Cryptocurrency scam costs Calgary man thousands
CBC
A Calgary man is speaking out after losing several thousand dollars in a cryptocurrency scam, including money he borrowed from his bank.
Joel Woodhouse says he's out approximately $16,000 in Bitcoin after investing with an online crypto brokerage, WinBitX, which he saw advertised on Facebook.
"Their claim was that if you invest in cryptos with them, they will trade them and make profit and then take a commission, not the profit that they make for you," Woodhouse said. "I signed up on their website, gave my name and my email, and then I was shortly after contacted by the company."
Woodhouse believed the front he was seeing, with the company's representatives showing him statistics and other data to convince him they would earn a profit on his investment.
"They're very persistent with their phone calls, and over the months they gained my trust," Woodhouse recalled.
"And during this whole time, every time I would send a bit of money, they would show me the profits that I was making and always saying that if I get more in, I'll be able to get more profits."
Woodhouse says he planned to keep a baseline amount in the account while withdrawing the earnings to pay bills.
When he went to make his first withdrawal, nobody answered his calls or emails.
That's when the red flags started going up.
Woodhouse had started investing with WinBitX near the end of April 2021, and says that it was near the end of August when he realized he may not be getting his money back.
"They always had some story and some excuse of why my investments couldn't be accessed, and it usually came down to I had to pay them more money in order to access my investments," said Woodhouse.
The loss hit Woodhouse not only in his wallet but in his pride.
"It was something that I didn't really talk about in the beginning because, partially, I was in denial that it was gone. I had talked to friends about what was going on and the possibility of it being really good, and then finding out that it was all a scam, having to like, really swallow that failure," Woodhouse said.
"I was embarrassed and I felt stupid and betrayed."
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