Is This a Scam?

Dear Scott,

Your Bitcoin scam article prevented me from losing $5,000. Thank you! However, it raises another question: Where can I find out categorically if Oasis Trade is a scam company?

Tegan

Hi Tegan

Yes it is.

Scott

He Threatened to Kill Me

Hi Scott,

I read your column on scams and wanted to share my story. I got a call a couple of years ago and knew straight away that it was a scam due to the guy’s funny accent, but I decided to play along for fun. I said yes to all of the questions and pretended to be really excited. After about thirty minutes I jokingly offered my credit card details and even the password to my online banking. I wish I hadn’t.

The guy on the other end of the phone was furious at being mocked. Straight away he went from nice to nasty and told me he was going to slit my throat! I was a bit unnerved but chuckled and said “but I thought we were friends now”. He began to threaten me by saying he knew where I lived and that his ‘boys’ would be around shortly. I doubted this but was still crapping my dacks a little.

I said I had to go now and hung up. The bloke proceeded to ring back about ten times in a row. I answered once again and tried to laugh and pretend I wasn’t worried. He told me I was the winner of the ‘Golden Casket’, along with a few more threats of throat slitting. So now when I get these calls I’m not a smart alec and say politely “not interested, thank you”.

Jason

Hi Jason,

Don’t think of them as harmless scammers.

There are reports of Australians who have been murdered in Nigeria trying to get their money back.

The truth is that they’re highly organised crime syndicates that are (collectively) making billions of dollars a year, and they have little patience for being messed about.

In the week after I registered my number with the scam website Bitcoin Profits, I received dozens of phone calls at all hours of the day and night. They’ve even worked out how to make it appear like they’re calling from an Aussie landline. Regardless, each time I politely said: ‘I know this is a scam, please never call me again’ and then I’d hang up. After a week they gave up.

Scott

The Double Rip

Hi Scott,

I need you to look into a company for me.I was on the phone talking with a "Financial advisor" from a company called TradeMote. I first encountered this company in March this year when I saw a clip on Facebook. It was of an interview on Sunrise (Channel 7). They were interviewing an average bloke who happened to invest in a Bitcoin company and in a very short time had amassed a small fortune.

I am 62 years old and had recently retired and had withdrawn my Superannuation. I thought I would try this investment because it was only around $200 investment. I was contacted by a lady who sounded quite genuine. She asked me what my financial goals were and I told her a figure I made up on the spot.

In a very short time the investment she required from me turned to $5000 to "secure" my position. A few days later another $5000 was required to "secure" my position. I was able to log on to my TradeMote account and saw how fast the account was growing. Then they wanted a $20,000 investment to "secure" my position.

When I tried to transfer the funds my bank (Westpac) contacted me and said they weren't going to allow the transfer as the account I was transferring to was on their watch list. When they contacted me again to see why I hadn't transferred the money I told them about the banks response and I also said I wanted to take the profit out. They eventually said I could do that but they needed a copy of my Passport and a bank statement.

I told them there was no way I was going to supply those documents and why couldn't they just transfer the funds to the account I had sent the funds from? I stopped answering their calls and in a very short time my account was virtually zero!

Then, I was contacted a few days ago by another advisor who said he was concerned that I had lost that money and for an investment of $10,000-$20,000 he would work to get my money back. I haven't been able to find this company on any scam lists but their website certainly looks real?

If you can check this company out I would be very grateful.Kind regards

Dennis

The number of people who contacted me in a similar situation to Dennis was frightening.

I call this scam the ‘double rip’:

The same scammers contact the victim (posing as a different company) and offer to help get their money back … as long as they deposit more money.

Another version of this is where the victims are contacted by official sounding lawyers (also the same scammers) who say they are conducting a class action on behalf of victims, and they require seed funding to take them on and get back their money.

This scam works because they’re targeting victims that easy targets (they’ve already been duped once), and in many cases they’re highly emotional and are intent on chasing their painful losses.

Scott