How do they keep getting away with it?

[red750]

The crooks running the Bitcoin Evolution scam have been running their ads for months using photos of people like Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Twiggy Forrest, David Koch etc, all of whom have declared they have nothing to do with it. The latest is Dick Smith, but there is a very telling freudian slip in their latest ad on the internet -

 

[onetrack]

I seem to keep getting scam emails from cryptocurrency scammers, and I blacklist them, and bounce their emails, as fast as I get them.

 

Funnily enough, I have had a major upsurge in these scam emails ever since Manheim Auctions were hacked, and my details were obviously acquired.

 

Anyone who throws good money into uncontrolled and unregulated financial systems such as cryptocurrencies deserves to lose all their "investment".

[Yenn]

I have never had anything to do with them and don't get their emails.

My grandsons partner had money in bitcoin a couple of years ago and I advised her to get out of it. She declined and she is a pretty cluey lady. She and my grandson now have a house near Penrith, West of Sydney and are doing pretty well. I haven't asked again about bitcoin, but it seems to have worked for them.

As with all things it comes down to knowing when to exit, which sadly I have not always known. I still have shares in Pike River Coal, are they still listed? I have also held onto AMP shares, always hoping that they will make enough to be worth selling. Vain hope!

[pmccarthy]

Pike River is long gone.

[Jerry_Atrick]

A mate of mine bought into Bitcoin when it as something like USD$200/coin. It is worth something like $6000 now after hitting its dizzy heights. So he has done alright.. Though many people have done amazingly well out of it, many more, it appears have lost almost all, if not all they have put into it. Fraud is massive and to be honest (although I haven't looked into it that much), there doesn't seem to be any way to really value it. A couple of banks looked into it but decided it was almost impossible to manage the risk. I think the Chicago Board of Exchange has Bitcoin futures, which at least gives an eye to how the "market" feels. When I invest in equities, bonds or currency, which is no where near as much as a I should be (esp as we can invest up to £20k each per year into an Individual Savings Account and the earnings/capital gains are tax free), I know the factors to apply to assess the risk and make a decision - ans these are well published an available to anyone. However, there are no clear factors that drive demand if Bitcoin - there are no fundamental financials with them - what makes a Bitcoin today worth USD$6000 and tomorrow possibly $20,000 or $2? It is of no inherent value - and there is no guarantee that anyone will take botcoin and exchange it for anything of value. Of course, the value of a national currency isn't fixed and can sometimes not be aligned with the current economic state of that nation relative to others, but there is some correlations.

 

I also have a problem with it as it is used on the dark web to launder money from nefarious activities;

 

In response to the OP, if the ads/emails are from foreign servers, there is not much the AFP or anyone can do about it, except start putting up censorship.

[facthunter]

If things look to good to be true they usually are. The stock exchange is a gambling den working with mainly "fear and greed" motivating it. It can be manipulated as can ALL currencies and insider trading is rife. and always will be as it's pretty impossible to stop all of it. It IS a necessary vehicle for trading stocks however even virtual ones that make billionaires almost overnight, but that money comes from Losers who Gamble, not from producing "things". Nev

[red750]

The scam side of it is bad enough, but how do they get away with illegally using images of famous people to promote something they will have nothing to do with?

[kgwilson]

The problem with crypto currencies is that they exist only in cyberspace and block chain software. They are only worth anything because of the spruiking done by the organisations try to sell them, pumping up the demand by saturating millions of email addresses with BS about how all the celebrities have made a fortune. It has all proven absolutely false but they keep it up as there will always be one new gullible person with some money out of probably 10,000 tries.