Kevin Mcvie was sure his cryptocurrency investments were making money. Every time he'd log on to the trading platform he was using, it looked like he was reaping windfall profits. But mcvie, in fact , was one of a growing number of people who've fallen victim to cryptocurrency scams.
"I heard, and I read, but somehow I thought that I am not going to be one of them," he said.
Mcvie, 74, turned to cryptocurrency investments after the pandemic upended his life. He runs a business selling equipment and supplies to restaurants in the Los Angeles area. But many of them shut their doors when lockdown orders went into effect.
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"I lost a lot of clients because a lot of them, restaurant and bars, they closed," mcvie said.
At the same time, his retirement savings, which he managed himself, took a hit as the pandemic gyrated stock markets.
One day he was scrolling on Instagram and stumbled upon a post from a company called BitBit. Its website says it is an "international financial broker" based in London and helps people invest in cryptocurrencies. Mcvie decided to try it.
After he opened an account, a company representative who called himself Pavel reached out on the messaging app Telegram. He wrote in Russian, mcvie's native language.
They began chatting regularly, swapping details about vacations and families and commiserating about their shared background in the former Soviet Union.
Mcvie had initially transferred $500 into his BitBit account. It seemed promising: When he signed in to his account, it appeared as if that investment had nearly doubled in a matter of weeks.
Over several months, Pavel goaded him to invest more and more of his money. Eventually, mcvie poured his entire life savings, totaling more than $340,000, into the BitBit account.
"When he logged on to BitBit, he saw a very compelling fake platform that looked like money was being deposited, and that money was growing," said his son, Daniel mcvie.
But it wasn't growing at all. The charts on his BitBit account depicting earnings growth were fake.
Mcvie discovered this when he attempted to withdraw money from his account. BitBit sent over a document purporting to be from Barclays, the British bank. It said mcvie must send BitBit 2% of the amount he was requesting as a "security measure." (A representative for Barclays confirmed that the document was forged.)
By this point, mcvie was entrapped by the scam. When his son and daughter found out, it was too late. The money was gone.
"Obviously there's like a shame component to this and coming to reality and grips with 'Hey, I lost 100% of my family's liquidity,'" said Lina O'Connor, mcvie's daughter.
