The Washington State Department of Financial Institutions (DFI), Securities Division has received a complaint from a Washington resident regarding www.aipultd.cc, a website claiming to be a spot trading and cryptocurrency trading platform.
The investor met a Chinese woman (“Xinfen Chen”) through KakaoTalk, a South Korean mobile messaging app. She built a romantic relationship with the investor before claiming she made millions spot trading gold. Chen claimed that she had a team of analysts that would tell the investor when to execute trades to maximize returns. Within days of the investor’s initial investment of $5,000, the investor’s Aipultd,cc account purportedly saw 20% returns on their investments. Over several weeks and multiple transfers, the investor invested around $220,000. The investor successfully withdrew $20,000 of funds from their Aipultd.cc account, but when the investor attempted to withdraw a larger sum, the transaction was blocked, and they were locked out of their account. Aipultd,cc did not assist the investor in unlocking his account. These allegations have not been verified by DFI.
This appears to be what is commonly called “Romance Scam”, which can take many forms.
This complaint contained several other warning signs indicating fraud (which have also not been verified by DFI), including:
- Aipultd.cc website is optimized for mobile browsing and looks incomplete from a desktop browser.
- Aipultd.cc website does not load without an additional character in the URL that Chen provided the investor.
- Aipultd.cc had the investor send each transfer to a different bank account located in Hong Kong.
- Chen told the investor to lie to their bank to process the wire transfers.
- Chen promised returns of over 20% and higher returns for investments over $300,000.
DFI urges consumers to exercise extreme caution before responding to any solicitation offering investment or financial services. Investment professionals need to be licensed with DFI to offer investments to Washington residents. In addition, most investment products sold need to be registered with DFI. To check the licensing status and to find out if there are any complaints against an investment professional or investment product, please visit FINRA Brokercheck or contact the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions, Securities Division at (360) 902-8760. If you live outside of Washington State, contact your state securities regulator.
If a consumer believes a person or company has violated state law or acted improperly regarding an investment product or service, they may file a complaint with the Securities Division.
Additional Resources
Virtual Currency, Cryptocurrency, and Digital Assets Information for Consumers