Can anyone tell me if this scenario is a scam. ASAP My wife has started this

[Strongkored]

Advice to my innocent but well meaning wife would be?.....

Every time someone contacts you and says they can teach and so on how to earn a lot of money, you have to be alert to all possible fraud, especially if you have to invest a certain amount of money for this or that reason, then it's better to just ignore it, because basically if he already know how to make a lot of money, it's impossible to look for the very small amount of money that the fraudster will usually say is a fee to start investing, so in my opinion it's better to immediately block him and not open up opportunities for him to contact you again because the fraudster will be very clever in finding a way to contact your wife again until his intention to deceive is achieved.

[adzino]

My wife was contacted from out of the blue. She is a Realtor. The person claims to be shopping for a 4 million dollar house. He later raises the amount to 6 million. My wife learns he earns his living trading bitcoin. He calls himself Mr Li. Over a few months the relationship continues but Mr Li lives in LA. We are in Scottsdale, AZ. He has spken by phone once and shares an email. He only wants to communicate by using snap chat. A month or so ago my wife got into a trade of say $500 and made profit. She did this a few times with Mr Li helping. He tells her the exact time to deposit or whatever they do to transact a deal. Weeks later he tells he she should increase the size of her investment. My wife has a bitcoin account. She tells me the process is to deposit US currency that converts to coin. Then trade. Then convert from coin to US currency. I guess Mr Li co-invests with her. The most recent time the initial investment was valued at $44K. Three trades were made on a specific date and time. Mr Li would send screen shots with markups from him as directions of what to do.
It really does not matter how much of these details I remember (I can get them cleaned up later), it's the process I want to validate. Apparently this trade event was so successful that when the money was deposited into the account, it was help by the conversion company under suspicion of fraud because there was nearly $77K profit made above a smaller beginning amount. NEXT- The party holding the funds until verified says that Mr Li and my wife need to deposit another $22,200 into the account to equal 20% of the balance for 3 days, then all money will be restored to the original account for withdrawal. With this, I am telling her no way. Scam alert. So Mr li deposits all but the last $3500 with over $42K of his personal money investment at rsik for loss by today. Original deadline was 6 days ago. Do any of these proceedures make sense? Wife claims all is done by her alone as far as creating proper crypto accounts, Tether accounts. The emails from the holding company are not grammatically correct and without a signature or contact line. Advice to my innocent but well meaning wife would be?.....

Of course it's a scam. A typical one in fact. They first give you those "profits". They gain your trust by showing your screenshots of their "activities" and the "profits" they are earning and sharing with you. I am sure when giving her the profit, if your wife ever wanted to exit and take her capital with her, they will deny it or make "excuses". That "Mr Li" and the "company" they are using for trading and actually the "same group of person". A company will never tell you to deposit more money to release your funds or clear you of suspicious activity. It makes no sense at all. The only advice to your innocent but well meaning wife would be never to make a financial deals with random person on the internet and that making money is never easy.

[Marvelman]

Let's be clear, I did not call you a scammer, but I pointed out that you are not telling the truth (intentionally or unintentionally) and that it is possible that you are a scammer.

She did not ever click on a link directing her to a site.

She never shared any of her account sign-on details.

How can you be sure of this? You base your assumptions on her claims and you said yourself that you don't have all the details.

She went to crypto.com, got screened and was given an account.

If this is true, then most of what you stated in the OP is not true. Especially this part: "The party holding the funds until verified says that Mr Li and my wife need to deposit another $22,200 into the account to equal 20% of the balance for 3 days, then all money will be restored to the original account for withdrawal." Crypto.com wouldn't do that.

She does not have very much invested. He contacted her as a potential real estate buyer.

Realtors qualify prospects by asking questions. He was a cash buyer and has been trading crypto with a team that
searches for trends. He did not solicit her to make trades.

The way you presented it, it sounds like he did.

I never have thought this is not a scam. Just making sure. But if she has legit accounts, how can she get scammed?

First, we need to establish that she has a legit account on a legit platform. Everything you've stated so far sounds like that's not the case.

[Huppercase]

My wife was contacted from out of the blue. She is a Realtor. The person claims to be shopping for a 4 million dollar house. He later raises the amount to 6 million. My wife learns he earns his living trading bitcoin. He calls himself Mr Li. Over a few months the relationship continues but Mr Li lives in LA. We are in Scottsdale, AZ. He has spken by phone once and shares an email. He only wants to communicate by using snap chat. A month or so ago my wife got into a trade of say $500 and made profit. She did this a few times with Mr Li helping. He tells her the exact time to deposit or whatever they do to transact a deal. Weeks later he tells he she should increase the size of her investment. My wife has a bitcoin account. She tells me the process is to deposit US currency that converts to coin. Then trade. Then convert from coin to US currency. I guess Mr Li co-invests with her. The most recent time the initial investment was valued at $44K.

You guys are very soft and by that, I mean you are too friendly and has given him much space than you shouldn't have in the first place. Do you know one characteristic of a scammer, they are very smart people because they dedicate their life to con people and swindle their hard earned money. What this scammer is trying to do in the first place is building a trust, a relation that will make you and your wife not to have trust issues or suspect him when he later makes a huge demand from you guys that will be a huge blow on your faces.

What he is doing is building a bridge, gain small trust, tell you to do this and that then add some sprinkle salt of profit and give back and then make you guys belive that "Yes, he did traded and return the money on interest". What exactly are guys thinking? You really think there is free money on the internet? Have you asked why didn't Mr Li does that alone so he can has all the profits so we can see his name on Forbe's list.

Three trades were made on a specific date and time. Mr Li would send screen shots with markups from him as directions of what to do.
It really does not matter how much of these details I remember (I can get them cleaned up later), it's the process I want to validate. Apparently this trade event was so successful that when the money was deposited into the account, it was help by the conversion company under suspicion of fraud because there was nearly $77K profit made above a smaller beginning amount. NEXT- The party holding the funds until verified says that Mr Li and my wife need to deposit another $22,200 into the account to equal 20% of the balance for 3 days, then all money will be restored to the original account for withdrawal. With this, I am telling her no way. Scam alert. So Mr li deposits all but the last $3500 with over $42K of his personal money investment at rsik for loss by today. Original deadline was 6 days ago. Do any of these proceedures make sense? Wife claims all is done by her alone as far as creating proper crypto accounts, Tether accounts. The emails from the holding company are not grammatically correct and without a signature or contact line. Advice to my innocent but well meaning wife would be?.....

This was the part I was telling you, build a strong bond and relationship; you started with $500 with little profits but now, the story changes quickly and as $22,200 but you see that amount that was confisticated? Nothing of such happen, it was a decoy and trap to make you guys pay that money. Oh my God, my skin is irking to this, you guys are having two head for crying out loud to outsmart this con artist. Block the hell out of him and face your family and business.

[Potato Chips]

I never have thought this is not a scam. Just making sure. But if she has legit accounts, how can she get scammed?

There must have been something that went wrong. There are scammers as well that make use of legitimate platforms to trick their users. After all, no legitimate exchange would ask for a hefty deposit first before you can withdraw your balance.

To Potato Chips

Yes, the funds are sitting in a crypto.com defi wallet. She showed it to me.

The thing is, the legitimate crypto.com defi wallet is non-custodial which means the cryptos aren't being held by a company. And you mentioned your wife's funds are being blocked right? then it is possible that the app is fake. Could you cross-check using the official link/s from here: https://crypto.com/defi-wallet

[kw012]

I confirm that she never once used a link from the other person.
She went to crypto.com list any of us and registered. She has the crypto.com defi wallet. She has Tether.
The crazy high profit from 3 transactions within 2 hours is a red flag.
The other is how they are wanting 20% of the entire $111K temporarily held only to be released in two days back to all parties.
It seems she gave 500 more yesterday so they extended the deadline to pay or lose until next Thursday.
I had no idea until last night this was happening. I think I convinced her to shut down. She's out of funds anyway.
I will not allow my financials that support the lion's share of the household's expenses to be threatened. I told her scam from day one
but she had already done a few smaller successful trades and the hook was set.
You all confirmed my suspicions. How are they making money with her legit accounts? That still nags me.
I cannot share anything off her computer because she's helping her parents across town. I have a copy of the websites
from her on my phone because she wanted to show me how legit it is.
It's like watching a slow motion train wreck. I'm just glad she did not have access to a lot money or something really stupid like a title loan on her car.

[borovichok]

Advice to my innocent but well meaning wife would be?.....

Every time someone contacts you and says they can teach and so on how to earn a lot of money, you have to be alert to all possible fraud, especially if you have to invest a certain amount of money for this or that reason, then it's better to just ignore it, because basically if he already know how to make a lot of money, it's impossible to look for the very small amount of money that the fraudster will usually say is a fee to start investing, so in my opinion it's better to immediately block him and not open up opportunities for him to contact you again because the fraudster will be very clever in finding a way to contact your wife again until his intention to deceive is achieved.

Opportunities are open daily in the market, it's our main objective to strive harder and earn quite significant profits and also sets our good strategies in trading to keep portraying news and ourselves in earning quite significant trophies and points in the market. We have intentions of raising our feets above our shoulders in the market, it's never an easy job to be on triggering trades. Fraudsters will not back down, they have this winning mentality of steady persuasion of their clients who happens to be the real trader's and investors.

[lalabotax]

....my wife need to deposit another $22,200 into the account to equal 20% of the balance for 3 days, then all money will be restored to the original account for withdrawal. With this, I am telling her no way. Scam alert. So Mr li deposits all but the last $3500 with over $42K of his personal money investment at rsik for loss by today. Original deadline was 6 days ago. Do any of these proceedures make sense? Wife claims all is done by her alone as far as creating proper crypto accounts, Tether accounts. The emails from the holding company are not grammatically correct and without a signature or contact line. Advice to my innocent but well meaning wife would be?.....

From the scenario, from the scheme experienced by your wife, I am sure that it is a scam. There have been many stories similar or even like that which in the end are scams. No matter how convincing the scammer is, they show evidence that they are serious, but unfortunately this evidence can now be created easily. The fake information that brands provide is sometimes very interesting and influences our belief in following the scammer's wishes. However, we still have to be aware that scammers will always do this. And don't easily trust anyone in the digital world, especially when it comes to money. This is really unbelievable if you see how they contact your wife and promise your wife the most extraordinary things. You must always be aware of what your wife will do to comply with the scammer's wishes. be careful, mate.

[AmoreJaz]

....my wife need to deposit another $22,200 into the account to equal 20% of the balance for 3 days, then all money will be restored to the original account for withdrawal. With this, I am telling her no way. Scam alert. So Mr li deposits all but the last $3500 with over $42K of his personal money investment at rsik for loss by today. Original deadline was 6 days ago. Do any of these proceedures make sense? Wife claims all is done by her alone as far as creating proper crypto accounts, Tether accounts. The emails from the holding company are not grammatically correct and without a signature or contact line. Advice to my innocent but well meaning wife would be?.....

From the scenario, from the scheme experienced by your wife, I am sure that it is a scam. There have been many stories similar or even like that which in the end are scams. No matter how convincing the scammer is, they show evidence that they are serious, but unfortunately this evidence can now be created easily. The fake information that brands provide is sometimes very interesting and influences our belief in following the scammer's wishes. However, we still have to be aware that scammers will always do this. And don't easily trust anyone in the digital world, especially when it comes to money. This is really unbelievable if you see how they contact your wife and promise your wife the most extraordinary things. You must always be aware of what your wife will do to comply with the scammer's wishes. be careful, mate.

there are too many red flags on the scheme of these scammers. sure, they will show you profits in the beginning, so they will get your interest and be hooked about it, up until they can screw large amount of money from you and then disappear into thin air.
such scam tactic has been going on for years. they won't release your money if you don't deposit certain amount of money. that's pure scam over there. i hope the OP's wife won't be tempted to send money to these scammers without the OP's knowledge.

red flags seen on this story based from known or recorded scams :
- contacted out of the blue (unsolicited message)
- doesn't want to disclose other details where he is exactly at or other business details
- only wants to communicate by using snap chat, not a very legit way of doing business
- showing profits in the beginning, but asking to increase succeeding investments

[JoyMarsha]

Any online help that requires you to deposit some certain amount of money before it proceeds, I automatically view it as a scam. I don't know about you.

Take note that a stranger online can't volunteer to pay a huge amount of money for someone he or she doesn't know or hasn't seen before without having an interior motive to dupe that person.

What these online scammers do, is to gain your trust before they strike on you. Don't get moved or carried away with their kind nature because nothing is actually free on the internet. Therefore, you and your wife should stay off from Mr Li because he doesn't mean well to you and your wife

[wiss19]

Well, it sounds like it's all a master plan, and the person behind it is Mr. Li who pretends to be a real estate investor while he is dragging his agent into cryptocurrency or whatever he says he does. Your wife shouldn't trust anything anyone tells her, especially if it's about money and finances because people these days are always in the lookout for people that they can scam and loot. The second you guys get scammed, Mr. Li won't be seen online from the next day, I'm pretty sure about that.

So, I would advice you to not let your wife give any money for the cause either to Mr. Li or anyone. I've never heard that a platform would ask investors or traders to deposit more money in order to withdraw the current funds no matter how much profit they've managed to make. They should ask for verification or anything but not funds.

[Mpamaegbu]

NEXT- The party holding the funds until verified says that Mr Li and my wife need to deposit another $22,200 into the account to equal 20% of the balance for 3 days, then all money will be restored to the original account for withdrawal.

This, in itself, screams SCAM! Mr Li is in complete connivance of that. Your wife should run from it. The first set of transactions where she made profit were all baits to get her interested and then commit more funds in future. Scammers know how to get their victims and they know greed is the greatest undoing of man. Man is insatiable in nature. He makes something out of nothing and then he begins to expect more, the expectations grow wild and he throws caution to the wind. That's the nature of man. That's what your wife is likely to get at the end of this if she commits more to Mr Li and his cohorts. She will be scammed. Run!

[rat03gopoh]

I confirm that she never once used a link from the other person.
She went to crypto.com list any of us and registered. She has the crypto.com defi wallet. She has Tether.

There are 2 types of platforms involved here, crypto.com exchange (centralized) and crypto.com wallet (defi). The questions:

• So which one did your wife sign up for? Is Mr. Li also asked for access there?
• If not, does Mr. Li ever instructed your wife to send funds to Mr. Li's wallet address (not the address of the platform where your wife signed up)?