Thousands may have fallen for crypto trading app scams

Another cryptocurrency trading app may have lost thousands of people their hard-earned savings, it has been reported.

In corporate terms, iEarn Bot told customers that their investments would be managed by the artificial intelligence program, guaranteeing high returns.

But experts who have investigated the company, which claims to be based in the US, say it could be one of the biggest crypto scandals to date.

Roxana – not her real name to protect her identity – from Romania, told the BBC she lost hundreds of euros investing.

She said: “I invested in a bot for one month. You could see in the app how many dollars the app generated: there were graphics that showed how the investment was going.

“It looked quite professional until at one point they announced maintenance.

“Someone started saying ‘I can’t withdraw… what’s going on’. I made the request to withdraw and the money just disappeared.

“The portfolio became zero. But I was not credited with money on my wallet.

Digital currencies have a history of boom and bust cycles, and with 2022’s fall of Bitcoin, the market will become more volatile.

But trading remains popular, with people often promising large rewards over short periods of time.

What happened to people in Romania is not an isolated incident either. Silvia Tabusca, a Romanian organized crime expert from the European Center for Legal Education and Research, started looking into iEarn Bot.

She discovered that many people in other countries had also lost their money on the scheme.

The company claims they have 800,000 customers. After joining, the app works “very well,” Tabusca said.

“When they have enough investors and enough money invested in a specific country, they don’t allow that country to withdraw any more – and they open up other countries,” she added.

When you look at iEarn Bot’s website, there are a number of red flags. The company does not provide any contact information on the website.

Metro.co.uk attempted to contact the company through its automated messaging feature, but there was no response.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with companies such as Huawei and Qualcomm, are all named as “strategic partners” of iEarn Bot.

But they told the BBC that they have no knowledge of the company and that they do not work with it.

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