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On my trading platform(TCI-Investment), I've received a message from security, that I must pay an insurance fee of 25% cause they thinking I'm trading with insider information.

"Starting from the October 30 of the current financial year, all trading activities have been suspended on your account. You need to pay insurance in order to unlock your own account, have access to trading operations and withdrawal systems.

According to the rules of our trading platform, you must pay an insurance fee of 25% of the total balance in order to get access to trading operations and withdrawal systems. These fees cannot be deducted from your deposited funds as they are already frozen so we can only process your transfers.
This is a one-time bonus that is refundable. The insurance premium is withheld for 31 calendar days. After 31 days, the insurance amount will be available to you on your balance. The insurance payment should only be sent to the BTC wallet of your account. Please do not transfer money to addresses of third parties that are not provided by our terminal support. As soon as the payment of the insurance payment is successfully processed please send us a screenshot of the completed transaction with the amount and address of your TCI wallet as the recipient. Access to all functionality of the trading terminal will be returned in 24 hours."

Is this a scam or what?

mhoran_psprep
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Liver Makentoshe
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    Any time you're asked to pay money to get money you need to think really hard why that would not be a scam. – littleadv Oct 30 '23 at 19:26
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    Does this platform have a website? A lot of things come up on a search. It definitely appears to be a scam but it could be useful to understand how you end up here. – JimmyJames Oct 30 '23 at 20:57
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    "the BTC wallet". So we are not working on a standard trading platform. This is one of the crypto cowboys. Don't get me wrong, I love crypto and I made a lot of money in the 2017 run-up, but when I say "It's a wild west" I mean it like it sounds, with the good, the bad, and the ugly. Unfortunately, this doesn't sound like "the good". –  Oct 30 '23 at 21:13
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    @user26460 the fact that OP can't recognize this as a typical "normal" scam means the BTC exchange may not even be real and OP might already be out ALL his money already... – Nelson Oct 31 '23 at 02:14
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    @Nelson Yeah, there's no shortage of "trading platforms" that offer nothing that looks like trading, because they are scams. Many will let you "trade" on credit, then pull stuff like this to get your "earnings" out. –  Oct 31 '23 at 02:26
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    So other than the more logical hallmarks of a scam, no company that is genuinely interested in getting the customer to pay for something (because your continued business is how they earn money) will use the phrases "you need to pay" of "you must pay" (either that or someone in marketing needs to be fired). You would find subtler phrasing like "there is a surcharge" or indirectly referring to payments by referring to a payment notice, or ... just not a blatant "you need to pay". This kind of language is bullying in nature and intended to scare you into complying with their request. – Flater Oct 31 '23 at 05:09
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    https://telltrue.net/eto-lohotron/tci-investment/ - This site seems to think they're scammers – Valorum Oct 31 '23 at 18:52
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    "Bonus" does not mean what they think it means... – RonJohn Nov 01 '23 at 00:44
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    Not only you have lost the money you've already "invested", this is an attempt to try and extract even more. – Peteris Nov 02 '23 at 01:35

5 Answers5

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Yes it is a scam. Any money you "invested" on this platform is gone.

Edit: Reasons why I believe this is a scam:

  • Insider trading is a crime. A legit platform would involve authorities and.
  • The insurance does not make sense at all
  • How would they suspect you of having access to insider information?
  • Why are they handling official payments through BTC?

That is why I believe, not only the insurance being fraudulent, but also the trading platform.

QEDemonstrandum
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    Agreed, and don't say "but I can see my balance is $X, which is more than I invested" - try to withdraw a single penny of that $X and I guarantee you won't be able to - not without paying additional upfront "fees" and "taxes" and goodness knows what else. They are milking you for every last bit they can before you realise it's a scam. – Vicky Oct 30 '23 at 12:12
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    @Vicky I'd note that some of these scams will let you withdraw small amounts early on, to build trust. – ceejayoz Oct 30 '23 at 21:06
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    This is true, but you should probably include some more information on why this is a scam - otherwise it boils down to an answer of 'Yes". – Zibbobz Oct 31 '23 at 13:42
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    @Nelson Entirely missing the point, which is: "Don't trust something just because you had a small successful withdrawal." – ceejayoz Oct 31 '23 at 14:16
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    @Zibbobz Giving money to an internet stranger is a scam unless proven otherwise. If you don't believe me, send me $200 to unlock the rest of this comment. – user253751 Oct 31 '23 at 21:06
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    @user253751 I'm not saying that this answer is wrong, I am saying that it could be improved by adding some more information - such as the early warning signs that this person could have used to avoid this scam, or an explanation for how the scam works to more thoroughly explain why this person is not getting their money back. – Zibbobz Nov 01 '23 at 02:44
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    Any time someone holding your money asks you to send them more money rather than offering you the option to deduct that from what they are currently holding, it should be assumed to be a scam. – keshlam Nov 01 '23 at 16:25
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    Please include some information in the answer why you are sure this is a scam. Possible red flags or logical arguments - otherwise this site boils down to everyone just voting YES/NO ? – Falco Nov 02 '23 at 12:29
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It is a scam because of several red flags:

  • They want you to pay more money to get access to your money.
  • They want their fee in crypto.
  • They want a screen capture as proof.
  • They want you to wait many days to get your money back.
mhoran_psprep
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    @stannius Nor would the trading platform care even if you could. A trading platform doesn't bear liability for its users engaging in insider trading, I see no reason why they'd require users to be insured in such a way if it were even possible. None of it makes any sense at all. – Nuclear Hoagie Oct 30 '23 at 19:43
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  • They (presumably) have enough of your money to cover a whatever fee they want, but they need more
    • – svavil Oct 30 '23 at 20:03
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    Additionally, AFAIK "insider trading" with crypto isn't illegal. Or even possible. – Ruslan Oct 30 '23 at 21:15
  • @Ruslan Seems possible to me... In fact, the crypto message boards are filled with accusations of insider dealings, whether it be by pump and dump, mining rig sales, or just straight use of insider info to inform trading. Whether the SEC or other bodies have weighed in on that is another story. –  Oct 30 '23 at 21:18
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    @Ruslan Ishan Wahi was convicted of his part in insider trading of cryptocurrencies earlier this year. Perhaps what may be confusing to people is that there are specific laws against "insider trading" that don't apply to cryptocurrencies. But that doesn't matter. The crimes they actually charge you with have names like "wire fraud" and "conspiracy to defraud" but the mechanism of the fraud or object of the conspiracy is insider trading of cryptocurrencies. – David Schwartz Oct 30 '23 at 22:47
  • @DavidSchwartz Here's the SEC press release of their settlement and judgment. Pretty serious stuff. Strictly speaking, it is much closer to fraud due to using non-public information to pump and dump. – Nelson Oct 31 '23 at 02:27
  • @Nelson They were criminally charged because they had inside information that they expected would increase the price of cryptocurrencies and traded on the basis of that information. There was no accusation that they were trying to manipulate the prices themselves. As the SEC explained, "We allege that Ishan and Nikhil Wahi, respectively, tipped and traded securities based on material nonpublic information, and that’s insider trading, pure and simple." They were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which applies to securities and non-securities equally. – David Schwartz Oct 31 '23 at 03:46
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    @stannius And even if it somehow was possible to get legally insured against legal consequences of your own criminal activity, to the best of my knowledge no competent insurance company would grant retroactive insurance except for some very limited policies with some providers, and even then those are only retroactive if you recently had a previously started policy lapse, and the retroactivity is only to cover the lapsed period. – Nzall Oct 31 '23 at 12:17
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    Some more red flags: they claim they are FCA licensed in "England", but I can't find an entry with their registration number; the English on their website isn't "obvious scammer" level, but it's also far from "professional trading firm" level; their "About company" page is a joke; their name tries to associate them with a well-known hedge fund, which weirdly enough does not seem to link to "their" trading platform. – xLeitix Nov 02 '23 at 11:14
  • 25% is an obscene surcharge in any case, no matter what justification may be advanced or what promises may be made about your eventually getting it back. – keshlam Nov 03 '23 at 16:57