Consumer complaint received 2023-08-05
Company: Foris DAX, Inc.
State: TN
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Virtual currency
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
I really need your help please. I feel like I am in a scam in cryptocurrency through crypto.com. It all began when a lady approached me on XXXX where we started talking about the economy and she mentioned trading futures crypto. Long story short I began trading with my own funds while having some success. She then mentioned she would help me improve my profits by using some of her own funds in what they call a recharge. I dedicated some more of my own funds through this as well and had some more success in gaining profits. I thought everything was fine until she wanted me to invest more so I could profit more and I didn't want to do it. I went to withdraw my funds and the " customer service '' told me in order to withdraw my funds I would need to add 10 % ( {$1900.00} ) of my account total which was {$19000.00} at the time and then they would release my funds. They told me I needed to do this because it was a measure of the platform against money laundering, trafficking, etc. I did this but they didn't release my funds. They told me they had done another review of my account and since {$10000.00} of my funds had come from another account which was her account that I'd now have to pay an additional {$5200.00} which would be held for 7 days and if there weren't any complaints against me they would then release all of my funds. This is where a red flag should have come up for me and it kind of did but I wanted to get my funds out so I was focused on that. I deposited the {$5200.00} from my bank account into my crypto.com account and waited 7 days, they didn't release my funds. Now they've told me I need to pay taxes on my profits of {$2000.00} and they will release my funds. I am very suspicious now and I'm not sending them another penny of my money. I have put in about {$10000.00} of my own money then profited a little over {$5000.00} plus the lady that approached me about this supposedly put about {$10000.00} of her money in for the " recharge ''. I've dedicated some of my funds to some spot trading but in total the account has a little over {$26000.00} in it. I should have never fallen for this and I feel horrible about it. I really need your help. They have told me if I don't pay the taxes of {$2000.00} within 5 days they will freeze my account. I'm hoping I can get some of the funds back but I know that may not be possible at this point. I don't understand how crypto.com can fail and let things like this happen on their platform. I didn't get a huge red flag till I typed some things into XXXX last night and noticed on a california.gov website that another gentleman has had almost the identical experience to mine except his was far worse. I think he put somewhere around {$650000.00} in his account. My funds were deposited to my bank account to crypto.com then moved from there to XXXX XXXX of Crypto.com where they sit and these people won't release my funds to me. 

Can you please get back to me as quickly as possible, thanks.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation