Topic: ChangeHero.io - exchanger scammed me for 21 010 USDT (Read 1260 times)

The situation still warrants us some unreasonable suspicions. Even a few months later, we have to address it and post our statement in an every related topic to let it be known that the accusations were wrongful.

We have made a statement with the case resolution on a scam alert forum. The transaction was put on hold since our fraud detection system and further analysis showed that the money were being laundered, and a similar case few months later proved our suspicions.

Despite this setback, ChangeHero will continue working on building the users' trust.

For me, the result is important: the Money is returned, I think the conflict is settled. You are a legendary forum member and you should know that what we don't consider a Scam today doesn't mean that it can't be one tomorrow. If SergeyMalar doesn't have any more complaints, then we should stop.

https://www.bestchange.com/faq.html


No, it's not. At least not until they'll provide their apologies and explain why ChangeHero.io was marked as active despite holding user funds for over 90 days.

I've read their answers but it looks like they don't take this seriously.

Bestchange is not an exchanger, it is just a monitoring of exchange offices. When making an exchange, everyone should understand all the risks that may arise as a result of the exchange. The fact that the money was returned in full, this is the merit of bestchange.
Can you bet your reputation that Binance will never become a scam? Personally, I can't say that what is reliable today will not be a scam tomorrow. The result is important, how the problem was solved.

I think it's time to close this topic.

If this was not removed from bestchange immediately after your very plausible allegations of them being a scam, then I don't think that bestchange should be referred to as a credible source of information for exchanges at all. It is unprofessional at best for them to do this and not consider the position of clients.

Anyhow, KYC/AML is something that is cited by a ton of exchangers, especially on big transactions that it has become a routine honestly.

The takeaway here, if nothing else, is that if you're dealing with these types of sums of money, just don't risk it and use a normal exchange, like Binance, which give you around the same in daily withdrawal limits anyway for unverified accounts.

I don't think you can get these % interest... otherwise it will be a waste of time (like pay a lawyer etc etc....)

In my country Italy (EU), it will be a totally lose of time and money since there is anything that can regulate % from deposit.
Here we use just "ISTAT" revaluation, like wise we count inflation as interest (most of times is not more 0,5% and you ask only after some YEARS as compensation...)

Your statement is correct for situations when the "deposit" was made voluntarily. However, in case of illegal seizure of funds it's natural to provide a compensation, which is calculated using the refinance rate.

I have no idea about your country's legislation on that term, but here in Russia it's natural to start a litigation process in such situation. And the chance of winning is almost 100%.
If somebody held your money illegally then he is obliged to pay you interest.

@Balthazar
I don't think it's a "rule" get interest on deposit, or get interest in USDT deposit.
As example Its full of bank that offer 0 or negative interest if you keep money there...

@OP
Change the topic name to "Resolved", and I think you were also lucky to get your money back.

Returning funds is good but they are forgetting about inflation. They held funds for over 90 days so they owe him additional $157.



21000 USD @ this day are not equal to 21000 USD @ 3 months ago.

Thankfully all has gone well. It must have been a stressful thing to cope with knowing your funds worth $21000 have been effectively stolen. Congratulations for getting them to return your crypto to you.

And thank you to the forum members that came to support you after you opened the scam thread. You have also helped other users by warning them to keep away from these types of exchanges.

The exchanger returned the tokens back

Official statement from ChangeHero regarding the case with Sergey M.

On 27/10/2019 supposedly Sergey M. (hereinafter - “the User”) has made two transactions with the web interface of the ChangeHero service (hereinafter - “the Service”).

The first transaction was made at 15:15:12 on 27/10/2019. Exchanged 50 USDT20 to XMR. Finished at 15:52:43.
The second transaction was made at 17:11:44 on 27/10/2019. Exchanged 21,010 USDT20 to XMR. The transaction was automatically put on hold due to AML-system being triggered.

Sequence of interactions with the user
 
The interaction with the User was happening as follows:
On 27/10/2019 at 20:28 the User contacted the Service’s support team through the chat asking for a refund of his assets because he refused to pass the user verification procedure known as KYC (“Know Your Customer”). At 21:04 he was provided with the support team’s email address, where further communication was occuring;
On 29/10/2019 at 15:55, after consulting with legal experts, the Service has decided to continue verification of the User until the circumstances are completely clarified;
On 01/11/2019 at 14:53 after the User’s inquiry, the Service affirmed the refund is possible only after completing the KYC procedure;
On 09/11/2019, as a reply to the previous letter, the User sent an email with his ID, proof of source of part of his funds and screenshots of his exchange account attached to it;
To confirm the User’s identity, on 21/12/2019 a Skype call was made after being repeatedly postponed, through the User’s fault as well.

During the Skype call, the User was asked a few standard questions, which, in our opinion, could serve as a proof of ownership over the funds:
Which cryptocurrency wallet was used by the User to send the funds to the Service;
Which cryptocurrency wallet was used by the User to receive the funds exchanged by the Service;
Why did the User exchanged his funds not directly on the exchange (at the time of transactions, the rates on the exchange were more favorable);
For what activities does the User utilize his exchange account, from which the funds were sent to the Service.
The User was not able to provide an answer to any of these questions and disconnected from the call, claiming he would call back in 15-20 minutes.

To get more information on the case, during a few days from 21/12/2019 until 17/01/2020 the Service sent inquiries to the exchange from which the funds were sent. The information received from the exchange representatives can be summarized as follows:
The funds were indeed sent from their exchange account;
The account shows the signs of “allegedly suspicious activity”;
There were no official inquiries from law enforcement regarding this account.

Closing the case

According to the Terms of Use, on 31/01/2020 at 13:39:43 the Service has made a refund to the outgoing Address 0x975f422840ed3729a5b95a60e454e0826b719f4a, Hash: 0x207cc2a75781aecc9b08d6f7e7bfeadce53ff85c7ee509cc79ea8da1b8477d9f. The address will be blacklisted by the Service, and the User or any further operations connected with this address will be blocked.

Despite the unjustified accusations, all the time since the start of the incident, the User’s funds were on hold on the Service’s payin address, were not sent or used in any other transactions.

Concluding the case

ChangeHero is a non-custodial exchange solution. It does not withhold its users’ assets and balances. It does not require obligatory sign-up.

The Service’s team adheres to the policy of opposing illegal activities, such as fraud, money laundering, as well as suspicious operations and transactions. The Service’s policy will not be changed despite the attempts to influence it through public activities, private e-mail and messaging, Service’s partners etc.

The Service is going to review the communication flow with its customers who refuse to undergo KYC and to resolve similar future cases within 24 hours.

The Service is going to review its Terms of Use to make the conditions of using the Service more clear and understandable to the Users.

The team is sincerely sorry that some of these unjustified accusations and reputation damage were dealt to the BestChange and Indacoin services that have no connection to the transactions in question. We express our gratitude to BestChange and Indacoin for adhering to their Terms of Use and not pressuring ChangeHero to refund the assets in question.

That's some hell of a jump to go from 100 USDT as a test to over 21,000 USDT

I would have done it in 1,000 USDT instalments or even 500 USDT just because I'm over paranoid like that.

I really do hope you manage to get this sorted out, really not acceptable.

I think Changehero might have used Indacoin name but, is it right to -ve review Indacoin for this. I have used Indacoin and my buying when well.

Also, i checked Indacoin rating it is good:
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/indacoin.com

Indacoin is used/partnered by top wallets and exchanges as per data on their website: https://indacoin.com/en-SG/buy-bitcoin-with-cardusd

They have mentioned below exchange as their partner:

• Guarda wallet
• Trust Wallet
• Changenow
• Okex
• Changelly

No, you couldn't. Because you didn't pay for listing as active exchanger. 

According to Nostradamus, he said "don't believe everybody on the world wide web"

At this point, they (exchangers) can all tell you each time our internal system flagged the transaction as an excuse. It's clear they firstly didn't respect their own TOS, the funds should have returned to the users.

But they did ask for a KYC verification and it's quite evident @OP was ready to do it.

According to your logic, I could create 10 exchangers, tell you 10 times 'we're investigating' this user's transactions, yet you'll still lit the site as active

Don't ask my why I'm interested in Reddcoin, but if you visit their official site and look at their list of exchanges on which RDD trades (and there aren't many, believe me), they have Changeangel listed which is an instant exchange that I believe is new and basically has zero reputation. 

I don't think coin developers think they're vouching for the legitimacy of these exchanges when they list them on their websites, but they are indeed doing that.  But who knows what the devs do as far as vetting an exchange--probably nothing.  Having said that, I would have expected a big coin's team (Monero in this case) to not list an exchange like ChangeHero that obviously can and does pull crap like this.  They really ought to take a second look at that.

Agree with you totally. Worst part is that this site is being displayed on the exchangers list on Monero's site


That's a good lead. I went through and found some few more trusting each other- like eravpn, vexel.is, indacoin..and some more exchanges..it kinda gives off a fishy vibe but I don't find it as a basis to create a flag (not with this much evidence atleast).

Awesome, supported.

I don't think any of these exchanges have to be law enforcement agencies in order to come to any of their own conclusions--Coinbase does that all the time, but they handle situations like this much, much differently.  They'll cancel your account if they think you're involved with something shady, but they don't steal your money. 

This ChangeHero site is clearly doing whatever it wants to do with no regard for what's fair.  They screwed OP over, no doubt.

ChangeHero.io is either subsidiary or affiliate of IndaCoin.

Proof:

https://changehero.io/support
http://archive.md/I6uWd#selection-323.0-323.52


So, I left negative feedback for IndaCoin. I also believe that we need a trust flag for IndaCoin user as well.

I've seen the proof sent by the OP here.
In my conclusion, this is one of the many ridiculous exchanges of scammers. Avoid to return customers' money for reasons of suspicious activity (other than IP/ hacking acc. trial issues).

I just wanna suggest the OP wherever you'll exchange your crypto in the future. Make sure the exchange offer "No data/signup data required" applies to all activities including withdrawals.

---

why didn't you answer these questions?

According to the exchanger, their risk management system identified the transaction as a suspicious one, which made them freeze the transaction and launch the investigation.

How exactly did that exchange come to the conclusion that said funds are from fraudulent activities ?  What is their legal base for coming to such a conclusion ? Are they an law-enforcing authority ( I assume no ) . So what legal right do they have to hold the user's funds hostage.

For faster clearification, Veleor created flags of the first type. Support here please - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=1265

Hey,

they seem to have a user, here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/changeheroio-2589379

That user has no activity, but I sent them a PM anyway (maybe they receive email notifications upon new PMs), asking to respond to this thread. Your evidence looks convincing; at least they should reply and present their view of the situation, and explain why they acted this way. Treating their customers like this is a dick move.

Hope you get your funds back.

My original topic (on russian): https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/changehero-21-010-usdt-5219259
Translation is below.



Hello dear forum users. Additionally, I duplicate the topic on this forum, original forum is less popular.
I decided to change USDT-ERC20 to XMR Monero, chose an exchanger from the official list of the Monero website https://web.getmonero.org/community/merchants/#exchanges

SCAM exchanger: https://changehero.io/

Brief summary:

1) I chose the exchanger on the Monero website, checked it was also on bestchange

2) Created a test application for an exchange of 100 USDT, everything went well that time

3) Then I threw USDT 21 010 for exchange (Hash: 0x5de8a70b83d945c613e2781e6261053fa4ecf9b38fb54234bb45dbae222f3a9d)

4) The exchange was stopped, documents were requested. I referred to their exchange rules, which indicate that if AML / KYC is not passed, the money will be returned to the wallet. After that, rules were edited, they have removed this item, editing was NOT noted

5) I sent all the documents, selfie. I gave the data where I have received the cryptocurrency to prove that I am not a terrorist / drug dealer / carder, etc.

6) A Skype video call was requested. I send them my contact, for the first time they did not contact. Then I missed the call. Then I have made videocall, we talked. And from December 21, they ignore me anywhere. Silence in Skype, silence on email. The Chat with suppport button on their site was removed.

7) I did leave a feedback on bestchange.ru and trustpilot.com - on both sites the feedback were deleted, not hidden. For a week ago Bestchange.ru asked me for all the information about the exchange, with screenshots, documents. I sent everything, with details. For 1-2 days they set the exchanger status "Not Available", but now the exchange status is "Active" and no one notified me for what reason they have gived back the status of an active exchanger. And trustpilot.com is generally a useless resource, I left feedback for 3 times, with all the exchange data, they simply delete it and keep be silent in email support conversation.

I think it’s not difficult to make conclusions. I am writing on great emotions, I could have missed something, there will be updates if I remember something important. I will try to disclose the situation as much as possible, I appreciate any usefull help. If someone would found the owner of the exchanger, I would be very grateful. I would immediately go to the police to make a statement.


UPD:
1)
I received a letter from bestchange, after which the status of the exchanger changed for a while. Here is a letter:
 "Good afternoon! On our part, measures have been taken to temporarily exclude the ChangeHero exchange from the monitoring listing.
We hope that this fact will affect the processing speed of the exchanger for your application.
Thank you for contacting, we wish you reliable and profitable exchanges!
Best regards,
Alexa (BestChange). "

Now the status is again “Active”,  changed back without explanation. Is this an adequate reaction to the letter with full story and data about 100% scam? So they are completely OK with listing scammers on their site? Excellent...


2)
The exchanger's country on bestchange.ru and bestchange.com has changed. It was "Russia", now it is "Italy".
To check the country, just open the page now:
https://www.bestchange.ru/changehero-exchanger.html

On the Internet cache site we can still see the version of page with the country info "Russia".

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jNw-ZKj69UMJ:https://www.bestchange.ru/changehero-exchanger.html+&cd=1&hl=uk&ct=clnk&gl=ua
https://web.archive.org/web/20190707205855/https://www.bestchange.ru/changehero-exchanger.html

For what purposes was this done?








For those who are not lazy, I attach screenshots of their rules at the time of exchange, correspondence on Skype, by mail:

My first exchange in their exchanger which was successful: ixjfxh8gaps5zhxntb
My exchange ID for 21 010 USDT: mywb3uuyvr4z6cneu7

According to their rules at the moment of the exchange, they should have returned everything to me without going through AML / KYC. They didn't.

https://framapic.org/oqDpveczsddU/Ec56Oi1YtLj8.png

Chat with CryptoHero and the rules of their exchanger.
Screenshot "ChangeHero-1.png" - I requested a refund via chat on their website

https://framapic.org/XFEkrpU9NUZO/tT2ULtU68hzG.png
Screenshot "ChangeHero-2.png" - They wrote me an email addres for communication with "dev team", in this chat the issue of money returning cannot be solved


https://framapic.org/2a4T29lBw7xX/BsetOmivOgqp.png
Screenshot "ChangeHero-3.png" - Showing the text from their own site about their "anonymity of exchange"


https://framapic.org/TPkjDhluYsMZ/TIXDnOOoUX89.png
Screenshot "ChangeHero-4.png" - I indicate that the exchange status requires the passage of AML / KYC


https://framapic.org/e2ZFgR5rwfYo/oKSpwKesWQ7Y.png
Screenshot "ChangeHero-5.png" - Here the chat support gives a link to the AML / KYC rules of procedure and I quote from their rules that "All the crypto assets of that particular transaction will be refunded to where it was originated from deducing applicable fees."


https://framapic.org/fogEc7nW5WC2/yiAJzkClPvCC.png
Screenshot "ChangeHero-6.png" - Support writes that they can really return the money to me according to their rules, I will be notified when there will be an additional info


https://framapic.org/OtNxwkhH95ll/pffaKUiMIPPg.png
Screenshot "ChangeHero-7.png"


Screenshot "ChangeHero-8.png" - Here you can clearly see that the last edit was at "May 2019", but if you open their rules now, there is no text on the site that is highlighted in the screenshot. At the same time, the last edit is stated as “May 2019”. You can open the screenshot “ChangeHero-5.png” of chat on their site where they don’t argue that they really have such text and even confirm it as evidence that this line was there.

Unfortunately there is no old page in the Internet cache, but the good reason that they edited the text is the correspondence with the support on the 5th screenshot


https://framapic.org/opx7oYSWTLML/xlDiOUzYPRYy.png
Screenshot "ChangeHero-9.png" - version of the rules without highlighting text


https://framapic.org/drfjz3NjyD5s/QSRxEKIp8BjQ.png
Screenshot "ChangeHero-10.png" - version of the screenshot about anonymity without highlighting


https://framapic.org/5L2MIyYvALkA/mg5ckmPBqmMZ.png
Screenshot "ChangeHero-11.png" - it is written that they change anonymously and do not need any personal data, but in fact they request all the documents. Disinformation.

Ignore from December 21
https://framapic.org/oWixDr4xTZYo/5QwsKg6S6esr.png
Screenshot "ChangeHero-mail1.png" - the history of my incoming messages where you can see, there is no letters since December 20. They did not write me anything

https://framapic.org/PQB15T9oUQCI/CxVIhpCXp57e.png
Screenshot "ChangeHero-mail2.png" - the history of outgoing messages, where you can see, I wrote them several times from that day


https://framapic.org/XegeToiUz5ul/ktvkRd0dm0K9.png
Screenshot "ChangeHero-mail3.png"

I noticed an important thing, which says that whatever evidence I would provide them with, they would still deceive me. In the letter (Screenshot "ChangeHero-mail3.png") there are no longer those lines from my screenshot of the rules that I made at the time of the exchange, fearing such a situation of fraud which refers to a full refund in case of insufficient data for AML / KYC. Accordingly, I think they edited the rules on their website at that moment, so that I could not use this rule and then they will just tell I am a scammer.

The following facts indicate fraud on their part:

1) Disabling the chat on the site more than a month ago.
2) Editing rules with very important information about refunds without marking.
3) After providing all the evidence, after the video call, they just ignore me. They realized that I am honest and the truth is on my side.
4) They did not contact the exchanger where I exchanged fiat money for cryptocurrency, so how they even could be able to check the origin of the funds? I do not believe they send some kind of requests to authorities or exchanges if they couldn’t simply write to the exchanger’s mail.
5) The exchanger does not indicate the country of its' registration. It is not clear what country laws they refer to, they themselves have not answered this question on Skype. In their letters there is no reference to real laws of any country according to which I must pass through such examination. They themselves came up with rules that have nothing to do with reality.

I’m afraid now they can write there wasn’t any chat, there was no such text in the rules, and I drew screenshots of the chat myself. But how then did they contact me by email? They do not have an account registration on the site, mail was not indicated during the exchange.

Skype conversation screenshots (here you can see they are ignoring me since December 21)
https://framapic.org/JSqRFik8qc8k/sdz3N13eBAgx.jpg
https://framapic.org/QcPKzCwkZyZG/RymlYPjkZB2O.jpg
https://framapic.org/VQfN5tfn5hRn/8tvZQsbAxoZm.jpg
https://framapic.org/AqHSI1gmAb9O/h7k0ggJFuXTL.jpg
https://framapic.org/php3krRGEw5I/mgHJt0oqIQgp.jpg
https://framapic.org/1CrFK5BI8797/XjU0iCgmoGT7.jpg
https://framapic.org/1cAofj9CZhFK/wYHVfS3hBKOY.jpg
https://framapic.org/AhySqXupJNAW/gHGPW5oIV4Rm.jpg
https://framapic.org/uK20mXXgnzQD/5QBtqURnxDLk.jpg

Also in thread:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/about-bestchange-again-5219339