Got scammed by localbitcoins trader Prateeketc

[shahid7221]

Myself shahid from mumbai. I had an old stash of btc with me which i wanted to cash out. I choose to deal from localbitcoins. Since i did not have a verfied account there, i decided to contact a trader and execute a deal outside of localbitcoins.

I first contacted "Abidhussainf" but our times did not match so i went ahead and contacted another trader who goes by the id "Prateeketc". I contacted him on his whatsapp number  8217331774. He replied quickly and we dealt without escrow for Rs. 20000. Since the deal was successful, i decided to proceed with another deal of 50000 INR to which i sent him around 0.015 btc. He assured me that he will send me the funds in 10 minutes after which he went offline from whatsapp and even blocked me on calls now.

I got in touch with the local police station today who refereed me to cyber crime bran to register a case of fraud. They have asked me to submit his details asap. If anybody here has any details about this person kindly let me know.

Also it would be great if you guys please suggest me what other option i have to recover my amount

[TheUltraElite]

Firstly do remove the phone number, this is a public forum and such information should not be posted directly.

Secondly, I think you have done what you can possibly do in such situations. Reporting to the local police is what you can do and beyond that is not in your control. Keeping aside the reality that it will do no help at all, sadly.

If anybody here has any details about this person kindly let me know.

Very less likely to find such a case, if the person is a fraudster, you will probably have been the first person being scammed because they never re-use names or accounts.

All I have to say is that when you are trading in amounts as big as half a lac, why not use an escrow? It is a simple measure and keeps you safe. Do remember that coins once sent are gone forever, they are no longer your coins. Hence in future do not make this mistake.

[Rotten Egg]

Myself shahid from mumbai. I had an old stash of btc with me which i wanted to cash out. I choose to deal from localbitcoins. Since i did not have a verfied account there, i decided to contact a trader and execute a deal outside of localbitcoins.

I first contacted "Abidhussainf" but our times did not match so i went ahead and contacted another trader who goes by the id "Prateeketc". I contacted him on his whatsapp number  8217331774. He replied quickly and we dealt without escrow for Rs. 20000. Since the deal was successful, i decided to proceed with another deal of 50000 INR to which i sent him around 0.015 btc. He assured me that he will send me the funds in 10 minutes after which he went offline from whatsapp and even blocked me on calls now.

I got in touch with the local police station today who refereed me to cyber crime bran to register a case of fraud. They have asked me to submit his details asap. If anybody here has any details about this person kindly let me know.

Also it would be great if you guys please suggest me what other option i have to recover my amount

As per your information, this is the profile link of the scammer - https://localbitcoins.com/accounts/profile/Prateeketc/. It seems he has ID, Passport or Driver’s license verified with LocalBitcoins. You must have a copy of your police report with you as well. Provide it to the LocalBitcoins support and ask for scammer's ID and hand it over to police. If support doesn't cooperate, take screenshot and provide it to Police as well.

Do NOT back out from chasing these scammers.

[teosanru]

Myself shahid from mumbai. I had an old stash of btc with me which i wanted to cash out. I choose to deal from localbitcoins. Since i did not have a verfied account there, i decided to contact a trader and execute a deal outside of localbitcoins.

I first contacted "Abidhussainf" but our times did not match so i went ahead and contacted another trader who goes by the id "Prateeketc". I contacted him on his whatsapp number  8217331774. He replied quickly and we dealt without escrow for Rs. 20000. Since the deal was successful, i decided to proceed with another deal of 50000 INR to which i sent him around 0.015 btc. He assured me that he will send me the funds in 10 minutes after which he went offline from whatsapp and even blocked me on calls now.

I got in touch with the local police station today who refereed me to cyber crime bran to register a case of fraud. They have asked me to submit his details asap. If anybody here has any details about this person kindly let me know.

Also it would be great if you guys please suggest me what other option i have to recover my amount

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no chance that you would be able to recover your money, if you have whatsapp chat and some details of that person you can lodge an FIR against the person in both civil as well as criminal law. But I am not too hopeful that they will help you in tracing that person, try contacting local bitcoin support if you can get any identity details of that person, also try to request police officers or even offer kickbacks to get the details attached with the phone number he is using because if you can find him chances are you will be able to recover the money

[Bitcoin Smith]

Myself shahid from mumbai. I had an old stash of btc with me which i wanted to cash out. I choose to deal from localbitcoins. Since i did not have a verfied account there, i decided to contact a trader and execute a deal outside of localbitcoins.

I first contacted "Abidhussainf" but our times did not match so i went ahead and contacted another trader who goes by the id "Prateeketc". I contacted him on his whatsapp number  8217331774. He replied quickly and we dealt without escrow for Rs. 20000. Since the deal was successful, i decided to proceed with another deal of 50000 INR to which i sent him around 0.015 btc. He assured me that he will send me the funds in 10 minutes after which he went offline from whatsapp and even blocked me on calls now.

I got in touch with the local police station today who refereed me to cyber crime bran to register a case of fraud. They have asked me to submit his details asap. If anybody here has any details about this person kindly let me know.

Also it would be great if you guys please suggest me what other option i have to recover my amount

As per your information, this is the profile link of the scammer - https://localbitcoins.com/accounts/profile/Prateeketc/. It seems he has ID, Passport or Driver’s license verified with LocalBitcoins. You must have a copy of your police report with you as well. Provide it to the LocalBitcoins support and ask for scammer's ID and hand it over to police. If support doesn't cooperate, take screenshot and provide it to Police as well.

Do NOT back out from chasing these scammers.

Localbitcoin has no reason to provide details of someone who is verified there since everything happened is outside of the Localbitcoin platform.

You can raise a complaint to your cyber cell or by using this website https://cybercrime.gov.in/Accept.aspx and obviously they will formward this case to your local police station and verify your FIR as well then they will start investigation.

But bitter truth is nothing is going to happen as soon as possible, it may take years or even forever to find this case.


But you can do one thing here to hold your funds which you sent to the scammer account by contacting your bank account manager or the customer support then you can tell that this funds were sent from your account without your authorization or you send this for an online purchase but you didn't get the product so the bank will contact the Prateeketc and wait for his explanation and if you still not convinced then the funds will be under Lien until the dispute gets over.

[pakhitheboss]

Myself shahid from mumbai. I had an old stash of btc with me which i wanted to cash out. I choose to deal from localbitcoins. Since i did not have a verfied account there, i decided to contact a trader and execute a deal outside of localbitcoins.

I first contacted "Abidhussainf" but our times did not match so i went ahead and contacted another trader who goes by the id "Prateeketc". I contacted him on his whatsapp number  8217331774. He replied quickly and we dealt without escrow for Rs. 20000. Since the deal was successful, i decided to proceed with another deal of 50000 INR to which i sent him around 0.015 btc. He assured me that he will send me the funds in 10 minutes after which he went offline from whatsapp and even blocked me on calls now.

I got in touch with the local police station today who refereed me to cyber crime bran to register a case of fraud. They have asked me to submit his details asap. If anybody here has any details about this person kindly let me know.

Also it would be great if you guys please suggest me what other option i have to recover my amount

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no chance that you would be able to recover your money, if you have whatsapp chat and some details of that person you can lodge an FIR against the person in both civil as well as criminal law. But I am not too hopeful that they will help you in tracing that person, try contacting local bitcoin support if you can get any identity details of that person, also try to request police officers or even offer kickbacks to get the details attached with the phone number he is using because if you can find him chances are you will be able to recover the money

Every seller or buyer on local bitcoin nowadays has to go through KYC. I do not think the OP is telling the complete truth. He himself might be a scammer trying to find out loopholes by posting this topic.

Op did not use local bitcoins escrow service, therefore he is responsible for his loss. Local bitcoin will not provide any information to him as he never used their platform. Op cannot do anything here and do not believe in what he is saying as he might be either a competitor or a  fraudster. Did he provide on this forum any link where we can see the FIR he raised?

Another thing is his first post and he came to Bitcointalk asking for a solution. Where there are many forums to do the same, he also did not mention it in his post.

I would recommend everyone here to ignore his post as he might be a scammer.

[shahid7221]

Myself shahid from mumbai. I had an old stash of btc with me which i wanted to cash out. I choose to deal from localbitcoins. Since i did not have a verfied account there, i decided to contact a trader and execute a deal outside of localbitcoins.

I first contacted "Abidhussainf" but our times did not match so i went ahead and contacted another trader who goes by the id "Prateeketc". I contacted him on his whatsapp number  8217331774. He replied quickly and we dealt without escrow for Rs. 20000. Since the deal was successful, i decided to proceed with another deal of 50000 INR to which i sent him around 0.015 btc. He assured me that he will send me the funds in 10 minutes after which he went offline from whatsapp and even blocked me on calls now.

I got in touch with the local police station today who refereed me to cyber crime bran to register a case of fraud. They have asked me to submit his details asap. If anybody here has any details about this person kindly let me know.

Also it would be great if you guys please suggest me what other option i have to recover my amount

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no chance that you would be able to recover your money, if you have whatsapp chat and some details of that person you can lodge an FIR against the person in both civil as well as criminal law. But I am not too hopeful that they will help you in tracing that person, try contacting local bitcoin support if you can get any identity details of that person, also try to request police officers or even offer kickbacks to get the details attached with the phone number he is using because if you can find him chances are you will be able to recover the money

Every seller or buyer on local bitcoin nowadays has to go through KYC. I do not think the OP is telling the complete truth. He himself might be a scammer trying to find out loopholes by posting this topic.

Op did not use local bitcoins escrow service, therefore he is responsible for his loss. Local bitcoin will not provide any information to him as he never used their platform. Op cannot do anything here and do not believe in what he is saying as he might be either a competitor or a  fraudster. Did he provide on this forum any link where we can see the FIR he raised?

Another thing is his first post and he came to Bitcointalk asking for a solution. Where there are many forums to do the same, he also did not mention it in his post.

I would recommend everyone here to ignore his post as he might be a scammer.

Calling me a scammer for what? Its me who has lost 50k and yes i accept my fault for not using escrow but that does not mean you will call me a scammer.
Not using escrow just because of trust does not make me a scammer bro. I needed the money on urgent basis so i decided to skip escrow.
What proofs do you want? I have all the whatsapp conversations which i have already submitted to the police station. The reason for starting this thread was to get details about this scammer "Prateeketc" who is now out of reach. You can even see his last seen on localbitcoins.

And i would like to know what made you accuse me? Did i ask any monetary help apart from his details? Did i beg you anything? Its my loss and i shall deal with it. Fraudsters should be dealt strictly so they do not repeat it with anyone in future.

P.S to All: Sorry for the late reply as i was busy running from pillar to post and i will get him nailed for sure soon. I might not be posting updates here, and if there is any breakthrough in this case i will post his picture too someday in this thread.

I even have a doubt that this person might be connected to a profile "Abidhussainf" because this guy had vouched for him.

I am thankful to you guys for suggesting me different ways and ideas to get his details.

[Cryptogames999]

Myself shahid from mumbai. I had an old stash of btc with me which i wanted to cash out. I choose to deal from localbitcoins. Since i did not have a verfied account there, i decided to contact a trader and execute a deal outside of localbitcoins.

I first contacted "Abidhussainf" but our times did not match so i went ahead and contacted another trader who goes by the id "Prateeketc". I contacted him on his whatsapp number  8217331774. He replied quickly and we dealt without escrow for Rs. 20000. Since the deal was successful, i decided to proceed with another deal of 50000 INR to which i sent him around 0.015 btc. He assured me that he will send me the funds in 10 minutes after which he went offline from whatsapp and even blocked me on calls now.

I got in touch with the local police station today who refereed me to cyber crime bran to register a case of fraud. They have asked me to submit his details asap. If anybody here has any details about this person kindly let me know.

Also it would be great if you guys please suggest me what other option i have to recover my amount

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no chance that you would be able to recover your money, if you have whatsapp chat and some details of that person you can lodge an FIR against the person in both civil as well as criminal law. But I am not too hopeful that they will help you in tracing that person, try contacting local bitcoin support if you can get any identity details of that person, also try to request police officers or even offer kickbacks to get the details attached with the phone number he is using because if you can find him chances are you will be able to recover the money

Every seller or buyer on local bitcoin nowadays has to go through KYC. I do not think the OP is telling the complete truth. He himself might be a scammer trying to find out loopholes by posting this topic.

Op did not use local bitcoins escrow service, therefore he is responsible for his loss. Local bitcoin will not provide any information to him as he never used their platform. Op cannot do anything here and do not believe in what he is saying as he might be either a competitor or a  fraudster. Did he provide on this forum any link where we can see the FIR he raised?

Another thing is his first post and he came to Bitcointalk asking for a solution. Where there are many forums to do the same, he also did not mention it in his post.

I would recommend everyone here to ignore his post as he might be a scammer.

I agree with you and also how does the OP now knows Indian section in bitcointalk forums? This is something fishy or he already had more deals like this and went into lost at this point.

OP
you need to go through the local police only and their is no help online also the moderators will edit your post to remove his phone number.

Good luck for you and i am hoping that you get your money back.

[shahid7221]

I agree with you and also how does the OP now knows Indian section in bitcointalk forums? This is something fishy or he already had more deals like this and went into lost at this point.

Lame?

https://i.ibb.co/PG8QKWX/lame.jpg

Nvm, there could be many people like me who are not registered but continue to browse through this forum since it does not require one to register.

OP
you need to go through the local police only and their is no help online also the moderators will edit your post to remove his phone number.

Good luck for you and i am hoping that you get your money back.

Thanks for your suggestion anyway

[Igebotz]

Firstly do remove the phone number, this is a public forum and such information should not be posted directly.

OP I'd like to respectfully request that you pay attention to what TheUltrElite said; this is a public space, and having his phone number up there is a breach of privacy for which he could file a lawsuit; I understand that you lost money to this dude, but having his phone number up here wouldn't solve anything unless the "Find my location" app works in India, which I don't know about.

You were fortunate to be duped by a local con artist, but you must understand that LocalBitcoin is a peer-to-peer platform with the same rules everywhere: "Do not release your coins until you confirm payment in your wallet." You broke the rules and were caught in the middle with sweet words on WhatsApp. Your only option now is to contact your local police, but as crypto is illegal in India, I doubt they would intervene. Best wishes

[shahid7221]

Firstly do remove the phone number, this is a public forum and such information should not be posted directly.

OP I'd like to respectfully request that you pay attention to what TheUltrElite said; this is a public space, and having his phone number up there is a breach of privacy for which he could file a lawsuit; I understand that you lost money to this dude, but having his phone number up here wouldn't solve anything unless the "Find my location" app works in India, which I don't know about.

You were fortunate to be duped by a local con artist, but you must understand that LocalBitcoin is a peer-to-peer platform with the same rules everywhere: "Do not release your coins until you confirm payment in your wallet." You broke the rules and were caught in the middle with sweet words on WhatsApp. Your only option now is to contact your local police, but as crypto is illegal in India, I doubt they would intervene. Best wishes

I wont be shielding any scammers here by editing out their personal information. Now that I have all the rights to publish this information anywhere I want, I have posted his details publicly so that innocent people wont be his targets. You can also find his number on his ad on localbitcoins https://localbitcoins.com/ad/1398455/cash-out-your-bitcoins-cash-at-atm

[Igebotz]

OP I'd like to respectfully request that you pay attention to what TheUltrElite said; this is a public space, and having his phone number up there is a breach of privacy for which he could file a lawsuit; I understand that you lost money to this dude, but having his phone number up here wouldn't solve anything unless the "Find my location" app works in India, which I don't know about.

You were fortunate to be duped by a local con artist, but you must understand that LocalBitcoin is a peer-to-peer platform with the same rules everywhere: "Do not release your coins until you confirm payment in your wallet." You broke the rules and were caught in the middle with sweet words on WhatsApp. Your only option now is to contact your local police, but as crypto is illegal in India, I doubt they would intervene. Best wishes

I wont be shielding any scammers here by editing out their personal information. Now that I have all the rights to publish this information anywhere I want, I have posted his details publicly so that innocent people wont be his targets. You can also find his number on his ad on localbitcoins https://localbitcoins.com/ad/1398455/cash-out-your-bitcoins-cash-at-atm

I looked up his profile and saw that he has a verified profile on LocalBitcoin and good trading scores but yes people may be cunning at times but in this case, I don't want to sound nasty but you led yourself into this, why on earth would you release your coin to a random pervert? You broke the rules of peer-to-peer, as well as the rules of LocalBitcoin. I hope your local police can assist you, but be cautious next time.

[pawanjain]

Myself shahid from mumbai. I had an old stash of btc with me which i wanted to cash out. I choose to deal from localbitcoins. Since i did not have a verfied account there, i decided to contact a trader and execute a deal outside of localbitcoins.

I first contacted "Abidhussainf" but our times did not match so i went ahead and contacted another trader who goes by the id "Prateeketc". I contacted him on his whatsapp number  8217331774. He replied quickly and we dealt without escrow for Rs. 20000. Since the deal was successful, i decided to proceed with another deal of 50000 INR to which i sent him around 0.015 btc. He assured me that he will send me the funds in 10 minutes after which he went offline from whatsapp and even blocked me on calls now.

I got in touch with the local police station today who refereed me to cyber crime bran to register a case of fraud. They have asked me to submit his details asap. If anybody here has any details about this person kindly let me know.

Also it would be great if you guys please suggest me what other option i have to recover my amount

The first mistake you did was contacting a trader from Localbitcoins outside the official platform. You could have continued the trade on the official platform and they might have helped you in case of a fraud.

The second mistake you did was not to use an escrow. An escrow is a must in a P2P trade if your amount is big. Not using escrows gives an advantage to the scammer.

The third mistake you did was to send your bitcoins upfront. Whenever you do a P2P trade. Do not send your bitcoins first.

The first step to do is contact the local police and cyber crime department which you have already did.

The second step to do is raise awareness among other so that they don't fall for the same scammer again.

There's pretty much nothing more you can do about it. Just accept the losses and move on. You can also give it a last try by contacting the scammer from other number and threaten him that you have raised a complaint against him in cyber crime cell and ask him to transfer the btc back to you.

[Rotten Egg]

Myself shahid from mumbai. I had an old stash of btc with me which i wanted to cash out. I choose to deal from localbitcoins. Since i did not have a verfied account there, i decided to contact a trader and execute a deal outside of localbitcoins.

I first contacted "Abidhussainf" but our times did not match so i went ahead and contacted another trader who goes by the id "Prateeketc". I contacted him on his whatsapp number  8217331774. He replied quickly and we dealt without escrow for Rs. 20000. Since the deal was successful, i decided to proceed with another deal of 50000 INR to which i sent him around 0.015 btc. He assured me that he will send me the funds in 10 minutes after which he went offline from whatsapp and even blocked me on calls now.

I got in touch with the local police station today who refereed me to cyber crime bran to register a case of fraud. They have asked me to submit his details asap. If anybody here has any details about this person kindly let me know.

Also it would be great if you guys please suggest me what other option i have to recover my amount

As per your information, this is the profile link of the scammer - https://localbitcoins.com/accounts/profile/Prateeketc/. It seems he has ID, Passport or Driver’s license verified with LocalBitcoins. You must have a copy of your police report with you as well. Provide it to the LocalBitcoins support and ask for scammer's ID and hand it over to police. If support doesn't cooperate, take screenshot and provide it to Police as well.

Do NOT back out from chasing these scammers.

Localbitcoin has no reason to provide details of someone who is verified there since everything happened is outside of the Localbitcoin platform.

You can raise a complaint to your cyber cell or by using this website https://cybercrime.gov.in/Accept.aspx and obviously they will formward this case to your local police station and verify your FIR as well then they will start investigation.

But bitter truth is nothing is going to happen as soon as possible, it may take years or even forever to find this case.

You should not comment on something you have no idea about. If Police complaint is made and Court asks for this data LocalBitcoins.com has every reason to divulge details of this scammer, despite the fact that the trade did not take place on LocalBitcoins. Why? Becuase, if they're not compliant to a Court Order, Government of India may direct ISPs to block LocalBitcoins and start operation against those who trade over there. LocalBitcoins has no reason to lose a market as big as India to save a F**king scammer.

[automatik108]

Hi All,
I first registered on Bitcointalk in 2013 but the old account became dormant, so I have created this new one. Since LocalBitcoins is being discussed here so much, I want to add that I used to love it and that's where I first bought Bitcoin. But nowadays, buyers and sellers are few and far between there. And no one there is buying or selling big amounts, mostly it is max up to ₹25k. Back in 2013, I bought 1 BTC for just ₹3k but sadly I sold it for ₹6k 3 months later ...

Anyway, what I want to know is why is there no one there selling 1 full Bitcoin or buying 1 full Bitcoin. I find it surprising! Has everyone moved to Binance? Binance also has escrow in P2P. Even Binance doesn't have direct bank transfer to INR. Is it more cost effective to buy BTC on Binance or first buy USDT and then convert/trade-pair to BTC? I don't like WazirX, too many stories about blocked transactions with various banks and all. None of the other exchange names are worthy to even mention, and definitely not the 3 that advertised heavily during T20 World Cup (what a sad tournament for us, we got royally trolled by every Pakistani on Twitter).

So, the main thing I want to ask is, if I want to buy many lakhs worth of Bitcoin today, at the least possible fee, in the path of least resistance, avoiding crypto-phobic banks, etc. what is the best route to take?

Warm Regards

[Bitcoin Smith]

You should not comment on something you have no idea about. If Police complaint is made and Court asks for this data LocalBitcoins.com has every reason to divulge details of this scammer, despite the fact that the trade did not take place on LocalBitcoins. Why? Becuase, if they're not compliant to a Court Order, Government of India may direct ISPs to block LocalBitcoins and start operation against those who trade over there. LocalBitcoins has no reason to lose a market as big as India to save a F**king scammer.

Nobody is stopping you if you can convince the police and court that, LBC can find the scammer and return the money which is actually scammed but I think you have no idea and if I am not wrong it will take atleast 20 years for all this process.