Trader I met online is asking for more money as a transaction fee to process withdrawal of my gains

Question

I met a trader on telegram and after discussion I was convinced to invest $300 and then after 24 hours I got a message to increase the investment to $500 otherwise trading will not be done.

After 2 days I was informed that my profit is $7000 and I can withdraw it after paying transaction fees of $400. I told him to deduct the fees from my profit, but they deny and start pressuring me to pay the fees.

I didn't pay the fees and tried to contact company direct customer care, and after explaining they said that the trader was fake, but they said that my account has $7000 profit and to withdraw it I need to pay them $300 fees.

I am not able to understand that why company is asking same thing. Is this company running a scam team to scam people like me?

Answer 1

Any time someone tells you to give them money so that they give you back more money after that - it is a scam. If someone really wants to give you money - they'll be able to deduct whatever expenses or debts from it before remitting.

Similarly, if you give someone money for something and then they say "well, now I need more" it is likely that they're scamming you unless they have a really good explanation as to why they really need more now (e.g.: you're in a bidding war that you knew of and was prepared for).

Answer 2

tl;dr: skip to the question at the bottom if you don't want to read this story.

Years ago I received an email from a man who told me he was a really good car mechanic. This was fantastic timing since I had been having trouble with my car recently, so I replied to his email and explained the issue to him. He knew exactly what the problem was and said he could definitely fix it, and it would cost me $250. I already had a quote from another mechanic for $2000, so this was a really good deal, and I agreed.

The man told me where to meet him, so I brought my car there, and gave him the $250. Since it was going to take a day I had my friend follow me and drive me home. The next day the mechanic emailed me and told me he found another issue and it would cost another $500. He gave me a way to pay him online so I didn't need to have my friend drive me over to pay him, so I paid online. 2 days later he told me he had fixed my car and it was ready to be picked up, but he found one more issue which he fixed too, and I needed to pay him another $500. I told him I didn't agree to the last fix and he said since it was already done, I either needed to pay the extra $500 or he wouldn't give me my car back. So I had my friend drive me to meet him, I gave him the additional $500, he gave me the keys to my car, and he drove away.

The weird thing was that my car was in the exact same place where I dropped it off. It had snowed the night I gave my car to him, but there were no tire tracks in the snow, and no foot prints around the front or back of the car, as if my car had never even moved, or been touched. I suddenly suspected that I had been scammed. Sure enough, when I turned on my car, the original problem was still present. This guy had scammed me out of $1250 and never even attempted to fix my car!

Disclaimer: this is a made up story. Did you suspect this story was a scam at any point before fictional "me" did? If no, then you just learned something. If yes, why is it easier to detect that this story is a scam, more so than an online stranger offering to invest money for you and beat the market?

I hope now you can answer your own question:

I am not able to understand that why company is asking same thing. Is this company running a scam team to scam people like me?

Yes, absolutely. They are saying you were scammed to earn your trust, so they can try to continue to scam you.

Answer 3

It is almost certainly a scam. The most likely scenario is that they will reverse the $7,000 after you've paid the $300, or just not pay the $7,000 at all.

Answer 4

Never pay more money to free your money.

If you pay this fee, then there will be some other fee. If the say it's a tax, somehow the tax has to be sent to the fraudsters, never to the government. Each and every "last payment to get your money" will always have one more payment.

You have as much chance of withdrawing that $7000 as you do of collecting that inheritance from a non-existent relative or the trunk full of cash that just needs storage fees paid. Exactly 0%.

Answer 5

What are the odds of making $7000 on $500 in two days? Such profits are simply not possible (especially on such a small initial investment), and if they were the trader in question wouldn't need your money.