Bogus cryptocurrency firm scams at least two Massachusetts residents, state says
![Initial flirty exchange to investor realizing he's being scammed](https://www.universalhub.com/files/styles/main_image/public/images/2023/creditcoin.png?itok=WcjZcaZx)
From the complaint: From flirty introduction to dawning realization something's wrong. See it larger.
The state Attorney General's office yesterday sued a Chinese cryptocoin venture with a name almost identical to another, more legitimate cryptocoin venture for defrauding cryptoinvestors - and moved to freeze the company's assets, which the state says it traced to an account with yet another cryptocurrency company.
In a lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court, the state says at least two Massachusetts residents wound up bilked by the fake company, which snared them with promises of healthy returns on an impending "initial coin offering" that never happened, at a domain called creditcoin.cc, which uses links to documents at creditcoin.org, which is a real company not affiliated with the Chinese knockoff.
Since at least March, 2023, CreditCoin has been representing itself as a "public blockchain," offering a "utility token," also called CreditCoin or CTC, through an upcoming "initial coin offering. In reality, CTC is a fictional cryptocurrence and all representations made about an upcoming ICO are untrue.
The state described how one person was swindled, starting with him getting chatted up on TikTok:
A CreditCoin representative approached one Massachusetts consumer through TikTok and initiated a personal relationship with him. During his communications with CreditCoin's representative, this Massachusetts victim disclosed that he resides in Massachusetts.
The CreditCoin swindle rep, who went by "Akiko Herrera," then got the impending victim to switch to the Telegram platform, which is more focused on conversations and where:
CreditCoin representatives use manipulative techniques to install a sense of security in the victims, such as engaging in personal conversations and discussing plans to visit the victims. Once trust is established, the CreditCoin representatives introduce the idea of cryptocurrency investments, such as investing in CTC ICO.
In order to establish a guise of legitimacy, CreditCoin creates hurdles to investing, such as requiring victims to notify CreditCoin of the exact amount of Bitcoin that was being sent to the wallet. If there is even a minor discrepancy, the transaction will fail. these challenges helped convince victims that CreditCoin was not a scam.
Once the original investment is made, the CreditCoin website reflects the victims' balance growing. CreditCoin representatives communicate with victims about their own earnings. The representatives indicate they are going to continue to invest and encourage victims to do the same.
On March 24, one Massachusetts victim went to Cash App and bought roughly $1,350 worth of Bitcoin, which he then transferred to CreditCoin as his initial investment, the complaint says.
He then watched as his investment "grew," at least according to the CreditCoin Web site, was encouraged to keep investing and, over the next two months, converted some $13,500 in real money into Bitcoin, which he then transferred to CreditCoin.
By May 16, CreditCoin was showing him with a balance of $54,270, the complaint says.
Then, the complaint continues, he got notification that the planned "initial coin offering" was going to happen soon and that he should liquidate his holdings because the value of the cryptocurrency would drop soon after its release. Only thing is, liquidating his holdings would require a "security" fee plus taxes, equal to $4,794.
And in text messages he supplied to the AG's office, it began to dawn on him something was wrong, because he was never told about withdrawal fees - and he knew that capital-gains taxes are paid on the profits after the fact, not beforehand. CreditCoin told him he was wrong, he could go Google it and that his funds would be available for withdrawal in real money at a particular exchange site in 24 hours.
Reader, would it surprise you to learn those funds were not available in 24 hours?
Using blockchain analytics tools, the Commonwealth traced the victims' funds, via several transactions, to a single wallet hosted by Binance.com. ...
This wallet is under the name Wang Tingting, who is a resident of China.
This wallet currently has a balance of $281,352 USD.
In addition to seeking to block CreditCoin.cc from making any offerings to Massachusetts residents, the state is also seeking an injunction to freeze Tingting's assets at Binance.com. Late yesterday, a Suffolk Superior Court judge set a hearing for Thursday on the request.
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Comments
Umm...thanks for the heads-up?
...aaaaaand it's gone.
Like, I imagine they had to get notified of the legal action, no? Or they could just find this news story about it? So, why wouldn't they just empty their assets from Binance.com before Thursday?
Editoral Error
There is no legitimate cryptocurrency venture. Some are legal, but none are legitimate.
I'm sympathetic to anyone who gets scammed, but only to a point. If someone promises you a no risk, no work, high rate of return investment, it's not legitimate even if it's legal.
There are plenty of worthwhile investments that don't involve using a tremendous amount of electricity just so you can have your very own unique string of characters. At least with art investments the artist gets paid and you get something to hang on the wall.
My thoughts exactly.
Company 1 manufactures a fake diamond ring, labels it as real diamond, and sells it to you. Scam.
Company 2 steals a fake diamond ring from company 1 and sells it to you. Also a scam.
Neither company is legit, but yes technically you could describe company 1 as "more legit" than 2.
Yup
This seems like a case of paying real money for monopoly money only to have your monopoly slips get stolen by someone who claimed to have a copy machine.
Except, at least for now and
Except, at least for now and a little while longer, there's an opportunity to convert cryptocurrency to real money. I wouldn't recommend anyone snooze on that though.
NFTs, if you bought some, you're already too late on that. Told you so.
Not quite
Your analogy in wrong. In crypto, Company #1 is in fact selling a "real" diamond ring, because real gemstone quality diamonds are on par with crypto in terms of having real value.
And Company #2 in this case it's even stealing and selling a ring from Company #1. Company #2 is merely "claiming" to be holding onto a ring from Company #1, when in reality they just took your cash and ran. These fake crypto exchanges are mostly Ponzi schemes.
These fake crypto exchanges
This is true. But the real crypto exchanges are also mostly ponzi schemes.
I see this on dating apps all
I see this on dating apps all the time, normally it's a really cute asian chick who lives within a mile and instantly matches with, they want to take the conversation to another app with the line "I don't check this app very often". When they get you over to another app they start talking about how much money they make from crypto and do you have any interest in crypto?
I just can't belive anyone falls for this and yet here we are......
My LinkedIn profile ...
Attracts no fewer than 5 weekly connection requests from young, beautiful Asian women who don't live in the US.
Sure, I'm dashingly handsome but I've always wondered, "why would they solicit a guy with a rainbow flag in his profile for some sort of sex thing?"
Now, I'm thinking that maybe they were soliciting me for crypto opportunities and my ego is quite bruised.
worthwhile reading
https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/against-crypto.html
Might want to look into Diehl.
Stephen Diehl is a known grifter who sells, wait for it, enterprise blockchain solutions. The faux outrage and misinformation is a marketing ploy.
Etymology is your friend
You might want to check the definition and etymology of “legitimate”
"Lawfully begotten, i.e., born to a legally married couple."
Thanks, that clears it up!
Maybe because I'm a Boomer
I don't trust any form of crypto currency.
Am I just an old dog that you can't teach new tricks to or am I a wise sage who grew up on the adage "If it seems too good to be true, it probably isn't true."?
Agreed
Even if everything proponents said about it were true, it's still buying nothing in the hopes that someone greater fool will want to buy nothing later for more money. Unless it really is currency, in which case "going up in value" is also know as "deflation" which totally screws up your economy
I get dozens of cryptofraud emails every day.
I get dozens of cryptofraud emails every day, sent to a Comcast account. They have not remedied the issue. They have in fact retaliated against me simply for reporting the attacks -- multiple forced logouts and onerous password resets in a given day.
uh
You might want to run a virus scan and change your password to something harder.
You're being fished.. HARD my friend. This isn't Comcast doing this.
Isn't all cryptocurrency a scam, ultimately?
So here we have one kind of scammer imitating a different kind of scammer.
You, too, can get rich quick! Not.
Cryptocurrency is not *inherently* a scam
Cryptocurrency, like paper currency, is as good or as bad as the integrity of the organization backing it. Paper currency backed by stable governments of developed nations is fine. Other paper currency, not so much so. Same with cryptocurrency. At some future point there will probably be serious cryptocurrency backed by an organization, company, or nation state with the willingness, financial depth, and technical capability to keep the whole thing afloat, and enough transparency or oversight to keep it all clean.
The Bitcoin whitepaper was
The Bitcoin whitepaper was published in late 2008 with the first software release in the first days of 2009. So we're close to 15 years in, and the scenario you describe seems as far away as it ever did. Further, probably, given cryptocurrency's reputation after that first 15 years for scams large and small, sophisticated and simple.
No, cryptocurrency serves no
No, cryptocurrency serves no purpose. It's a trendy investment bubble, except unlike previous bubbles, it wastes massive amounts of electricity.
It *could* be useful. It just isn't.
I love the idea of being able to send money to people in other countries (or even just to my local friends, to settle a bill) cheaply, privately, quickly, and securely.
Well, that was the goal, at least. Unfortunately, none of the incarnations of the concept have actually managed to achieve those.
(Also, it turns out that not having administrative intermediaries means there is no recourse in case of theft, which turns out not to be what most people actually want.)