The Washington State Department of Financial Institutions (DFI), Securities Division has received a complaint from a Washington resident regarding lsetbtc.com (“LSEBTC”), an alleged cryptocurrency trading platform claiming to be associated with the London Stock Exchange. The Securities Division could find no evidence of any such association, and the LSEBTC website has since been taken down.
The investor told DFI that they had been introduced to the LSEBTC platform by an individual they met on a dating website. The individual described the LSEBTC investments as short-term cryptocurrency options contracts that provided up to a 30% return. The investor downloaded the app on lsetbtc.com, invested over $11,000 of their own funds and borrowed $30,000 from LSEBTC that they reinvested back in their account. The investor’s LSEBTC account purportedly grew to over $68,000 within a short time. When the investor attempted to pay off the loan using their purported profits, LSEBTC did not allow them to and instead told the investor that the loan would have to be paid off using funds from outside the platform. This was not previously disclosed to the investor. LSEBTC locked the investor out of their account and started deducting 5% per day from the investor’s account until the loan was paid off. The investor did not repay any of the loan and in turn lost their entire investment. These allegations have not been verified by DFI.
This appears to be similar to what is commonly called a “Romance Scam”, which can take many forms.
This also appears to be what is commonly called “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. 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.