Episode 4 – Part 1 – $390,000 Worth of Assets, Gone
Follow the story of Nikki Hutchinson and learn from Charles Guillemet (Ledger CTO) how not to end up following terrible crypto advices from someone you have never met.
Script: – My father and I lost $390, 000 in cryptocurrency through a scam, and now we are currently living in an RV. – [Man #1] My account was hacked. – [Man #2] Somebody stole 21 bitcoin out of it. – [Reporter #1] $2 million in cryptocurrency stolen. – [Reporter #2] 47 million dollars– – [Reporter #3] Million dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency… – [Woman] My heart sank… like, completely sank. – [Man #3] Everything we had was gone. – Growing up in Tennessee, I never had any Asian friends. I was adopted 18 months old. So, like, there’s a part of me, I think I felt disconnected from my culture, you know? Tennessee people are just white people in general. Nothing wrong with that, but I think I wanted that connection. So, I decided to hop on a dating app called Hinge. I was just scrolling through people, and that’s when I met this guy who was named Hao. He was Chinese, Asian-American-looking. His profile looked fairly decent, he just seemed gentle. So, I just swiped right. The next day he reached out saying, “Hi, nice to meet you”. And we kind of just started talking, like any normal person would trying to get to know someone. I’m so glad we matched! – Me too And I felt like we had a connection. You’re from China too, right? – Yes, but I was adopted. I might be the whitest Asian you’ve ever met! We were talking almost every day. I asked him his hobbies, and he rattled off swimming, tennis, blah blah… and then ended with cryptocurrency. And I was like, “Oh, that’s really cool that you are doing cryptocurrency. “Like, it’s so popular, and I want to learn, “but I know nothing about it”. And he was like, “Yeah, it’s a great investment”. And he wasn’t pushy about it, at first. And then he brought it back up. Hey Have you thought about investing in crypto? He knew that I had money from the situation I shared with him. Essentially how I got the money, as my mother passed away in 2020, right when I was about to graduate college, so it was a really hard time. We started making the process to sell the house, that did in total 400k. So sorry about your mom… But you know, this money is a great opportunity to invest in crypto – You think so? – Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll guide you So, I signed up for a crypto.com account. And then he sent me this platform, and it was called icac9001.com. What I was taught is to buy money on the legit app, crypto.com, so I would transfer my money and change it to USD Tether, and transfer my money from crypto.com to their fake platform. So, I purchased $2, 000 in Tether. At that time I saw great profits. You just made 580 dollars in profit! – WOW That’s crazy! You should really buy more crypto NOW is the time! Everyone is buying crypto And then, gosh, I did so many of those. I became a pro at their scam. – This type of scam is more and more frequent on dating apps. In this case, the fraudster created a quite realistic website. It created a fake feeling of trust for the victim into this fake investment advice. From this camera perspective, this is a long-term scam. – He told me that, by the end of the month, I could be a millionaire and to feel like, oh my gosh, like, I will never have to worry about money, I will never have to worry about debt. That was what I think I kept playing into, and what he kept using against me. So, you know, he definitely had a game plan for me, and I fell right into it. In the next episode He was like, “Well, have you considered like having your dad invest?” – That’s when the problems started. – And that’s when I started freaking out.
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