A man who was scammed out of more than £130,000 worth of cryptocurrency has appeared on a TV show to talk about his devastating experience.
Steve Williams, from Bolton, appeared on the BBC One's Rip Off Britain yesterday morning, Monday.
The programme looks at the ways people in Britain have been scammed, while trying to help them.
Retired building surveyor Steve told viewers he was scammed out of £132,000 by using a company called Current Coin just two months ago.
Steve said the company’s financial advisor phoned him repeatedly until he agreed to start.
But before this, he said he was asked to set up a Revolut account, as many high street banks do not allow crypto trading.
Steve added that the financial advisor asked him to transfer funds from his own bank account to Revolut, and then took control of his computer to "trade".
Steve explained that he felt "physically sick" when he realised what had happened, that he had lost so much money to a scam.
When Steve wanted to withdraw money, he said he was told he needed to pay a deposit, and very quickly, the "financial advisor" disappeared, leaving him thousands of pounds out of pocket.
He said: “I am still trying to come to terms with it.
“It was a massive chunk of my savings.”
It comes amid a rise in reported crypto scams affecting people in the UK.
UK consumer losses to crypto fraud spiked by more than 40 percent over the year to March compared with the previous year, surpassing £300m for the first time, according to data from Britain’s fraud reporting agency Action Fraud.
This year in September, JP Morgan’s consumer bank – Chase, announced customers would no longer be able to make cryptocurrency payments.
A spokesman for the bank said: “If you’d still like to invest in crypto assets, you can try using a different bank or provider instead – but please be cautious, as you may not be able to get the money back if the payment ends up being related to fraud or a scam.”
Steve had seen an advert showing money expert Martin Lewis as allegedly saying that people should invest in cryptocurrency.
But experts reveal Martin would never support a crypto scheme.
Earlier this year Santander UK said it had seen a "worrying" rise in celebrity-endorsed cryptocurrency scams, where famous faces are misused on social media to promote fraudulent investment opportunities.
The BBC said the Current Coin could not be reached for a comment.
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