Couple Loses Tens of Thousands in a Bitcoin Investment Scam

Investing in cryptocurrency sounds like a great idea most of the time as we hear only the good stories in the news. Unfortunately, not every story has a happy ending and the ‘adventure’ of Nick and Josie Yeomans with Coinexx.org might tell you just that.

Nick was introduced to the idea of Coinexx.org from a Facebook page and, naturally, was a bit skeptical. Nevertheless he decided to risk it and, in the beginning, everything was too good to be true as their initial investment ($1,400) tripled in the first six months ($3,700). Coinexx.org’s website looked legitimate to the untrained eye and offered great ROI. A deeper investigation showed that the listed headquarters is actually the address of the London Aquarium.

Of course, the Yeomans continued to put money into their account, as everything seemed to work. Nick even quit his job and started to rely only on his crypto-related funds. It was a professional operation as Mr. Yeomans explained:

“I really didn’t expect it to happen for such a long period of time. In terms of energy, just putting so much into it. Having the energy to speak to you every day, let you know what’s going on, especially when nothing really is going on. It’s such an incredible amount of detail to go into. It’s hard to believe it’s a scam if they’re paying you.“

Similar to other popular scams, Coinexx.org encouraged Nick to invite family members and friends to gain more customers. A family member wanted the same success and poured an equal amount – more than $20,000.

Once they stopped investing, their fees increased, their returns slowly but surely diminished and they couldn’t get their money back. This is where the real nightmare began. Nick received a message saying:

“Let me save you the stress, because you’ve been through a lot already. Coinexx is a scam. Everything and everyone involved are the same. Don’t bother about trying to get back your money. Just focus on getting money to take care of your family.”

Soon after that, the company stopped all communication with the young couple. Nick explains that he just felt sick and finally realized his initial skepticism was correct.

“We’re left here with nothing, with no income, and with lots of debt, the debt has high interest, I thought ‘how are we going to get out of this?’

Overall, the Yeomans family invested more than $43,000 with Coinexx.org. Once their savings were exhausted they could withdraw the money from their account only after a ‘withdrawal fee’ was paid. So they took out a loan, believing that they could get their money back – of course to no success.

Probably, out of desperation, they met more requested deposits and fees, were way back on their rent and even sold some of their possessions. They didn’t want to believe that this is a scam, but soon it was all clear.

Nick Yeomans and Josie are just an example of the growing number of people in Australia that are being scammed and lose all their investments. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) stated, via their Scamwatch, that Bitcoin-related investment scams have increased remarkably in the first half of 2019. In fact, Australians saw more fraudulent activities related to cryptocurrency up until May 31 than they did for the whole 2018.

A spokesperson from the ACCC stated that the description of the Yeomans, the sent messages and the whole story leads to the well-known Ponzi scheme.