We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.

This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.

📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!

Bitcoin dummy!!!

Hi I'm new to this forum
I gambled £250 on Bitcoin and went with a trading company called etc-markets.com that was in March (2019)
Looking at their trading platform, I've now made a profit of £22,414.00....as of June.....Hmmm I wonder!!!

I now want to withdraw this 'so called' profit....but they say I have to pay Tax of £5600.00 (25%)....before they deposit this amount to my Bank account (this is nothing to do with HMRC UK TAX.) Has anyone else experienced this as I'm rather wary of paying 'up front' without first seeing evidence of this profit in my account...so far its just numbers on the 'trading platform screen'
As usual they keep pestering with phone/email contact.
Your opinions/experiences would be greatly appreciated.
«1

Comments

  • eskbanker
    eskbanker Posts: 41,677 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Don't under any circumstances consider paying them any more money!

    This will be a scam and you won't see your money again, so don't believe that you've made a profit and instead just be thankful that you've only lost £250....
  • Thanks to EskBanker...wow! that was a quick reply.
  • Websites TandCs state
    Withdrawals will be charged a transaction fee of the following:
    50.00 USD/GBP/EURO for wire transfers; 25.00 USD/GBP/EURO for credit cards plus a processing fee of 10.00 USD/7.00 EUR/5.00 GBP; 25.00 USD/GBP/EURO for ePayments. A levy of 10% of the withdrawal amount will be charged to any withdrawal from an account that has not executed more than 200 in turnover and/or from accounts that have not been verified.

    So they may be talking abut the levy. But agree with the poster above
  • eskbanker
    eskbanker Posts: 41,677 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Websites TandCs state
    Withdrawals will be charged a transaction fee of the following:
    50.00 USD/GBP/EURO for wire transfers; 25.00 USD/GBP/EURO for credit cards plus a processing fee of 10.00 USD/7.00 EUR/5.00 GBP; 25.00 USD/GBP/EURO for ePayments. A levy of 10% of the withdrawal amount will be charged to any withdrawal from an account that has not executed more than 200 in turnover and/or from accounts that have not been verified.

    So they may be talking abut the levy. But agree with the poster above
    I think we all know what would happen if OP was to instruct them to deduct the "tax" (and levy/fee/etc) from the fictional proceeds they'd notionally be paying out rather than requesting this as an advance payment....
  • Hi I'm new to this forum
    I gambled £250 on Bitcoin .


    You never had any Bitcoin unless you hold the private key.



    Im finding your story hard to believe.
  • Malthusian
    Malthusian Posts: 11,055 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    You never had any Bitcoin unless you hold the private key.

    He never had any Bitcoin because this is a common-or-garden Nigerian Prince scam (the technical name is "advance fee fraud") which has nothing to do with Bitcoin. Other than the imaginary story behind it.
    Im finding your story hard to believe.
    Why? This scam is common as weeds. Surely everyone has seen the ads wibbling on about Dragons Den or ITV's This Morning, or Sweden approving cryptocurrency.
    eskbanker wrote: »
    I think we all know what would happen if OP was to instruct them to deduct the "tax" (and levy/fee/etc) from the fictional proceeds they'd notionally be paying out rather than requesting this as an advance payment....

    They'd come up with a plausible story why they can't and there's a high chance he'd believe it and hand over more money. After all he did the first time.

    OP: your money is gone, change your phone number and email address.
  • If its a true story its £250. Move on and learn a bunch of stuff. RIP the £250.



    To OP, if you are actually interested in Bitcoin chat with a bunch of VARIOUS people before making any further moves.
  • Malthusian
    Malthusian Posts: 11,055 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    To OP, if you are actually interested in Bitcoin

    ...then walk away.

    The OP has no chance of being one of the handful of people that manages to make money from a money game. Nobody who hands money to an obvious scam like this does. If you don't know who the sucker is then it's you.
  • Yeah great solution.
  • DrSyn
    DrSyn Posts: 904 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts
    edited 3 June 2019 at 7:17PM
    It has the hallmarks to suggest a scam.

    1. The OP writes "they keep pestering with phone/email contact".


    2. The company :-

    (a) comes up with an excuse why the OP must send money to them, before they can release his money (advance fee fraud).

    (b). Claims to be founded in 2012. Yet the scamadviser website says that Etc-Markets website is only 125 days old.

    (c) name cannot be found when you google the telephone number given for the UK. Also no actual contact address given!


    3. https://www.scamadviser.com/check-website/etc-markets.com

    Gives a trust score of only 63%
    Has no positive highlights, but 5 negative highlights.


    4. For a company founded in 2012, it is strange there are no customer reviews to be found on line.

    Perhaps the OP would like to inform us of what checks he did on the company before giving them the £250?
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 355.4K Banking & Borrowing
  • 254.7K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 456K Spending & Discounts
  • 248K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 605.3K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 178.9K Life & Family
  • 263.1K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
  • 37.7K Read-Only Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.