Changelly scam accusations: what's going on

[Michael Holman]

the bad reviews do need some explaining tho, the same pattern keeps coming up and if you don't know what you're looking at it looks pretty bad

most of the complaints go the same way. someone sends a big amount, gets flagged by compliance, does the KYC and their funds are still stuck. they're furious and honestly fair enough. AML holds on big transactions can take forever and the communication isn't great. some ppl never get a resolution they're happy with either, and i get why they'd call it a scam at that point

it's still a slow compliance process with bad communication, and nobody ran off with anyone's money. thats the difference

then on top of that a big chunk of the bad reviews are straight up fake  recovery scam services post them to reel in ppl who are already stressed. if you see ""i got my funds back after contacting THE service"" thats an ad

for normal crypto to crypto swaps in sensible amounts changelly's worked fine for a lot of ppl for a long time. just know what you're getting into before you send six figures thru any swap service

[Potato Chips]

From a consumer's point of view, the easiest solution is to just avoid them at all cost LOL. I've used them before, but stopped after all the valid negative reviews. Same with other instant exchanges like fixed float, etc.

We have many actual no-kyc exchanges in the forum that has escrowed funds, I'd rather use them than changelly. If you're a whale though, you have to use multiple exchanges, break the entire depo amount into pieces and send much below the escrowed amount in order to minimize the risk as much as possible.

Check out the Exchanges board if you haven't yet: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=223.0

[Doan9269]

I don't know maybe this is even intended to discourage for the use of instant exchange or something else, but it is so disappointing to see that users will get caught along the line when they have huge amount of money on some of those platforms, should I say they are being professionally trained scammers or what?

I will also suggest that if this is a kind of scam accusation thread, then you may try to move it to the scam accusation board and follow the format if this is all about filing a report on them.

[Alphakilo]

Although this seems like sort of a scam accusation, but I can understand why this topic is created here because it has to do with swapping.
There's also ChangeNOW, or SimpleSwap in the loop with 1 star review and this makes me only able to comment on few words of caution to apply to avoid falling victim in the end after using these services.

You can for one use small test amounts before trying to send large funds, send funds only from personal wallet or major notable exchanges and not from mixers or other banned or red flagged sources to avoid issues. You should also try as much to do smaller transfers and keep a good record of history or receipts or bank statements intact Incase there's KYC requirements trigger activated and you need to clear your funds.

Besides this, it's best to use more notable platforms when trying to swap your crypto currency to other currency to avoid such incidents of frozen funds or kyc trigger requirements all of a sudden.

[logfiles]

The problem with the so called AML compliant platforms is that most of them use it as an excuse to freeze and hold onto the user funds while they themselves have no operating licence or are not even regulated.
This is why you will see a number of negative reviews pop up

then on top of that a big chunk of the bad reviews are straight up fake  recovery scam services post them to reel in ppl who are already stressed. if you see ""i got my funds back after contacting THE service"" thats an ad

But looking at this, I get the picture that you must have gone through trustpilot reviews. This is where that review platform becomes unreliable with lots of fake reviews aimed at advertising other fake scam services.

[RGBTC]

What’s going on? Has the battle for a large number of CEX users just begun?
Did they send in some shills to try and salvage their already tarnished reputation on this forum? There were at least 5 threads mentioning this exchanger posted by new users as of Oct 8th.
https://bitlist.co/search?content=changelly&only_topic_starter=true&limit=20&sort_by=date_desc

I then realized the broader context: exchanges were shutting down one by one due to a wave of global regulatory changes, and non-KYC exchangers stepped in to fill the void.

[hugeblack]

That’s right; Changelly engages in a form of selective scamming. They freeze funds belonging to users they know won't complete KYC procedures or who have violated terms of service (but they wait until the deposit is made before enforcing the rule.)
They are good at marketing, which is why this practice continues.

[Z-tight]

send funds only from personal wallet or major notable exchanges and not from mixers or other banned or red flagged sources to avoid issues.

Look, it doesn't really matter where you send funds from when you are dealing with a selective scamming platform. It is a hit or miss, you could be lucky with smaller tx's and they would process it just fine, but as soon as the big one hits their exchange, they will try to keep it for themselves and frustrate you with the bs of 'slow compliance process', until you eventually forget about the money.

Op, you'd have to try harder shilling this platform. The bitcointalk community is already aware of how shady they are, a good start to win our trust back is to tell your employers to settle all the pending scam accusations against them in the forum.

[joniboini]

it's still a slow compliance process with bad communication, and nobody ran off with anyone's money. thats the difference

If they improve the transparency maybe people will look at them in a better light, but as of now we can't verify anything. Not to mention competing services are numerous now. If someone asked me for a recommendation I'd definitely name other services instead of Changelly or related platform that has track records of selective KYC or unclear KYC in the past. You are free to continue using them, but saying it's just a slow processes is giving them too much leeway imo.

[stompix]

Bullshit! Changelly doesn't do any AML checks!
What they do is selectively scam users when they see funds come from sources that the user might have trouble providing proof he won the funds.
AML checks...lol...Changelly is based in Russia, Russia was suspended from FATF in 2023...what AML checks?

What’s going on? Has the battle for a large number of CEX users just begun?
Did they send in some shills to try and salvage their already tarnished reputation on this forum? There were at least 5 threads mentioning this exchanger posted by new users as of Oct 8th.
https://bitlist.co/search?content=changelly&only_topic_starter=true&limit=20&sort_by=date_desc

They have been doing this for a while, it's the same SEO spam Bitget was doing a year ago.
Funny how this topic survived, maybe because it has scam as deserved in the title?

Anyhow I love the fact that if indexed, it does worse for them than they thought.

[sunsilk]

for normal crypto to crypto swaps in sensible amounts changelly's worked fine for a lot of ppl for a long time. just know what you're getting into before you send six figures thru any swap service

So you want us to still use them even for some reasonable amount? I think that contradicts what you have just said.

If they're going to target big amounts, they can even mess out with the smaller amounts as these users will just pass on it if they're giving them trouble of swapping for those transactions.

We've been there that we just let it go when small amounts are involved and if they do that for a couple of hundred or thousands of people, merging all the amounts will still make them a lot of money.

Which means still a NO even for sensible amounts you say.

[ultrloa]

for normal crypto to crypto swaps in sensible amounts changelly's worked fine for a lot of ppl for a long time. just know what you're getting into before you send six figures thru any swap service

So you want us to still use them even for some reasonable amount? I think that contradicts what you have just said.

If they're going to target big amounts, they can even mess out with the smaller amounts as these users will just pass on it if they're giving them trouble of swapping for those transactions.

We've been there that we just let it go when small amounts are involved and if they do that for a couple of hundred or thousands of people, merging all the amounts will still make them a lot of money.

Which means still a NO even for sensible amounts you say.

There are several complains I heard towards them and that's not good anymore. Even small amount to use is not advisable anymore, since what people need is to transfer on much reliable platform. Since there are more better than them.

Still trying their services, even if he knows that the site is started to became shady might just give him more further issues.

Lots of scam platforms exploit such thinking and if they know its scam better leave it.

[sunsilk]

There are several complains I heard towards them and that's not good anymore.

There's a lot actually. They're posted in the scam accusations.

Even small amount to use is not advisable anymore, since what people need is to transfer on much reliable platform. Since there are more better than them.

Still trying their services, even if he knows that the site is started to became shady might just give him more further issues.

Lots of scam platforms exploit such thinking and if they know its scam better leave it.

That's what I am saying, he's saying that with small amounts it's just fine to swap in this exchange where in there were a lot of problems and accusations have been posted about it.

And that's makes no sense if it has got accusations in big amounts and say that it's fine to trade with small amounts.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

From a consumer's point of view, the easiest solution is to just avoid them at all cost LOL. I've used them before, but stopped after all the valid negative reviews. Same with other instant exchanges like fixed float, etc.

Changelly does not have a good reputation and it belongs to an ecosystem with many projects, platforms that have bad or not too good reputation.
ChangeNow.io (Evercode Lab) - Scam. Illegally holding of 100 BCH (11 bitcoins).

8 years later, people still use Changelly and others in this ecosystem from Evercode Lab, that is quite surprising.
Another case reported in this forum last year.
URGENT: Changelly Has Held My Funds for 16 Days.