The Washington State Department of Financial Institutions (DFI), Securities Division received a complaint from a Washington investor regarding FameEx (https://fameexio.com). The FameEx website is no longer available.
The investor met the scammer, named “Jackson Qie,” when Qie sent him an unsolicited text message requesting assistance in purchasing a multi-million dollar home (the investor is presumably a real estate agent). They then began communicating on WhatsApp, where Qie talked to the investor about Bitcoin trading using the FameEx platform. Over a one-month period, the investor made multiple transfers totaling over $113,000 in Ether (ETH) and Tether (USDT) from his Crypto.com account into what he thought was his FameEx trading account. Instead, he unknowingly transferred the funds into a wallet controlled by the scammer(s). The investor’s FameEx account purportedly grew to over $172,000.
When the investor tried to withdraw $50,000 of his earnings, FameEx customer service demanded he pay a fee of 25%, equal to over $42,000. The investor paid that amount in ETH but was still unable to withdraw his funds. FameEx then demanded that the investor pay another fee of 20% of his balance, which was now over $213,000. The investor also paid that fee totaling over $42,000. The withdrawal still did not go through. FameEx told the investor that he was #84,515 in line to withdraw funds due to “network congestion.” FameEx then told the investor he could pay an additional $20,000 to fast-track his withdrawal. The investor did not pay this as he had run out of funds. The investor had sold his stock portfolio and borrowed funds from friends to pay for his investments. The investor lost around $200,000, which included approximately $84,000 in fees.
During their conversations, Qie sent the investor photos that he claimed were photos of himself. A reverse image search of the photos revealed that they were taken from several Instagram accounts belonging to other individuals, as well as from a well-known e-commerce website.
DFI has not verified these allegations.
This appears to be what is commonly called a "Pig Butchering” scheme. It may also be an “Advance Fee Fraud,” which can take many forms.
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 formal complaint with the Securities Division.
Additional Resources:
Virtual Currency, Cryptocurrency, and Digital Assets Information for Consumers