New Zealand ‘s financial regulator revealed yesterday the new Bitcoin-related scam, promising a fast profit from bitcoin investments.
Financial Markets Authority (FMA), the New Zealand’s government agency responsible for financial regulation warned the crypto community about the suspicious internet site profitbtc.com. According to the institutional regulator, the website had “hallmarks of scam”.
The website is closed at the moment of publishing, however it was used to contain get-rich-quick fraudulent schemes. Scammers there promised fast profit for users who install particular software, that guarantees successful Bitcoin trades with nearly 100% accuracy.
The official warning states that the Profit Bitcoin scam was published and promoted on social media platforms, like Facebook. In addition, FMA notes that fraudsters have also spread fake news about local government’s initiatives. Furthermore, they used the image of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden for the promotion of their fraudulent messages.
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According to the FMA, Profit Bitcoin is illegal. As it is not registered as a financial service provider in New Zealand, Profit Bitcoin operators have no permission to provide financial services nor products to local residents.
How the scam works
The Profit Bitcoin scam offers its users to trade digital assets on its platform. However, the users are asked to download special free software first.
The software, that is fully automated, then places various trades by itself and without any human interaction. This means, users do not need to know anything about trading, nor do any research on the assets. Profit is left to be their only concern.
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Furthermore, the fraudulent website invites users to register by luring them with $13k in daily returns if they signed up to the scammers platform.
Scheme already seen before
Profit Bitcoin, also known as Bitcoin Profit or BTC Profit appears to be circulating around for some time already.
According to the recent review by ScamCryptoRobots website, the same fake crypto robot is advertised as a system which allows earning money without any risk for the investments despite the fact that markets are suffering or even crashing.
According to the research, Profit Bitcoin scam under the name of Bitcoin Profit at the time has previously used the same scheme to advertise itself by using the name and visual of British business magnate Richard Branson. The names of Elon Musk and Bill Gates have been also announced to be exploited by the same online fraudsters.
In conclusion, the researchers are not very optimistic for the future. Since the internet is flooded with such types of deceptive and misleading news-style advertisements, they believe the trend for such kinds of scams will only grow.
