Not a TIFU per se, but a long-lasting FU (LLFU)

A small background. I browse Tinder from time to time, not for hookups, but when I feel lonely. However, considering how much time it requires to persuade a girl to go out with you I rarely chat with anyone. Also, in most cases my “original” questions or comments are either left unanswered or responded with “yeah… haha”. So, I think it’s not worth to invest time and get nothing in return.

Anyways, one evening I got a message from someone I don’t recall matching. When I checked her profile, she seemed like a regular girl whose parents are rich. So, she told me she is new in Tinder and wanted to check it out and she likes me, blah blah. I kept up the conversation and she suggested to switch to whatsapp. It went on for several days upon which I found out that she owns a boutique, an apartment in the city center, drives the latest BMW M5 and enjoying the life mostly. She also sent me a lot of her pictures from a fitting room, Singapore trip and at friend’s house. It lasted for a good two weeks when she casually mentioned her successful trading bids. Being a trader apprentice myself I got interested, because now I could see where all those things she owns come from (obviously, not from the boutique).

At this point, it may be worth to note that she mentioned a few times how unique I am to her and how she appreciates our conversations. From my point of view though, we didn’t go anywhere deeper than daily talks and I felt maybe 3 empathies out of 10 for her. Yes, she was pretty and I thought we should meet up first to check out chemistry between us. She lives in another city and I suggested a few times to meet, but she either ignored or didn’t have time for it.

Nevertheless, she said uncle’s financial advisors help her to build up her portfolio how to bid timely and buy or sell the needed instruments. Since we had such “special connection” between us, she suggested me to introduce him, but I was reluctant, because there was no connection and I didn’t want to bother her, presumably, rich and busy uncle, with such nonsense. A few days later she announces that during her regular calls with uncle, she told him about me and he is going to help me to become financial independent such as her. I was trying to save for an apartment for years and all my other investments failed. I thought maybe it is that weird chance that no person should miss?

When the Uncle called, he was all business. He introduced himself and asked me to tell about myself too. I felt like a guy who came for a prom date, but financial independency is something I was eager to achieve a long time ago, so I aligned. He told a lot about his company and how they use news from journalists from Bloomberg to place orders before they get published. They work mostly with trusts and funds, but since his niece thought high of me, I should take this chance. In exchange, they expect me to return 20% of my profit, which is fair. He also said they trade with crypto because of amount of profit they are getting. I replied that I’m not sure how serious my relationships with his niece are, but I’d love to work with them.

Finally, TIFU. The uncle suggested to try it out now and organize a Zoom call, that he does with all his clients. He then showed me the platform they use for trading, which only accepts deposits in crypto currency. He said the platform I currently use (InteractiveBrokers) doesn’t allow to buy instruments from other regions (true) and other platforms charge too much (also true). He asked me to pass KYC and add some funds to work with. He didn’t explicitly commend how much I should invest, but he gave me some numbers I can get after a year, depending on how much I invest. I was so excited, that I quickly passed KYC and added $2k for the start.

Days went by with him providing me positions and girl who keeps chatting with me, discussing weather, food, daily things. In two weeks, I made $200 which is quite impressive. I’m thinking to invest more, but first I want to try to withdraw the earnings plus balance and I fail. I get a message from the system saying “withdrawal is not available as regarded as money laundering”. The mail and message itself looked very lame and that’s where it actually clicked that I’ve been frauded. I checked the platform in Google before and found 0 results, but then I decided to check DuckDuckGo and found hundred fraud complaints. I track my transfer via blockchain history and see thousands of money being transferred into that wallet and taken out immediately.

At that point I already said goodbye to my 2k (I understand, that $2k is not a life threatening amount, but I still earned them working hard, I just try not to dwell on it) and I found explanation to all cues I missed during conversation with both. I realized that many other victims probably threatened them and failed because of how good they hid the traces of their actions. So, I decided to play along and keep innocent face until the end, which is, in my case, return what I have invested. The next day I told uncle about my desire to invest $10 thousand more to make profit faster and higher, but I couldn’t withdraw my balance. He responded that it’s a known issue, if someone wants to take money out too soon after contribution, and he suggested to wait 2-3 weeks, before doing that.

I still communicate with that girl, showing her appreciation for giving me that chance. The uncle sends me positions, I set them up and sending him back the screenshots as agreed. I will try to make an impression that I’m excited about upcoming 10k investment to make them believe I’m serious about it.

TL;DR. A tinder girl lured me into a trading platform that doesn’t allow to withdraw funds.