Simon Hoadley, a 66-year-old retired financial advisor living in East Sussex, UK, has reportedly become the victim of a “horrendous” cryptocurrency scam that took nearly $100,000 from him.
Fortunately, legal experts managed to recover almost all the lost funds.
Scammers have no mercy
As reported Per the Mirror, Hoadley was looking to earn some extra cash during the COVID-19 pandemic when his father was dying of cancer, while his wife lived in a nursing home. At that time, he was contacted by a company that claimed to be made up of investment specialists and advised him to distribute his savings in digital currencies.
Hoadley agreed and at first saw a return on his investment. However, the person he was in contact with stopped responding to him at one point as his wallet began to dwindle rapidly. Later, the man delivered more than $100,000 to the criminals.
“It was horrible. My dad was dying of cancer and I was living alone because my wife is in a care facility three hours away,” Hoadley said.
Once he realized he had been scammed, he went to his local bank to find a way to get his money back. The financial entity urged him to reveal everything to his family because the case could not have been solved without the efforts of the police.
“I have four adult children who were devastated when they found out. They had always admired me, but after a year, I completely changed. It was really hard for them to see it,” Hoadly said.
Unlike previous scams, which resulted in total losses for investors, legal experts managed to return more than $95,000 of the sum to the man. Hoadley said he used the money to buy a mobile home near where his wife lives.
Other similar cases in the UK
The UK has recently become a hotbed for cryptocurrency scams, with some people losing significant amounts of funds.
A British man, whose name was not released, separated from $200,000 after he was scammed by a woman presenting herself as a successful cryptocurrency investor with “insider knowledge”. She also told him that they could build a wealthy lifestyle along with the promised returns from the dubious investment. The man was so devastated after the loss that he even considered committing suicide.
“I recognized that I needed help right away and went straight to my mother. If I didn’t have that support, I wouldn’t be here. I was going to do something that wouldn’t leave me here anymore,” she revealed.
Another woman living in Nottinghamshire lost the same sum after an unknown man posing as a US Army surgeon urged her to transfer funds to him in a particular bitcoin wallet so that he could terminate his contract and join her. As it turned out, she was simply a romance scam, and the scammer never came.
The local police partnered with the woman’s bank and managed to restore more than half of the lost money. Still, the retiree urged others to be very careful when dating online.
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This post British Man Lost $100K In Crypto Scam But There Was A Happy Ending (Report)
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