Consumer complaint received 2022-05-19
Company: Coinbase, Inc.
State: CA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Virtual currency
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
I met someone named " XXXX '' on XXXX who scammed me over $ XXXX using a fake crypto currency trading platform, XXXX XXXX. After we matched on XXXX, a week after, we chatted everyday on chatting app, XXXX. After about 1 month, " XXXX '' started mentioning cryptocurrency. He said he has done research over the years and has figured out a reliable strategy that can predict price of bitcoin would be higher or lower within a certain window of time. He mentioned a crypto currency trading platform app where he has made stable profit over the last 2 years. The way it works is the trading platform sets up a " warehouse '' or wallet for you. You deposit money from your bank to Coinbase, purchase the crypto currency from Coinbase ( e.g. BTC or ETH ) then send the crypto currency to your XXXX  XXXX address ( there is separate address for each type of currency - same as Coinbase ). There is a dedicate customer sales rep that you can contact over XXXX. They will confirm and approve the deposit and once it is approved, you can see the funds in your XXXX XXXX balance. The trades execute in 3 different bands : XXXX ( {$2500.00} min balance ), XXXX ( $ XXXX min balance ), XXXX ( $ XXXX min balance ). S is seconds => so 90S means it will take 90S for trade to execute. Longer times he said yields more reliable profits because prices stabilize and more likely to predict trend. For trades, XXXX would " study the trends '' and monitor " nodes '' in the network over a few days and put together a " plan '' for the trades for a specific day. 
He would let me know ahead of time around what day we would execute trades. Once trading starts, he would tell me over to buy BTC either long or short at a very specific time and with specific amount ( e.g. XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX '' -> Buy BTC XXXX at 90S band with amount XXXX USD ). Our first trade happened on XX/XX/2022. I wired {$2500.00} to Coinbase and purchase BTC and sent it to my XXXX XXXX address and contacted customer service to approve and confirm deposit. That evening, i made ~ $ XXXX. He asked for screenshot of each trade and the final balance ( so " he can plan next one properly '' ). He mentioned he is operating at the XXXX band, which has more profits ( he showed me screenshots and he was making 10x more with each trade ). He started telling me to add more capital so I too can start getting more profits. He also said, this way he only has to plan once since we would both be operating at same band. So I did another wire from my bank to Coinbase for $ XXXX and used same process as before to move to XXXX XXXX, except this time I used ETH instead of BTC ( because he said it has lower fees ). When it reached XXXX XXXX, due to crypto fees, my balance was under the minimum requirement of $ XXXX, so I then wired another $ XXXX using mobile wire from my bank to coinbase and again transferred ETH to my XXXX XXXX warehouse. Over time, he mentioned he has increased his capital to be able to operate at 180S and tried to convince me to try to increase my capital. I told him I don't have any money so he said we will slowly accumulate profits and build up my balance that way. During this time, he was convincing me to increase my capital because higher principal means higher profits and each of our trades showed that. Each time I increased my balance, I would make 2-3x more than last time. Still operating at XXXX band, I wired a total of $ XXXX over a period of time with his guidance on how much to increase. I funded by selling stocks I owned and also my savings. We would execute trades and by XX/XX/2022, my XXXX balance was $ XXXX. I asked about withdrawing, but he mentioned that we have another upcoming operation and I should avoid having to pay wire fees + crypto fees again. So I left it there. By XXXX, he started mentioning about a " big operation '' where we can double our current balance but only on the $ XXXX band. He tried very hard to convince me and that I can travel and retire because I would double my money. Although I didn't have anymore money, I sold my RSUs from my company and sold a few of stocks I had left and made the extra $ XXXX need on Fri, XX/XX/XXXX. He said big operation will be either Sunday or Monday. On Sunday evening, we executed trades and by the end, total balance in XXXX was indeed $ XXXX. The next day, we discussed about withdrawals. I told him I would first wire a smaller amount $ XXXX just to make sure no issues. He assured me that he has done this in the past and withdrew $ XXXX without any issues. He had $ XXXX in his XXXX  balance and did the same. So i cancelled my withdrawal request ( customer service rep gladly cancelled ). I submitted a new request for entire balance. The next day, customer service rep told me that in order to receive the funds, the IRS requires a pre-payment of 22 % of profits, which the system showed as $ XXXX. My tax payment was $ XXXX. They also said that they couldn't deduct from my current funds due to regulations and I would need to pay by XX/XX/XXXX or there will be a 3 % penalty. I asked if I only withdrew amount i deposited, if tax is needed and they said no. So i requested to cancel my withdrawal but this time, customer service rep mentioned that it has been finalized and submitted to IRS and there is no way to retract. At this point, I realized I've been scammed. However, I am keeping communications with " XXXX '' on XXXX  app so I can try to at least get him arrested if anything. He told me he had $ XXXX that he can borrow from my sister and is asking his friends for help so he can help pay my tax. However, I would need to find the rest. I asked how come he didn't mention the tax and he said he was so busy with work he forgot and that he feels terrible. I told him I feel like I've been scammed and that I had no way of paying the rest. He asked if I had any other stocks to sell and if not maybe take out loans. This confirmed to me that he was definitely part of this nasty scam and that he is truly heartless. He wanted to take more after everything. I am still in contact with him and pretending that I will hurt myself if i dont get my money back to see if I can get a glimmer of pity and he will give some money back to me. I have also also contacted XXXX regarding him and have submitted complaint with FTC. The site is still up so I also researched the domain and reported the domain for abuse. 

After this, I started noticing that the deposit addressed changed for the last large transaction : ETH address for last ( XXXX transaction ) : XXXX ETH address used for all other transactions : XXXX When looking at the blockchain records for the last transactions, one of the transactions ' sender ( XXXX ) shows a significant number of transactions totaling XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation