Consumer complaint received 2023-08-09
Company: Payward Ventures Inc. dba Kraken
State: PA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
Few Days back 2 People XXXX XXXX ( XXXX : XXXX ( XXXX ) XXXX ) and his Assistant XXXX ( XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ) XXXX ) Approached me in XXXX saying about good investment returns on Crypto Currency and i ignored for some time and later after seeing the returns in the XXXX XXXX ( XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX i too joined in the Investment process and started with amount of {$700.00} after that i saw good returns in Crypto Trading and invested more money {$30000.00} in crypto currency trading. After investing {$30000.00} I did some trading and it increased to {$130000.00} and then I wanted to withdraw the money from The Trading account. All this trading took place on the website : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. 

For Registering this website XXXX XXXX and his Assistant XXXX helped me to set up the account and after that for recharging the account XXXX and his XXXX XXXX asked to set up Kraken Wallet ( https : //www.kraken.com/sign-in ). 

After setting up Kraken wallet i started adding money in Kraken Wallet and brought USDT ( Tether ) coins and from there it is transferred to XXXX XXXX XXXX account with receiving address : XXXX and same is used to transfer the amount from Kraken Wallet to XXXX XXXX XXXX website. 

I did multiple transfers of money ( {$30000.00} ) to Kraken Wallet and bought Tether ( USDT ) Coins and transferred them to the XXXX XXXX XXXX website. 

All the amounts are shown properly initially and when i tried to withdraw amount from XXXX XXXX XXXX i am able to withdraw small amount of {$19.00} and later tried to withdraw money of {$2500.00} and then XXXX XXXX XXXX website hold the money and asked to pay Taxes and then i paid {$20000.00} to XXXX XXXX XXXX from Kraken with Tether ( USDT ) coins. For the Tax Related part XXXX XXXX XXXX team asked to contact XXXX number XXXX ( XXXX ) XXXX with Name as XXXX. After paying {$20000.00} USDT Tether Coins amount was not released and then XXXX number XXXX ( XXXX ) XXXX person XXXX asked to pay another {$10000.00} for withdrawing. I realized this as a scam when XXXX number XXXX ( XXXX ) XXXX asked for second time payment and asked for the policy document and tax id information to submit but they are denying sharing those documents. 

Reported about this scam to Kraken Wallet Team and they suggested reporting this incident to Law enforcement authority. I am sharing the Kraken Team Incident details.

My User ID with Kraken Wallet is associated with user ID : XXXX and Kraken Wallet asked to provide all the below information to the Law Enforcement authority. 

Kraken Support Teams Response about the Incident filed with Kraken : XXXX ( Kraken Support ) XX/XX/2023, XXXX PDT Hello Thanks for contacting us regarding this matter. 

We advise that you file a police report and ask that the law enforcement officials responsible for this investigation contact us by submitting this support form. Be sure to provide them with your public account ID and/or this ticket number ( XXXX ) for referencing. 

Please note that we are unfortunately unable to assist with the recovery of any disputed funds due to the irreversible nature of cryptocurrency transactions. 

For Compliance reasons, a detailed discussion on this matter can only be conducted with a verified law enforcement official. 

IMPORTANT : Please ensure that the law enforcement agency include a statement in their request to Kraken that you ( our client ) authorize our company data to be provided directly to the law enforcement agency without a formal court order. 

Once law enforcement contacts us, we will be more than happy to cooperate and provide them with information we have related to this case. We have now closed the account. 

We appreciate your understanding. 
Regards, XXXX Kraken Support Keep your Kraken account secure with these useful tips!

The Kraken Support Team will never ask for your password or to install third party software. Be aware of phishing scams and bookmark www.kraken.com/sign-in to avoid using search engines to navigate to our site. 

Your request ( number XXXX ) is currently marked in our system as Solved, which means we think your issue has already been resolved. 

If it has not yet been resolved, let us know by replying to this email. 

To protect your personal information, we ask that you delete this email thread. 

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- My Amounts transferred into XXXX XXXX XXXX website XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX If you need any XXXX chat related records i can share those details. 

Appreciate your help in checking about this crypto currency trading scam and help to get the amount recovered from XXXX XXXX XXXX website XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX 

-- Yours Sincerely, XXXX XXXX XXXX : ( XXXX ) XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation