Genuine or Scam

LottieGeorge

We contacted from a ad on Microsoft a company called 'FX PRO TRADING' about investing in BIT COIN. Long story short, we were happy to invest 250 dollars to see how this all worked as had seen people on various platforms who said they had made good profit. It was not as easy as some had said but account open and off we go with them trading.. Kept an eye and was going up gradually, kept getting calls about investing more but insisted NO. Last week the amount went up to 27,500 US Dollars, gosh but did not get too excited. We had a call to say its great your money has gone up but our Trader had left the company so this account as it stands cannot Trade anymore. Did we want to have the money which was now in our account transferred to us, we said no we will give it some thought. They called back today and we said yes we will have the money please into our bank account [which we keep a very small amount in]. We were told that they would have to work out the Capital Gains Tax and get back to us. We were then told we would need to transfer £5329 into our Crypto.com account to pay the CGT before they could send 25000 US dollars to our Crypto account. Obviously we have not done this as assume a scam. Has anyone else had dealings with this company who are supposedly based in Liechtenstein.

Mistral001

Whether scam or not, I would run a mile from anything to do with Bitcoin.

penners324

Ad on Facebook = SCAM.

At the moment you've lost $250, don't lose anymore

mjm3346

"seen people on various platforms who said they had made good profit."

It is so easy to get fake reviews 

"need to transfer £5329"

seems just like an update on the scams where a small payment is required for a larger sum to be released that you are entitled to following some random draw of e-mail addresses, inheritance etc.

Tell them to deduct any fees from the sum you are due (which would not include CGT anyway) or say you have losses elsewhere that offset the gain here so there is nothing to pay.

Get a new e-mail address.

Albermarle

It's got scam written all over it . Write off the money and never have contact with them again.

Jeremy535897

Capital gains tax is never paid by someone else. HMRC always collect it from you. Therefore their claim that they need funds to pay capital gains tax is bogus. In any event, the maximum rate of capital gains tax is 20%, so they have the other 80% plus the initial investment. Why do they need to ask you for more?

FXPro is commented on here, but you may be dealing with an imitator. Having said that, the commentary is discouraging:
https://www.forexscams.org/broker/fx-pro/

saajan_12

LottieGeorge said:

We contacted from a ad on Microsoft a company called 'FX PRO TRADING' about investing in BIT COIN. Long story short, we were happy to invest 250 dollars to see how this all worked as had seen people on various platforms who said they had made good profit. It was not as easy as some had said but account open and off we go with them trading.. Kept an eye and was going up gradually, kept getting calls about investing more but insisted NO. Last week the amount went up to 27,500 US Dollars, gosh but did not get too excited. - how long were you invested? Bitcoin has actually gone down 60% since the start of the year, up 100% ish since 5 years ago.. certainly not the 11,000% that you apparently have. Even if they were doing something more involved like market making or trading options, that's still an unbelievable (read: unlikely) return. Did they even outline what the strategy was and what particular trades made the biggest money? 
We had a call to say its great your money has gone up but our Trader had left the company so this account as it stands cannot Trade anymore. - and they only had one trader? They could insist all their accounts follow the same strategy so don't need loads of traders, as it can all scale up. 
Did we want to have the money which was now in our account transferred to us, we said no we will give it some thought. They called back today and we said yes we will have the money please into our bank account [which we keep a very small amount in]. We were told that they would have to work out the Capital Gains Tax and get back to us. - CGT is calculated and paid by the person making the gain, they wouldn't have the info to calculate it. 
We were then told we would need to transfer £5329 into our Crypto.com account to pay the CGT before they could send 25000 US dollars to our Crypto account. - Even if another entity paid your tax (eg banks, employers), it would be taken out of the income / gain and you get the net, not paid out of separate funds. 
Obviously we have not done this as assume a scam. - Yes, absolutely a scam. Even without the specific knowledge above, just the "pay me X to get back a sudden windfall" = scam.  
Has anyone else had dealings with this company who are supposedly based in Liechtenstein.

Comments above.. so many red flags
* The 11,000% return even on the mysterious bitcoin is highly unlikely. I'd expect to be told the strategy and what trades made the most money. 
* They wouldn't be able to calculate your CGT (its depends on your other income etc) and its typcial for you to pay yourself
* The point the entity passing on the gain paying the tax is so that it comes out of the same funds rather than you getting the gross amount and then having to retain enough to pay the tax. So doesn't make sense to ask you for separate funds for the tax. 

Basically yes its a scam, I'd just write off the $250 and move on. You never had the 27k. 

cymruchris

I think you get the picture by now from the above responses. Scam written all over it. You've lost your $250 - don't be persuaded that you can get 'more' or a 'refund' or any other kind of payment just by sending a little bit more money. What you had is gone. It was never invested. It went to fund some criminals lavish lifestyle. Probably not what you wanted to hear, but better you get honest, straightforward replies in cases like this.