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German man loses 400k GBP about $500k in Twitter Bitcoin scam

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81–90 of 120 posts

Re: German man loses 400k GBP about $500k in Twitter Bitcoin scam

#81

Assuming you have a defective moral compass, is there any reason to not run this scam. Easiest $ ever. Twitter nor law enforcement can do anything. The same guys doing it over and over. You can run this scam and make an easy $50-200k with some twitter posts and then use the $ to pay off the mortgage or student loans, or take a cruise, buy a luxury car or whatever. no one would know if you mix the coins before cashing…

[deleted]

Re: German man loses 400k GBP about $500k in Twitter Bitcoin scam

#82
post #10

This is a terrible scam, but I am astonished by the frivolity with which people would move life-changing amounts of money into something with absolutely no due diligence. When I took on a financial advisor I verified their identity with the govt regulator, verified their written bank details over the phone, and then verified those details with my bank before I even considered sending a single penny. Even then I sent…

> with absolutely no due diligence But due diligence was done here - the blue check mark was checked. The user checked other people were seeing success with this. The user probably double and triple checked the bitcoin address he was sending to. He probably looked for the padlock symbol on the site he was getting the details of the scam from. He might have checked his computer for viruses and been using a hardware wa…

All of those things are a good start but it is five hundred thousand dollars. It’s obviously a huge amount of money for someone like this. Why wouldn’t you check with your bank or a solicitor or the financial services regulator in your country before undertaking such a large transaction? The blue check mark just means they’re a celebrity, immediately dumping your life savings into something because the meme man told you to is a pretty foolish thing to do...

Re: German man loses 400k GBP about $500k in Twitter Bitcoin scam

#83
post #20

> 10 Bitcoin were transferred and then cashed out anonymously a few days later. Genuinely interested how the coins were cashed out anonymously. Pretty much all exchanges require KYC these days, and Bitcoin addresses can be tracked and blacklisted if the right processes are put in place, in theory at least.

You use them to buy stuff on the darknet and resell.

Classic money laundering.

Re: German man loses 400k GBP about $500k in Twitter Bitcoin scam

#84
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bank is gambling it for you, some people prefer gambling it themselves

The bank is FDIC insured. If the bank loses your money and FDIC cannot make you whole, you would be in a serious problem even if you had a pile of cash, as that is basically a 'the entire USD economic system has collapsed' scenario.

Well yes, but if you invest your own money without going through banks at least you have some choice in where it goes (oil companies, weapon companies, sustainable funds, &c.) and you get to cash out all the benefits (or loss)

I'll take my 7%+ average over the last 100 years vs the "insured" 0.5% my bank proposes me (which doesn't even pay for what my bank charges me monthly)

Re: German man loses 400k GBP about $500k in Twitter Bitcoin scam

#85
post #49

> The 42-year-old says he first invested $40,000 in Bitcoin in 2017, and quickly made his money back as the value of the coins rose on the open market. He cashed out and got his initial money back, but then watched excitedly over the years as the 10 coins grew to be worth nearly 500,000 euros. Fortunately this sounds like he didn't lose anything, just never realised extra gains. I know it's slightly nitpicking, but l…

No. This is a common way to think about it, but it's wrong imho. Because that money is real and it buys you real stuff. If you have that money one day and it is gone the next, you effectively lost that money. It doesn't matter where it came from. Think about it: You inherit $500k. You lose it through a scam or a bet or gambling. Do you think it doesn't matter? I mean, you didn't earn that money yourself, right? There…

I agree with you, he lost real money. But I also agree with the other poster: it's hard to feel bad for him gambling away money that he got by gambling to begin with.

Re: German man loses 400k GBP about $500k in Twitter Bitcoin scam

#86

It seems the bitcoins went up 10x since he bought them. It would be really tragic if he still has to pay capital gains tax on the 450k of gains.

In Germany profits from crypto speculation are not taxable if you have held the coins for two years.

At least, according to my accountant a year or so ago, may have changed since..

Re: German man loses 400k GBP about $500k in Twitter Bitcoin scam

#87
It's awful that this guy was scammed, but I am really having difficulty wrapping my head around it. Presumably he follows Elon on Twitter, and would see these scam fake Elon replies/accounts have been trolling his Twitter feed for years. I guess seeing the blue verify check and FOMO at doubling his holdings made him throw caution to the wind.

Re: German man loses 400k GBP about $500k in Twitter Bitcoin scam

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fortunately this sounds like he didn't lose anything, just never realised extra gains." Sounds like if someones house caught fire the owner did not loose anything because he did not sell it? That were His bitcoins he was the owner of the bicoins and he was scammed.

I think this is a bad comparison. His situation would be closer to buying a house for $40k, making $40k renting it out. Then someone tells you you could probably sell the house now for $500k, but you don't and instead you gamble it away. You never had the $500k to begin with. You had a house people say could be possibly worth that much.

There is no question he really could have exchanged the coins for $500k of value though.

If he had sold the bitcoins for cash and then used the cash to buy bitcoins again immediately after so that he could send them to the scammer, then would they be "realized" as opposed to "unrealized", even though there's no practical difference between the two situations?

Re: German man loses 400k GBP about $500k in Twitter Bitcoin scam

#89
post #20

> 10 Bitcoin were transferred and then cashed out anonymously a few days later. Genuinely interested how the coins were cashed out anonymously. Pretty much all exchanges require KYC these days, and Bitcoin addresses can be tracked and blacklisted if the right processes are put in place, in theory at least.

There are shady services that will convert bitcoin to monero with no questions asked.

Re: German man loses 400k GBP about $500k in Twitter Bitcoin scam

#90
post #20

> 10 Bitcoin were transferred and then cashed out anonymously a few days later. Genuinely interested how the coins were cashed out anonymously. Pretty much all exchanges require KYC these days, and Bitcoin addresses can be tracked and blacklisted if the right processes are put in place, in theory at least.

It could have taken time for the BTC from his wallet to be marked as tainted. Once that happens, the person who buys the 10BTC is bag holding. I wonder what happens if it's an exchange holding tainted BTC, though. Will it be excluded from the supply indefinitely?
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