People feel embarrassed when they are duped. It’s a hard fact to admit you were wrong or you’ve lost out because of what you did. How could you – a rational thinker - send some stranger your crypto in the hope of them sending you more in return? How do you explain that to a police officer? Scammers rely on the feelings of embarrassment and guilt of their victims so they don’t feel they can contact the authorities.
The first thing to do is to come to terms that your crypto is gone. The sooner you can make sense of what happened, the less damaging the situation becomes. Everyone – EVERYONE – makes mistakes and everyone will again in the future. Don’t beat yourself up forever about something you cannot change just make sure you never repeat the same mistake. It’s a tough pill to swallow at times but it still needs to go down. The mental energy you waste will affect your diet, your sleep pattern and your relationships. Accept that you have lost it all, learn from what happened and move on.
Imagine trying to describe your situation to the police. ‘Well Officer, I sent someone some crypto over the internet and they told me they would send me a lot more back but then they didn’t. Other people I know on the internet said they were doing it too, it was all working for them and it looked fine. I didn’t sign a contract. I’ve never met the people at the company or spoken to anyone, but I do have an old Twitter handle for them, why yes, it’s an account that’s closed – how did you know? No, I don’t have any other contact details for them’.
This could be the reality when you report a finance scam you’re the victim of to the authorities. It’s an embarrassing conversation to have and it doesn’t sound like an idea anyone in their right mind would take up. Even if you make it through this far by contacting the police, you’ve then got to convince the authorities that you’re the victim of a scam and not a complete idiot. You’re not a complete idiot, but you’ve been played like one.
Regrettably, you cannot rely on law enforcement to help you. They may not be able to due to international constraints or be uninterested in your case as your losses aren’t high enough to warrant an individual investigation. Would you take one fraud case for a 1 million dollar sum or would you take on a million cases each for a 1 dollar sum? The more victims there are, the longer the case becomes. This in turn makes it more complicated to solve and therefore much less appealing for an investigation by the authorities.
Find out which organisation to report the matter to for your country, direct others in the same situation as you to do the same. There is always strength in numbers and the more awareness that is raised, the more reports that are made, the faster we can stop any more victims falling foul to these scams.