Crypto Scam

Well, it doesn’t take long for something else to hit close to home.

A friend of mine just lost $3,700.00 by registering with someone who was advertising on Facebook with a link showing a taped interview with Kevin O’Leary.

Where did SafeCrypto.cc come from?

Doing a search on whois.com has revealed the following:

• SafeCrypto.cc was registered in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian territory 14 sq/km located 900 km from Christmas Island and 2,700 km NorthWest of Perth, Australia;
• The domain was registered through NameCheap.com on May 25, 2021 at 05:47 a.m EST.
• The domain registrant’s name is shielded for privacy and the apparent location of the Registrant/Admin resolves to a virtual office in Reykjavik, Iceland;
• The business address on their ContactUs page, 9309 Laurel Street Lynwood, CA 90262. does not resolve to any known address.
• Based on the time of the registration of the domain, if they were actually located in California, they would have had to register the domain name at 2:47 a.m. local time. If they were in Iceland they would have had to register the domain name at 05:47 a.m.
• Neither of the two stated locations appear to be a realistic, based on the time of registration.

Red flags

A review of their website and associated information shows some red flags. Flags such as mis-spelling and sloppy website creation as well as unreconcilable addresses or phone number. Such things as:

• The “Contact Us” page link on the main page says “Contacts”;
• On the Contact Us page, the text box where you are supposed to put your message is named “Massage*”;
• The “Sign Up” link on the main page goes to a page titled “Event Registeration Form”. Both the spelling of registration is wrong as well as the fact that you are not registering for an “event”;
• The box where you are supposed to put your “Full name” states “First Name”; and
• The text box on the “Sign Up” page which says “Choose Country” does not give any country to choose.
• Scrolling to May 2018 on the main page, “timeline” the description says “Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text”.
• The phone number for the Registrant/Admin in Iceland does not ring to any number.
• eMails are full of spelling and grammatical errors

My opinion is that that the website was quickly put together, from a readily available template. This appears to have been done without appropriate checks and balances.

This is an uncommon occurrence in a professional organization. More likely in an organization with limited resources, but can be an indicator of a scam web site.

This is very similar to those mis-spelled e-mails that promise to give you a piece of a large fortune. If you just give them your bank account information, so that they can deposit that big cheque in your account.

How it started

Well, in talking to Char she told me that she wanted to invest some money for a quick profit. Then use it to pay off the balance on her car loan. This is where it started.

On her facebook page there was an ad that featured Kevin O’Leary. Attached to that was a registration form. She filled out the registration form and was quickly contacted by someone who identified themselves as Patrick Pokhmann and advised her that he was going to be her financial advisor. Patrick did not say that he was affiliated with CoinSmart.

Patrick then asked her to install AnyDesk on her computer and allow him to walk her through the creation of a trading account with CoinSmart. She complied and gave him access to her desktop.

Then, they asked her to transfer them another $700 so that they could register her as a trader. Otherwise she wouldn’t be able to and thereby she could cash in her crypto currency.

When she decided to cash out

Someone at SafeCrypto who called themselves, Reggi, told her that she would have to pay an additional 13.4% to be able to withdraw her money. This was stated to be a “liquidity fee”. She obliged and transferred another $700, to her CoinSmart account.

Then Patrick said that he was going to send her profits to SafeCrypto and that she would have to contact the billing department to receive her funds.

What the exchange told her

CoinsSmart, a FINTRAC regulated exchange, which she transferred her funds to. They advised her “This company has scammed you” and that her funds had been transferred to SafeCrypto and that they could not be retrieved.

They said “We do not have your money, this company you spoke of is not our sister company and they have scammed you. I am sorry about this”

What SafeCrypto.cc told her

In the meantime someone from SafeCrypto.cc responded to her request for communication, via WhatsApp, and tried to tell her that CoinSmart was scamming her.

Summary

There are a number of important things to understand and remember:

1. There are a number of registered SafeCrypto domains with different domain extensions (.com, .ca, .eu, etc.). The same name does not mean the same organization.
2. Scammers like to parrot a known, reputable brand to get people to think they are legitimate. I have seen this happen a number of times, with the result that the scammer gets away with 10’s of thousands to millions of dollars.
3. Do not, under any circumstances give anyone passwords to any of your accounts. If you do, you have given control of your money to a stranger.