700 French crypto holders have fallen into the trap of bitcoins scammers, According to local French news portal. France’s stock market regulating body detailed how scammers have been luring their potential victims since the start of the year. The scammers rallied on Bitcoins highs on December 2017 to lure their victims. $35 million heard earned crypto holders money was lost in the scam.
Scammers used Bitcoin-related ads to beguile investors into the scheme. By running these ads on social media platforms, they gathered information such as phone number and the name of the investors. Once they got hold of these details, they started to follow up on the investors by offering them investment plans. These allowed them to obtain money from the investors by selling them false investment opportunities. These types scamming ads were even more advanced than the binary and Forex scam experienced earlier this year in France.
Illiterate victims, Ruthless scammers
Scammers preyed on gullible and illiterate investors enticing them with fake crypto investment opportunities. Lawyer, Helen Feron Paloni, who specializes in Heritage issues said “Bitcoin is very complex to understand, very technical. Investors do not necessarily understand what is happening but say: this time, I do not miss the opportunity to earn money.”
One 65-year-old retiree lost €43,000 thinking that he was dealing with a legit cryptocurrency broker. “He asked me for my address, a copy of my ID and opened an account on his website,” he painfully recalls.
Tighter crypto market regulations
France now wants to regulate the cryptocurrency market fully. On September 2018 the country set up a framework to regulate Initial coin offerings (ICOs). The government is now looking to expand those frameworks to the crypto market. Already officials have started to implement mandatory registration frameworks.
Unending Problem
It seems this scourage is not only limited to France. The government of Belgium is expecting crypto related scams to reach the mark of €100 million. Additionally, Brian O’Hagan i a marketing director at the cryptocurrency broker Coinhouse highlights that more than 200 fraudulent websites have been identified to date. These websites are used to entice unsuspecting and gullible investors into a massive crypto scam.
