Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

German ICO Savedroid Pulls Exit Scam After Raising $50 Million (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the dine-and-dash dept.

German company Savedroid has pulled a classic exit scam after raising $50 million in ICO and direct funding. The site is currently displaying a South Park meme with the caption "Aannnd it's gone." The founder, Dr. Yassin Hankir, has posted a tweet thanking investors and saying "Over and out." TechCrunch reports: A reverse image search found Hankir's photo on this page for Founder Institute, and he has pitched his product at multiple events, including this one in German. Savedroid was originally supposed to use AI to manage user investments and promised a crypto-backed credit card, a claim that CCN notes is popular with scam ICOs. It ran for a number of months and was clearly well-managed as the group was able to open an office and appear at multiple events.

26 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Vigilante justice by sgage · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I predict that, at some point, vigilante justice is going to kick in. These twats just rip people off and make light of it, well, sooner or later someone's gonna snap.

    1. Re: Vigilante justice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wait... asshole steals $50m, you think thatâ(TM)s the fault of those that fell for his venture pitch and got scammed. They deserve to be scammed, and if one goes after the scammer, that makes you a miserable person.

      Sorry, Iâ(TM)m not buying any of this. Access to investors money makes technology advancement possible. Accountability to your investors is important. Scams without punishment make for systemic failure, doesnâ(TM)t matter if itâ(TM)s coins, cute Stanford dropout Theranos CEOs or run of the mill mismanagement.

  2. Emo Phillips by fibonacci8 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "I lent a friend of mine $10,000 for plastic surgery and now I don't know what he looks like."

    --
    Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
    1. Re:Emo Phillips by mydn · · Score: 2

      She just propositioned you in a bar. Go with it, for maximum ROI.

    2. Re:Emo Phillips by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 3, Funny

      now I don't know what he looks like."

      Or what she looks like.

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  3. My money! by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Crap. I invested a lot here. He was using deep learning and AI to manage investments. Since AI and deep learning are totally a thing (I read about it in Slashdot) I figured I couldn't lose.

    1. Re:My money! by sgage · · Score: 2

      And I just ran out of mod points. Well, +1 FUNNY anyway.

    2. Re:My money! by sinij · · Score: 2

      Don't worry, you can make up for that with profits from my new autonomous driving green energy organic ICO.

  4. Yep by apoc.famine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why does anyone fall for this anymore? There was some survey recently where more than 80% of ICOs were scams.

    --
    Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    1. Re:Yep by 110010001000 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, 20% are TOTALLY legit, because cryptocurrencies are TOTALLY legit things. Just like AI and Deep Learning Neural Nets and autonomous driving. This is totally the future!

    2. Re:Yep by sgage · · Score: 2

      Because of something for nothing magical thinking. Very prevalent in America, and probably most parts of the world. It's what drives the system.

    3. Re:Yep by gravewax · · Score: 2

      no 20% are just really bad investments, well meaning people running poorly thought out schemes whereas the other 80% are well thought out schemes to fleece you of money from your wallet. at this point you would have to be braindead to be "investing" anything in an ICO.

    4. Re:Yep by fustakrakich · · Score: 3, Funny

      This is totally the future!

      Yeah well, as long as it stays there, we have nothing to worry about.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    5. Re:Yep by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      Why does anyone fall for this anymore?

      Are you asking why stupid and/or ignorant people exist? Because we put too many damn warning labels on things that's why!

  5. I'd just like to take a moment to thank by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Funny

    the CEO of Savedroid for helping lower the price of graphics cards.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  6. Well managed? by hawguy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It ran for a number of months and was clearly well-managed as the group was able to open an office and appear at multiple events.

    If this is the kind of due diligence people do before investing(*) in crypto-currency, I see why so many people get scammed. "Well, they have an office, this company is clearly well-managed, must be legit".

    (*) And when I say "investing", I mean in the same way that someone feeding their paycheck into slot machines is "investing"

  7. Practically no risk by aepervius · · Score: 2

    I mean let us be honest, most if not all people which were taken have no resource to search for somebody like that world wide. And with 50 million, even washed down to 25 million, a team of 10 person can live a well financed live anywhere in the world without worry. The probability from a mafia guy being taken out of his money, is very low : mafia probably are the one organizing some of those scam to begin with. So i would say vigilant justice won't happen.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  8. "Investor" by demon+driver · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Investor" is just a euphemism for a stupidly rich person who lives off others producing something valuable, making him even more stupidly rich just by waiting and making no big mistakes.

    "Crypto currency" is a scheme of some people who weren't stupidly rich before to become stupidly rich in the process, without anyone producing anything of real value at all.

    "Investors" investing in "crypto currency" getting scammed do indeed get what they deserve and what sooner or later will happen to virtually all investments in crypto currencies. They should even be thankful if it went quick this time. Although there's not much hope the intelligence-greed-coefficient of those who invested in the discussed case might let them learn something from it.

  9. Buzzword bingo by DrYak · · Score: 3, Funny

    Need to somehow find a way to fit "3D Printing" into this and we win the buzzword bingo (and a sudden inrush of VC investements)

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  10. Update: Not gone by schure · · Score: 4, Informative

    The site has been updated with a message about the danger of ICO scams, the need for reform, and apologies for the scam simulation.

  11. Apparently "not" scam but "PR stunt"... by Varcain · · Score: 2

    So the CEO made a video explaining that this was just a stunt to increase ICO scam awareness, and they are offering ICO advisory now (http://anditsg.one/)... seriously you couldn't make this s**t up!

  12. "AND IT'S NOT GONE" by kkoo · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's back, with the boss giving a big speech on how it was meant as a warning to investors to watch for scams, and since his isn't then you should invest in his scheme.

  13. Not a scam FWIW by cristiroma · · Score: 2

    The site is back online and he did explain actually that was an experiment showing how easy was to manipulate.

  14. Hmm, their website says it's not gone by gotan · · Score: 2

    Their explanation is, that this was a PR-Stunt.

    Make of it what you will.

    --
    "By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
  15. has anyone clicked on the link to their site? by rbgnr111 · · Score: 4, Informative

    This looks to me more like a promotional stunt. Going to their site it looks like they are trying to use this to promote their token. The video there looked to me more like they were warning about the risks of many ICO's and the type of exit that many take.

    I'm not promoting them in any way, I do think that a lot of these ico's are very scammy, and like any investment you need to do your own work to verify that it actually is a good investment.

  16. Wait for it - https://ico.savedroid.com/ by gx5000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    AND IT'S NOT GONE

    https://ico.savedroid.com/

    savedroid was here, is here, and will be here. Aaand savedroid is all in for establishing high quality ICO standards.

    --
    End of Line.