Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) has warned consumers of using nine cryptocurrency platforms.
The regulator has received various complaints from consumers regarding fraudulent offers of investments in cryptocurrencies. Due to this, it is issuing a renewed warning to potential investors on getting involved with such type of activity.
After adding nine more trading platforms to its list of suspicious sites, there are now 131 websites consumers should be wary of.
The nine newly added sites are: bitcoinmarketscap, bitcointraderspro, coinsmex, crypto-sfs., etc-markets, fisherih, ltc-markets, stsroyal, and tdscapitalgroup.
Fraudulent investing platforms work by claiming to offer an investment which is secure, easy and very lucrative. They try to build confidence by assuring a consumer does not need to be an expert to invest in cryptocurrencies.
Additionally, they claim to have specialists that mange the portfolio for you and that funds can be removed at any time. However, the victim cannot actually recover the money.
The companies to make FSMA’s list is based on its own findings and a result of consumers’ reports. This means not all illicit companies operating in Belgium are identified and so the regulator warns consumers to be careful and vigilant.
Cryptocurrency seems to be smeared with fraud and criminal activity. Last month, the owners of binary options company Blue Bit Banc are facing fines which could reach over $4m for a scheme involving the cryptocurrency ATM coin.
According to the case, the owners had solicited public customers invest in binary options with promises of being paid predetermined amounts based upon the price of commodities. It was alleged they were using a computer program to fraudulently alter data associated with their binary options investments so the probability of investors receiving a profit favoured Blue Bit Banc and not the investors.
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