Coin Scam Recovery

Cryptocurrency scams, like many other financial scams, can leave people feeling tricked and embarrassed. Banks have a duty to apply due diligence when looking after your money and must have procedures in place to protect vulnerable customers, highlight unusual or high-value transactions and block or delay them, where appropriate. In the first instance, your bank should be asked to investigate fraudulent transactions.

If the bank refuses to refund the lost money, a complaint can be made to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). FOS is a Government backed body set up to resolve disputes between banks and their customers. When a complaint is made to FOS, they will conduct an independent review to establish what would have been a ‘fair and reasonable’ response from the bank.

There have been a number of recent FOS decisions supporting customers who have been the victim of a push payment scams, including cryptocurrency scams.

As the claim is made against the bank, this can help circumvent the anonymity and complexity of the blockchain.

Many push payment scammers appear professional and genuinely interested in helping you make good returns on your investment. They use sophisticated online marketing techniques including social media and email to get potential cryptocurrency investors interested in making quick and substantial returns.

Once they have made contact, the scammers initially gain your trust by asking you to transfer a small amount to invest in cryptocurrency. You may well have access to an online trading account and see that your money is there and growing, as promised. There then usually follows more demands for money, for increasingly large amounts, with increased urgency.

Then out of the blue (or upon a request to withdraw money), access to your investment account is blocked, your investment manager cannot be reached, and your money has disappeared.

Like many financial frauds, crypto scammers are using increasingly sophisticated ways to trick people into parting with their hard-earned cash. Some of the common scams include company impersonation, stolen ‘wallets’ or illegal trading.

Scammers have created fake cryptocurrency trading websites, fake social media channels and fake crypto wallets using very similar domain names to legitimate ones. These clone firms may include testimonials and trading records, to make the sites appear more trustworthy and believable.

Other sites are designed to be phishing pages – to steal your personal information, including genuine passwords and recovery phrases you hold to genuine crypto wallets. Once they have your details, passwords can be changed, so you no longer have access to your own accounts.

Since January 2020, crypto asset businesses must comply with Money Laundering Regulations and be registered with City watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Any firm not registered with the FCA is trading illegally and should have returned any crypto assets to its customers and stopped trading by January 2021.

Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud is where you give permission to your bank to make the transfer to the other person’s bank account, believing they are a genuine company, not a clever impersonator who is scamming you.

Unfortunately, online APP fraud is becoming increasingly common. An authorised push payment is one where you authorise your own bank to make the transaction. Once the authorised payment is made, the scammers usually transfer your money into another account, often overseas, details of which you never know, so the money is effectively lost.

If you are paying for goods or services with cryptocurrency, double-check that the retailer you are dealing with accepts crypto as a means of payment – not all do.

If you are investing in cryptocurrency, watch out for people who contact you out of the blue for example through social media, email campaigns, messaging apps or by phone, guaranteeing high returns, quickly. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is! The value of cryptocurrency goes up and down frequently and so there are never any guarantees as to how cryptocurrency investments will perform.

If you are researching cryptocurrency investments online, watch out for online adverts that look professional and link to genuine-looking websites.

Do your research:

• Are they registered with the FCA?
• Have there been any complaints against them?
• Is the firm genuine or a clone, pretending to be someone else?

If you are not sure, take your time and don’t be rushed into making an investment. Speak to family and friends and seek advice from an independent financial adviser.

The short answer is very little. Cryptocurrency investments may not be FCA regulated. They are considered very high, speculative investments and you should be prepared to lose all your money if something goes wrong. If they are not FCA-regulated, then you may not be able to get help from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) or Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

If you think you have been the victim of a cryptocurrency scam, contact your bank immediately and report it to Action Fraud, the National Fraud and Cyber Crime Reporting Centre. If you have lost money, that may lead to a criminal investigation by the police.

If criminal proceedings are taken and there is a successful conviction, then the Court can award compensation. However, it can sometimes be difficult to trace the fraudster, particularly if they are abroad, or they may no longer have any assets with which to pay any compensation.