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LoopX Startup Pulls ICO Exit Scam and Disappears with $4.5 Million (bleepingcomputer.com)
Catalin Cimpanu, writing for BleepingComputer: A cryptocurrency startup named LoopX has pulled an exit scam after collecting around $4.5 million from users during an ICO (Initial Coin Offering) held in the recent weeks. The LoopX team disappeared out of the blue at the start of the week when it took down its website and deleted its Facebook, Telegram, and YouTube channels without any explanation. People who invested in the startup are now tracking funds move from account to account in a BitcoinTalk forum thread, and banding together in the hopes of filing a class action lawsuit.
HA, HA!!
>> People who invested in the startup are now tracking funds move from account to account in a BitcoinTalk forum thread, and banding together in the hopes of filing a class action lawsuit
Would it be possible to get a list of the rubes who invested into this "initial coin offering"? (Because I have a few more things I'd like to sell them, starting with the Brooklyn Bridge.)
Here's the link to the BitcoinTalk forum our useless editors failed to provide:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2521307.0
I have to admit: it IS pretty funny!
I can help you with that. First, we need a retainer for a lawyer. You can pay with VillLoseX coins. There will be a ICO soon. Buy all you can. Then when we win a trillion dollars they will be paid out in Fakerium coins. You'll need to buy some of those to set up an account. As you know, sometimes people will take all the real money you used to buy fake money, so I highly suggest buying a substantial amount of WorthlessCoin in case one of your other accounts is compromised. Whatever you do, keep buying XCoins!
Stupidity should be painful
I don't respond to or upvote ACs
Every single ICO is a scam. You're investing money into a a shitty alt coin or a shitty fake coin running on a shitty alt coin (Ethereum), with the promise that you can take the shitty alt coin or shitty fake coin and resell it to some other investor later down the line, exchange it for a decent coin, and then exchange it for regular currency.
There's not even the pretense of investing in an actual platform or currency, you're investing on a do-nothing proxy built on top of one, and you're subject to the dangers of both.
If the person running the ICO bolts, you're screwed.
If the person running the ICO somehow isn't an outright scammer, but nonetheless fails to get their honest attempt at a project off the ground and into profitability, you're screwed.
If the crypto currency the ICO is pegged to declines in value, the ICO itself has just declined in value (they keep their coins in the blockchain as a sign of good faith to potential investors - until they abscond / quit).
If the crypto currency the ICO is pegged to increases in value, you've lost out on that increase since you traded one type of coin for a proxy running on top of it.
If the ICO's coin never gets picked up by a major exchange, you won't every be able to profit from it even if you're way up on paper.
If the ICO's coin or the crypto currency the ICO is pegged to get banned by governments, exchanges, or payment processors, you're screwed.
Why would a class action lawsuit be preferable to reporting the crime to the police?
Realistically, what can the police do if you tell them you gave a ton of money to some guy on the internet and he disappeared with it? The best you can hope for is that he'll say "I'll just type that up on my invisible typewriter" in an Edward G. Robinson voice.
There is a reason the SEC exists...not that companies haven't pulled equally dishonest things under their watchful eye.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
> Adults knew it was a scam from the start.
Well sure - but they were hoping the scam would last long enough for the early adopters to get in on the action too. It's getting so you can't even trust a pyramid scheme to make you a dishonest buck anymore.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Given my experience, local police would throw their hands up in the air and say they couldn't do anything. I had my identity stolen and a credit card opened in my name. The police outright told me they didn't want to investigate because they'd likely track the criminal to another jurisdiction and some other department would get the arrest. I pushed and they did some investigations. They reached a "dead end" when they showed me the online credit card application the criminal filled out. I pointed out that they had the person's IP address and the date/time it was submitted. The officer looked at me blankly as I explained that you could use those to find the ISP and get the name of the person who owned that account. Sure, it might be a hacked system, but it would be something. Despite this, though, they didn't follow up on this and I eventually stopped pestering the police for updates. For all I know, the people who stole my identity are still doing it to other people.
I tried contacting the FBI but since I didn't lose a ton of money, they weren't interested in my case at all. Maybe this would rise to their level and they could track these scammers down. Local police, though, would be all but useless.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
...pyramid schemes are based on network marketing, where each part of the pyramid takes a piece of the pie / benefits, forwarding the money to the top of the pyramid. They fail simply because there aren't sufficient people. Ponzi schemes, on the other hand, are based on the principle of "Robbing Peter to pay Paul"—early investors are paid their returns through the proceeds of investments by later investors
This was neither a pyramid, nor a ponzi scheme. It was just plain fraud.
WTB [sig], PST!!!