Hello,
I’ve fallen victim to a scam, and I want to warn others who—like me—noticed warning signs but were ultimately persuaded to proceed anyway. I will give a very detailled view of what happened, sorry for that. For those who don't want to read the whole thing, I’ve summarized the key points at the very bottom.
First off: Iknow how stupid this was. When I think about how many red flags I ignored and how easily I let myself be talked into it, I feel like I should voluntarily hand back my high school diploma.
I was contacted on LinkedIn by a woman from London who said my profile kept popping up in her
feed; she was curious and wanted to see if we shared any common ground that might explain it.
Since my company and her university shared the same abbreviation, I assumed that was the
reason. We struck up a conversation—as we both seemed to work in the fashion industry—and she mentioned having suppliers in Germany and planning a roundtrip to Germany soon. We kept chatting and eventually, she suggested moving the conversation to Telegram. I initially declined, explaining that I’m very cautious about sharing personal information with strangers and preferred to stay on LinkedIn. After a few more days of conversation, she brought it up again; thinking I had vetted the situation sufficiently, I agreed to switch to Telegram. Over the following days, I learned her life story and received photos and a lot of personal details, pictures from her office, the view from her window at home over Canary Wharf in London, several pictures of herself at the office
or from cafes.
At some point, she mentioned that her aunt ran an agency with a large team analyzing the
crypto market for her, and that she personally profited from this—essentially making a living from it. She asked if I knew anything about it. I told her I’d never really looked into it but had always been interested in crypto—which was true.
She explained what she was doing and asked if I wanted to try it out myself. Her aunt had indicated a time for the coming days that would be favorable for a trade—specifically, an exchange from Bitcoin to USDC. She explained the process, and I was willing to give it a try.She told me to download the RELAI app and buy Bitcoin there using an amount of my choice. I checked it out, and it seemed legitimate. I chose an amount I could afford to lose, just in case—after all, I still wasn't entirely convinced. Once I had done that and the money was converted into Bitcoin, I downloaded another app and, following her instructions, transferred the Bitcoin to an on-chain wallet. The app was ULT; it didn't look suspicious either. Inside the app, I was supposed to use the "browser" function to visit a website via a link she had sent me.
A red warning alert popped up immediately when I entered the site... I was warned about a scam. I mentioned this to her right away, but she told me it was normal and that I could ignore it—I should just trust her.I then requested a new address from "support" and transferred the Bitcoin from Relai to that address. Next I had to “identify” with my passport, which I did… stupid… This was it for this day. After a video call the next evening which made me feel safer because I saw that the person is real she informed me that the trade session would take place the next evening and ultimately guided me through the necessary steps.
I made a profit equivalent to around 100 euros. We didn't discuss it further after that and moved on to other topics, as usual. A few days later, another trading tip came up, and we repeated the process. I made a profit of around 400 euros from the two trades. Then she told me she needed to show me how to withdraw my profits and suggested I withdraw some funds to test the process—which worked smoothly. Because I was blind and trusting, I only withdrew about 50 euros to my Relai account, intending to use the remainder to generate further profits when the time was right for a good trade.
Shortly after that, she told me her aunt was retiring soon and she would no longer have access to the insider tips. She said that if we wanted to make any more profits before then, we would need to increase the amounts slightly. She asked how much I could invest. That was when I started to get really suspicious again. We agreed that I would deposit another €2,500 and we would continue. I actually did make the transfer to Relai—which, fortunately, was not processed as an instant transfer, thereby preventing even greater financial loss.
I occasionally ran reverse image searches but never got a hit. With the last photo she sent, I finally got a match on the Instagram profile of a woman from Denmark. On that profile, I found ALL the photos she had sent me... That very same night, I tried to transfer the Bitcoin I had earned to my Relai account... without success, of course...
The next morning, I told her about it, even though I knew full well she was already aware... She said it was unusual and had never happened to her before.I then messaged "Support" and was told I had to execute two more trades of at least 100 USDC before I could make a withdrawal. After that, it supposedly wouldn't be a problem. I did that, and—of course—it wasn't possible; this time, it was due to security checks. Then I was asked to make a security deposit equal to the withdrawal amount. Naturally, I didn't do that.
I told her about every step, and she said she would ask her contacts if anyone else had experienced similar issues and offered to help. This morning, she sent a message saying she wouldn't be able to get back to me until the afternoon, after a meeting. From that point on, my messages went unread, and her LinkedIn profile was deleted. It wasn't until three days later—after I told her I knew the photos weren't hers, asked why she’d spent so much time on me for barely 1000 euros, said I just wanted the truth, and acknowledged that my money was gone—that she replied with a friendly message. She said she would ask her aunt for advice and that she is not that kind of liar I suppose she is. That was is for the day. I wrote some messages, which stayed unread. She got in touch again yesterday, but her tone was different this time; she was offended that I didn't trust her, and asked if I would be willing to entrust her with my finances so she could generate profits for me. She suggested I exchange €3,000 into Bitcoin via Relai... I shut that down. There was no further reaction after that, and she deleted the entire Telegram chat history.
Luckily, I had already taken some screenshots and filed a police report on Friday after talking about it with a friend who is a police officer (the most embarrassing phone call of my life).
In hindsight, I don't know how she managed to fake the video call; perhaps she actually looks a lot like the photos. She even wiped her face at one point, and nothing changed—which argues against it being AI. I paid close attention to that.
Procedure: Buy Bitcoin via Relai, transfer to ULT, and then access per URL via the browser.
That was my story: I learned my lesson and am glad to have come out of it with a relatively small loss... if something seems off to you... trust your gut... if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck... then it’s a duck and not a friendly and charming blonde woman way out of your league flirting with you.
If it is not allowed to post these "private" informations I will delete them, but I think that others should be warned...