The man from the dating app looked at the boxes.
He was an architect from China who stayed in Maryland on a long-term assignment. He was still waiting to get his Covid-19 booster shot and she had developed a serious crush on him. He told her that he was going to take her to China to meet his family when the Pandemic was over.
When the man, who went by the name Ze Zhao, told Ms. Vu that he could help her make money by trading cryptocurrencies, she was intrigued.
She said that he was very knowledgeable about the whole trading process.
The man was not trying to help Ms. Vu invest her money. She said that he was entrapping her in a type of financial scam that combines the age-old appeal of romance with the newer temptation of overnight wealth.
Within weeks, Ms. Vu had sent more than $300,000 worth of Bitcoin to an address in Hong Kong that she was told was connected to an account on the OSL exchange. The website looked legit, had online customer support and was updated to show that Ms. Vu's balance was changing.
Mr. Zhao had promised her that her investments would help them get married and start a life together.
He said that they could make more money on top of OSL and go on a honeymoon.
There was no honeymoon or a windfall. Instead of opening an exchange account, Ms. Vu deposited her money into the other person's digital wallet.
She is confused about what happened.
She said she thought she knew him.
Romance scam, which involves faking romantic interest to gain a victim's trust, has increased in the pandemic. So have the prices of things. Criminals looking to part victims from their savings can use the entry point of crypt.
The Federal Trade Commission received about 56,000 romance scam reports last year, which resulted in $139 million in losses. The agency received more reports the previous year. In a bulletin last fall, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Oregon office warned of the emergence of a new category of cyber crime, which was called "Crypto dating scam." In the first seven months of the year, more than 1,700 cases of the scam have been reported.
This type of scam is thought to have started in China before spreading to the United States and Europe. The Chinese name for it is pig butchering, a reference to the way victims are fattened up before being scammed.
Jan Santiago, the deputy director of the Global Anti-Scam Organization, a nonprofit that represents victims of onlinecryptocurrencies scam, said that unlike typical romance scam, these are going after younger people.
Mr. Santiago said that it was mostly young people who were getting cheated.
Last year, Jane Lee began looking into dating scam in the digital age. She signed up for several popular dating apps and quickly matched with men who were interested in investing.
The combination of the two has made this a successful scam.
Ms. Lee's company works with several dating apps to prevent fraud, and she said that the scam artists try to move the conversation off of a dating app and onto a messaging service that is harder for companies to track.
The victim is bombarded with flirtatious messages from the scam artist. The victim is offered a chance to learn how to invest his or her money for fast, low-risk gains.
Ms. Lee said that the scam starts with the victim buying a virtual currency on a legitimate site, and then getting instructions for transferring it to a fake exchange. The victim's money appears on the exchange's website, and he or she starts investing it under the guidance of the scam artist.
The Nigerian prince scam of yore was more elaborate than this one. Some victims have said that they were directed to websites with charts and tickers showing the prices of various assets. The names and addresses of the fake exchanges are frequently changed, and victims are often allowed to withdraw small amounts of money early on, making them more comfortable depositing larger sums later.
Mr. Santiago of the Global Anti-Scam Organization said that this kind of scam is very labor intensive and time consuming.
Experts say that Cryptocurrencies are useful to scam artists because of their relative privacy. Criminals can obscure the trail of money if they set up a digital wallet that is anonymous. Because there is no central bank or deposit insurance, stolen money can't be recovered.
A social media producer from Tennessee fell victim to a romance scam. She was visiting a friend in California when she matched with a man named Hao, who said he lived nearby and worked in the clothing business.
The two continued texting after she came home. She told him that she was adopted from China, and he told her that he was from the same province as her birth family. He started calling her sister and joked that he was her brother. She said that they video-chatted once, but only 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846 888-666-1846
She said she thought he was shy.
After her mother died, Ms. Hutchinson received nearly $300,000 from the sale of her childhood home. She was told to invest that money in cryptocurrencies.
There is a glossary. Cryptocurrencies have gone from a curiosity to a viable investment, making them almost impossible to ignore. Let us help you with the terminology.
There is a virtual currency called th digital currency called th digital currency is called th digital currency is called th digital currency is called th digital currency is called th digital currency is called th digital currency is called th digital currency is called th digital currency is There is a digital token that can be sent anywhere in the world. This form of digital currency is stored and moved on a payment network.
There is a system for storing data called the Blockchain. A database maintained communally that reliably stores digital information is known as a blockchain. Non-currency-based companies and governments are trying to use the same technology that was used to store all of the Bitcoins.
It is possible to pay with corp coin. The first major company to list its shares on a U.S. stock exchange is Coinbase, a platform that allows people and companies to buy and sell various digital currencies.
There is a type of finance called cryptocurrencies. The development of cryptocurrencies spawned a parallel universe of alternative financial services, known as Decentralized Finance, or DeFi, which allowed businesses to move into traditional banking territory, including lending and borrowing.
He told her that he wanted to teach her to invest in cryptocurrencies when she was free, and that she should bring some changes to her life.
He gave her a wallet address that he said was connected to an account on an exchange called ICAC. She sent more when the money appeared on the website.
She couldn't believe how easy it was to make money. She took out a loan after investing her entire savings.
Ms. Hutchinson was suspicious when she tried to withdraw money. A customer service agent for ICAC told her that her account would be frozen unless she paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes. Her conversation with Hao went quiet.
She said, "I was like, oh, God, what have I done?"
Ms. Hutchinson is trying to get her life back together. She is working with the local police in Florida to try to locate her scam artist, and she and her father live in their R.V., which is one of the few assets they have left.
Ms. Hutchinson doesn't expect to get her money back, but she hopes that other people will be more cautious about strangers who promise to help them.
She said that it felt like the new trend, and she needed to get in.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
