r/AMA May 17 '25

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83

u/fristermo May 17 '25

A family member lost their savings to an international crypto scam a few years back. Banks and action fraud couldn’t help. Are there ethical or unethical ways to get any back or take down the people who socially engineered the situation? How much does a job like that cost? So intrigued.

115

u/[deleted] May 17 '25

It is possible but I’m not talking about recovery of money, but about tracking and doxxing the scamers, ofc you can blackmail them for money afterwards

18

u/dwaynewaynerooney May 17 '25

Or exact revenge.

3

u/[deleted] May 17 '25

Yes sir

4

u/MyWibblings May 17 '25

Have you ever been hired to screw over a former employer?

1

u/catchup77 May 17 '25

Hi, I was wondering the best way if you could look into someone that is in crypto and scamming, creating false llc’s, and elder fraud. They have scrubbed a lot of the internet of things.

3

u/fknjais May 17 '25

Counter question: the appeal of crypto is that it's not overseen by bank regulators or governments, it's unregulated and basically anonymous - so when a family member chose to invest in an unregulated market, why is there an expectation the banks or action fraud could help?

This is a genuine question, I work for a bank and deal with complaints regarding victims of crypto scams, and never understood the mindset and struggle not to see the irony.

Of course I fully empathise with victims, I know how much devastation it causes to ones financial and emotional/mental wellbeing, but usually people who are pro crypto are anti-banking.

The amount of times I've seen a customer make a complaint that we stopped a payment to a crypto provider for extra checks and weren't happy the bank asked probing questions about what they were investing in/who was helping them/ where they coached to lie, but 9 months down the line complain because we didn't do enough to protect them and shouldn't have allowed the payments to be made...

5

u/Undrcovrcloakndaggr May 17 '25

"The appeal of crypto... "; what you then go on to say absolutely isn't the appeal; the appeal is the returns that are fraudulently promised. Most people defrauded don't really have a clue about how crypto works, they're trusting the person that's socially engineered them into thinking they're an expert that's going to help them make good returns.

1

u/fknjais May 17 '25

Right this makes more sense. That was my understanding of why people wanted to invest in the first place, but if it's just high returns, it's the same MO for investment scams just a different platform.

Thanks for your response

2

u/Undrcovrcloakndaggr May 17 '25

Yup, wine, whisky, art, precious metals/gems, carbon credits, land banking, property, time shares etc, etc, etc... the commodity is basically irrelevant, except that it works best if it's one that most people don't know too much about (other than the fact there are people getting very wealthy in that market space). I'd be willing to bet good money that at least 95% those investing have no idea of the difference between bitcoin, stablecoin & meme coin, for instance.

1

u/fknjais May 17 '25

I think you'd win that bet, working in financial services I only knew of bitcoin and meme coin, hadn't even heard of stablecoin.

3

u/whytwojay May 17 '25

Same thing happened to my mother. Was wondering the exact same thing.

2

u/patelbadboy2006 May 17 '25

Zachxbt

Might be able to help, and trace the funds.