MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio — With big plans to take his family, including extended relatives, on vacation, a Northeast Ohio man thought he found the perfect way to pay for the trip of a lifetime.
Turns out, instead of making some serious cash, a highly sophisticated scheme that claimed to use AI to trade cryptocurrency turned his life upside down.
"It was something that I was interested in," said the victim.
The Mayfield Heights man in his 30s, who doesn’t want to be identified, saw an ad on social media from a company claiming they could help consumers get impressive returns on their investments.
"And I thought like, oh my God, it's so cool. Everything looked kind of legit as far as the paperwork," said the man.
After doing his research, he felt confident enough to register with the company.
"I didn't want to believe that people will scam me," said the man.
But it quickly became clear when he tried to withdraw money that he was sending tens of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency as part of an elaborate investment scheme.
"Basically, it's a fake website," said the victim.
He shared the website with me, and my first reaction was that they went through a lot of trouble to make their site look very real.
"Oh yeah, they're freaking smart. They're really smart," said the man.
The dollar amount the Northeast Ohio man lost is staggering.
I asked him how this $80,000 loss has impacted him.
"Very, very much, very much impacted me. I was depressed for a while," said the man.
The emotional fallout from being scammed is, unfortunately, Ericka Dilworth with the BBB of Greater Cleveland is all too familiar with.
"It's hard when someone takes advantage of you. And especially when there's almost no way that you're going to get your money back," said Dilworth.
In this case, she is not surprised by the sophistication used to scam the victim.
"No matter how good they think it looks you always have to you know be cautious," said Dilworth.
She said schemes involving cryptocurrency rank among the most dangerous due to a lack of regulation in the industry.
"We tell people that if it is a scam and a scammer is only specifically asking for cryptocurrency, that that should be a big red flag," said Dilworth.
Here are a few other red flags to watch for so you can protect your money.
"If you can't talk to the scammer, if you can't you know, see the scammer face-to-face, if there are no, if there's no address, if there are no phone numbers, if there is no way to contact,” said Dilworth.
That is exactly what the Mayfield Heights man experienced with somebody he thought was a company representative.
"When I told her, like, let's do a video call and then she said, like, I cannot do video but I can do a phone call on WhatsApp," said the man.
I asked him why he wanted to share his story with me.
"Because I'm a man of believing and I need everyone to know do not, do not go into any social media that it's too good to be true," said the man.
As for what he would do differently?
"Listen to my wife. That's all you need to do. Listen to the people around you because the camel cannot see his back," said the victim.
This man said he is actively working to get his money back with the help of a company that goes after the scammers with the help of law enforcement.
In general, cryptocurrency is not FDIC-insured like our bank accounts are.
If a company holding your crypto is hacked or goes out of business, the government is not obligated to step in and help you recover your money.
