Changelly KYC Scam - They are holding my $19800 BTC hostage

Changelly is a “non-custodial” instant cryptocurrency exchange according to their twitter profile. https://mobile.twitter.com/changelly_team

The only reason i trusted them is because they are listed as a trusted partner of Ledger and Exodus

• Summary about what happened -

I tried to exchange 0.4349346 BTC ($19800) to 19740.61 DAI (ERC20) on April 4th. Exchange ID - q3pavhd2w7t6x591

Changelly deposit address - 3EToheb4cTMP59YW5AwmYFwmzE1z2myYC2 Image - https://picbun.com/p/XDSmueT8

That was 6 days ago. After several minutes, I noticed that my exchange is on hold and there was an alert telling me to complete KYC verification. I completed KYC verification soon as i could. Changelly uses a 3rd party KYC authentication service called Sumsub for this.

Even after successful KYC verification through Sumsub, my exchange was still on hold. After a few minutes, another alert appeared asking me to contact security@changelly.com Image - https://picbun.com/p/lQdrSBh5

“I got a hold asking me to fill in kyc details. I completed that and the verification was successful. However the transaction still says that its on hold. How long will it take?” This was my first message to them.

5 minutes later they replied to me with this message. Image - https://picbun.com/p/V2U7qSZx They were asking me to submit evidence to prove that i own the bitcoin.

So i took images of my wallet and replied to them with those images. Image 1 - https://picbun.com/p/dLpk4fCb Image 2 - https://picbun.com/p/lkJptn1r

They replied to me with this “Could you please specify how you obtained the BTC in question? Were they purchased, traded, or mined - for instance?” Image - https://picbun.com/p/ZOMURmGp

I told them that i met up with my friend irl and bought btc from him using cash. I always use him for buying btc because my cards aren’t compatible with bitcoin purchase sites.

Then they sent me a long list bitcoin addresses and told me to confirm which ones are mine Only few of them were mine and i showed them a screenshot of my addresses inside electrum wallet. I also sent them plaintext list of those addresses to make it easier for them Image - https://picbun.com/p/2afIoOuQ

They replied to that asking me to tell my friend to contact them so that they can have his KYC verified Image - https://picbun.com/p/LlLxSE9z At this point, i felt like i was being scammed by changelly. My friend was not a customer of changelly and there was no need for him to complete KYC (Know your Customer).

I knew that my friend wouldn’t want to trust an exchange with his personal information and documents. But i cried and begged him to do the kyc checks. He reached out to changelly and completed KYC checks within an hour. Image - https://picbun.com/p/gmHGldQl

After his successful KYC verification, they replied to him and demanded proof of ownership of the bitcoin he sent to me originally. He started getting doubts about their legitimacy at this point. He suspected that they were trying to trap us into a KYC/AML loop Image - https://picbun.com/p/eajOuMZo

But because of my constant cry for help, he decided to move forward and disclosed to them that the source of funds was paxful.com Image - https://picbun.com/p/cydKdMkm

Changelly asked him if the sender wallet addresses (from paxful to my electrum wallet) belonged to him or not. He told them that the addresses technically belong to Paxful because its an exchange, not a Decentralised wallet. On the same email, he told them that they are supposed to do KYC/AML checks on me BEFORE the exchange initiation on changelly.

After hours of no replies, changelly replied asking him for screenshots of transactions from paxful to my electrum wallet. He sent them 3 screenshots which were of the 3 largest transactions to my 3 wallet addresses. Image 1 - https://picbun.com/p/4TFgZ734 Image 2 - https://picbun.com/p/FdasAdSu

Changelly verified the source of funds and sent him this response saying the case is being reviewed. Image - https://picbun.com/p/gL8uf7Qy

Since there were no updates even after 1 day, my friend emailed them again asking for updates and they replied with this “Please be informed that once there are any updates we will immediately let you know. “

2 days passed, me and him have been emailing them multiple times. My friend even requested them to “Return bitcoin to original sender” if they cannot carry out the exchange. But they never replied to any of it.

On 6th of April, they replied saying that review of the case could take “months”. Image - https://picbun.com/p/uny8rBA9 Why would it take months if me and my friend already verified KYC and proved source of funds??

At that point, i was losing my mind. From 7th of April to today 10th of April, i have emailed them daily asking for updates. They never even replied to my emails once.

I realised that they have scammed. I started to look around on the internet to see if someone else had the same experience. Surprisingly, i have found several similar stories by just googling for “changelly kyc” and on reddit alike

I have no idea what to do anymore except share my experience. I’m completely helpless. This was my life savings. Losing that kind of money is unbearable to me and i have been depressed for the past week. Anything anyone can do to help my situation will be appreciated. Sharing to more people for awareness, legal advices about what to do etc - anything would help.

Reddit is my last hope..

Submitted April 10, 2022 at 04:24AM by MalvinaLiebig https://ift.tt/aX8D5op