en
Back to the list

Crypto Scam Dupes a 75-Year-Old Woman in the U.K.

source-logo  livebitcoinnews.com 23 January 2020 19:00, UTC

It’s always rough to see people lose their money to crypto scams, but when those people are 75 years of age and when the money lost was their life savings, it’s really disheartening.

Crypto Scams Take On New Forms

This is the case for Frances Foster from Plymouth in the United Kingdom. At 75 years old, Foster is at an age where virtually every cent means something. A life in retirement can yield great returns, but it can also mean health problems, doctor visits and solitude. While this may not have been the case for Frances, the scam is even more hateful when one takes her age into consideration.

Foster came across an ad for a new bitcoin platform late last year. The company was advertising relatively high returns, which intrigued her and gave rise to the investing bug that likely exists in all of us. Sadly, this should have been a big red flag for Foster. Any company that advertises “high returns” is likely a fraudulent company because there is no way to guarantee high returns.

The world of investing is a tricky one, and nothing is ever set in stone. Things go up and down, sometimes drastically, and this is a factor that applies to virtually everything, including stocks and government bonds, but it applies double to cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin and its altcoin cousins have a very bad habit of succumbing to extreme volatility. Those who invested in 2017 and 2018 are likely aware of this already, so the idea that a bitcoin company could offer “high returns” is already a bit shady.

Nevertheless, Foster gave in and decided to invest her final 11,000 pounds into the venture. Later in the month of December, the company sent her a snarky message wishing her a Merry Christmas and explaining that her money was gone. She’s now eager to tell her story to ensure other people don’t make the same mistakes.

In an interview with the BBC, she explains:

It’s been awful. I sent my first amount of money to them in September and now 11,000 pounds is all gone… I can’t do anything about it, but maybe I can help someone else not to do what I’ve done… As everybody has told me, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Don’t Do the Same Thing

The sad fact is that despite all the good the crypto industry can do to revamp and fix our global financial infrastructure, it’s still a birthing space, which means there’s a lot of room for crypto scams and bad actors looking to get their fingers on funds they didn’t earn.

Foster came across an ad for the company on MSN. The news platform has since been contacted about the phony enterprise and is working to ensure no further ads come through.

livebitcoinnews.com