: We can't call anyone scammer without having proper evidences.

[naturecollision]

yeah well it's way past 24 hours so far, my suspicion they decided to get the email system back online to (likely) allow new registrations to take their money is solidifying. the withdrawal status says "waiting", will wait maybe a week, but after that it's safe to say it's one shitshow of a scam and needs to go offline asap, and everyone needs to be warned about it as well.

EDIT: so about a week later, no mails from support, no inquiries, no nothing, funds are stuck, I can watch them on the exchange, withdrawal says "waiting" I guess I can wait til xmas lol - so likely a total scam exchange, stay the F away from this everyone. if I ever get my funds back I'll let everyone know here. I am open for debt purchase offers at a discount now, others shall deal with those criminals. how does debt purchase work? well if you know the thieves personally, and you got good "convincing" skills, you can get 20BTC for the price of say 15BTC. you will get both accounts worth 10BTC each, then you deal with the enforcement yourself, not my business anymore. let me know via PM.

[naturecollision]

something moved along, suddenly the withdrawal shows as "processed" - I can not say it's a scam anymore, the funds arrived, late but they arrived, I'll let this here for others to see there was a disruption with my experience, my brother was ecstatic but I still need to find a way how to tell him that I destroyed my trezor in anger about this whole thing. then I got drunk with friends and my best friend had the genius idea to let go and burn the seed of my trading wallet, so one day I would not have to worry about taxes and whatnot. this was a stupid idea, he's stupid, and we were drunk... we ceremoniously burnt the seed to my wallet. I can see the funds in my account but I can't spend them anymore...

moral of the story: long time bitcoiner messes up by trusting small chinese trading company which clearly seemed to have ran away with a substantial amount of money, then it magically returns into a wallet I can't access anymore.

meh. don't be like me, just hodl, don't traed.

[Lucius]

something moved along, suddenly the withdrawal shows as "processed" - I can not say it's a scam anymore, the funds arrived, late but they arrived, I'll let this here for others to see there was a disruption with my experience, my brother was ecstatic but I still need to find a way how to tell him that I destroyed my trezor in anger about this whole thing. then I got drunk with friends and my best friend had the genius idea to let go and burn the seed of my trading wallet, so one day I would not have to worry about taxes and whatnot. this was a stupid idea, he's stupid, and we were drunk... we ceremoniously burnt the seed to my wallet. I can see the funds in my account but I can't spend them anymore...

moral of the story: long time bitcoiner messes up by trusting small chinese trading company which clearly seemed to have ran away with a substantial amount of money, then it magically returns into a wallet I can't access anymore.

meh. don't be like me, just hodl, don't traed.

At first, you were so naive as to send someone 20 BTC just like that, and then you just destroyed your hardware wallet and burned the seed that contains the address to which your funds were paid? In the meantime, you tried to sell your claim for 15 BTC, which seems to me like an attempt to deceive someone naive enough to believe this story.

I am open for debt purchase offers at a discount now, others shall deal with those criminals. how does debt purchase work? well if you know the thieves personally, and you got good "convincing" skills, you can get 20BTC for the price of say 15BTC. you will get both accounts worth 10BTC each, then you deal with the enforcement yourself, not my business anymore. let me know via PM.

[Potato Chips]

but I still need to find a way how to tell him that I destroyed my trezor in anger about this whole thing. then I got drunk with friends and my best friend had the genius idea to let go and burn the seed of my trading wallet, so one day I would not have to worry about taxes and whatnot. this was a stupid idea, he's stupid, and we were drunk... we ceremoniously burnt the seed to my wallet. I can see the funds in my account but I can't spend them anymore...

Two words. Jesus Christ....

It is why at least 2 backups in diff places is the recommended although it would still be useless if you won't be able to control yourself/if someone meddled 

something moved along, suddenly the withdrawal shows as "processed" - I can not say it's a scam anymore, the funds arrived, late but they arrived, I'll let this here for others to see there was a disruption with my experience, my brother was ecstatic

Seeing how they haven't gotten back to you after a month of waiting + the no updates on crucial times, it's still an exchange to stay away from, indeed keep the warnings. Also doesn't help that they are an offshore business in Seychelles.