Exit scam

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An exit scam is a type of fraud in which a company collects advance payments for ordered goods or services without paying the agreed service and disappears from the market after a while with the customer's money.

If the company has a good reputation, it may take some time before it becomes known that orders are not shipping.

An exit scam has become known in the darknet market in which the perpetrators collected customer money in the form of the crypto currency Bitcoin on the Wall Street Market platform and then switched off the website. The closure of the Evolution darknet market is described as the biggest exit scam to date. The administrators have apparently embezzled Bitcoin worth the equivalent of 12 million US dollars. As a result, the Bitcoin price collapsed by more than 10 percent at times.

A prosecution is due to the anonymity offered by the darknet difficult. The damage from exit scams is estimated at over $ 4.3 billion in 2019.

Individual evidence

  1. Jon Christian: The 'Exit Scam' Is the Darknet's Perfect Crime. In: Vice. February 4, 2015, accessed May 31, 2020 .
  2. BKA : arrest of the alleged responsible persons of the world's second largest illegal online marketplace in the darknet "WALL STREET MARKET" press release of May 3, 2019.
  3. by Stefan Beiersmann on March 19, 2015, 10:10 a.m . : Darknet drug exchange Evolution Market is no longer available. March 19, 2015, accessed on May 31, 2020 (German).
  4. Jeff Stone: Evolution Downfall: Insider 'Exit Scam' Blamed For Massive Drug Bazaar's Sudden Disappearance. March 23, 2015, accessed May 31, 2020 .
  5. Report: This is how much money the crypto industry lost in 2019 to exit scams Blockchain-Hero, August 13, 2019.
  6. A billion dollar cryptocurrency fraud Computerworld , August 19, 2019.