Topic: Using someone else's legitimate company as a front for a scam (Read 274 times)

Even though I'm not a DT member, I think that the rating should be there to stay.

Firstly, there was plenty of signs that this project was a scam because of the absurd returns that they offer. Anyone who have done their due diligence will realise that this is either a ponzi or an outright scam from the get go. The fact that he claims he did not know this was a scam before he started promoting it is extremely shady imo.

Secondly, he has yet to delete the thread in question. As you say that is untrustworthy behaviour as well.

Lastly, the fact that he does not argue with any of the accusations put forth regarding the ponzi that he was promoting suggests to me that he most likely knows what he is going. He's shown the willingness to help an obvious ponzi promote themselves without doing any research beforehand, which is deserving enough of a red tag.

Looking for some thoughts from the community, specifically from other DT members, on the following:

The user in question (Hung Yu So) messaged me to state that they are not involved with this project, and they only posted on their behalf. The user also states that they were not aware of this being a scam, so they cannot be held accountable and are therefore innocent.

I have replied that if they can prove that they were "just the messenger", I would be happy to reconsider my red trust. The user has then replied that this is "not something they can tell me".

I am therefore inclined to leave the red trust as is for a number of reasons:
1 - They are refusing to provide evidence they were employed by this company to "post on their behalf". We have no way of knowing if this is true or if they are directly involved in said scam
2 - Any reputable user, upon realising they are advertising a blatant scam, would delete said post immediately, not argue over PMs while the scam post remains visible
3 - Their assertion that they cannot be held accountable is false - users advertising projects are at least partially responsible for what they choose to advertise, especially when it is such a blatant scam as this, which could be uncovered in less than 10 seconds - simply click on the link, see 2006 as the registration date, immediate red flags

I would be interest to hear what other users think of this.

Certainly a scam. Most to all of the investment opportunities being advertised in the investor based games section is scam, and runs with a HYIP/ponzi structure.

I took a look, and there is no way that particular company that is registered with the UK government is related to BTC-Upgrade. However, it is important to note that even if a company has been registered in a particular country, it doesn't guarantee that their actions will be legitimate and you will get paid out. I've seen HYIPs in the past have company registration documents listed on their site, and IIRC it is quite easy to obtain these in certain jurisdictions.

Usually, looking at the returns which a site offers is enough. If they offer multiple times what banks offer, you know something is wrong. Don't even bother looking at whether they are registered or not.


This is a first though. I wonder if someone has the spare time and effort to actually go visit them (even though chances are they aren't anywhere near the location they claim on the site).

This is definite and clear, this ponzi scheme and the project will simply go away after a while.

See the following post which showed up in Investor-based games today. Archived here: https://archive.fo/24MTU

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It's an obvious Ponzi, but the thing that caught my eye was they claim to be a registered company. If you click on the link they provide to the UK Government website, it brings you to a company called "BTC Assets Limited". What caught my eye was this company was registered in 2006, 3 years before the genesis block. Turns out, this company that was linked to ("BTC Assets Limited") is in no way connected to this BTC-Upgrade Ponzi. BTC Assets Limited has nothing to do with bitcoin at all. It's a company of IT Consultants as you can see here and here. This scammer has obviously latched on to this company (with a very unluckily chosen name) and is using it as a front for their scam.

Thought I would just open a thread to alert other users to this tactic, as I've not seen it used before on these forums.