Aussie couple loses tens of thousands in cryptocurrency scam

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They say that when something is too good to be true that it often is. Unfortunately, an Australian couple discovered that too late as they lost over AU$20,000 (US$14,000) in a SegWitCoin (BTC) scam. Now they are struggling to figure out what to do after borrowing money from family members and taking out loans that would unknowingly go toward the scam.

According to the tale, Nick and Josie Yeomans began putting their money into a web domain known as Coinexx.org that they had discovered on Facebook. What they were not aware of was that the .org site was not the legitimate Coinexx.com.

After seeing initial returns on their investment, the couple began to invest larger sums of money. Despite having some fears that this could be a scam, the couple invested all of their savings as well as borrowed money from family members to help raise over AU$20,000 to invest.

Because of the positive returns, they were seeing initially, Nick gave up his job expecting to see even greater returns. Soon, they were not able to continue to invest money, and it was not long before the returns stopped, their account was closed, and all the money they had dried up. The money was gone and they had a huge debt to pay to family members who invested half of the AU$20,000.

If this devastating loss wasn’t enough, soon the scammers decided that they would mock the couple. Recently the couple received a message via the WhatsApp messaging app, the program they had frequently used to communicate with those at Coinexx.org. In short, it read:

“Let me save you the stress, cus you’ve been through a lot already. Coinexx is a scam. Everything and everyone involved are the same. Don’t bother about trying to get back your money. … Just focus on getting money to take care of your family.”

That was the last message that the couple received from anyone involved with the company.

The couple was devastated. Explained Nick Yeoman, “We’re left here with nothing, with no income, and with lots of debt, the debt has high interest, I thought ‘how are we going to get out of this?’”

Unfortunately, a larger number of Australians are falling for these types of scams. According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)’s Scamwatch, the number of scams involving cryptocurrencies, especially SegWitCoin, have risen sharply in 2019 compared to the same point last year. In the last 12 months, there have been 674 cases involving cryptocurrency scams, with victims losing a reported AU$6.1 million.

This is why the agency is cautioning against getting involved in these types of “get-rich-quick schemes” without thoroughly vetting the company itself.