[imagesource:rawpixel]

No good deed goes unpunished as the sardonic saying goes, but the case of a Hong Kong fashion executive who wanted to adopt a poor kitten and got conned out of  R13.5 million in Bitcoin is taking that too far.

The unfortunate 58-year-old vice-president of a fashion company contacted her would-be Thai scammer in connection with adopting a kitten. Most of their communication remained online and on WhatsApp, which would have already sent alarm bells ringing for us, but alas, the woman continued as we assume it was one hell of a cute kitten.

Unfortunately for the feline-loving fashionista, things took a costly turn for the worse when, despite the kitten being offered as free, the seller insisted transportation and insurance fees being paid via cryptocurrency. And so, ignoring the alarm bells that were by now blaring, she opened a cryptocurrency account and sent the money to the alleged scammer’s e-wallet. But just like my uncle Jerry who always borrows money from everyone, the tall tales began as soon the kitten was ‘in the bag’.

Firstly, the poor woman was informed that the much-anticipated furball had unfortunately died during the shipping process. Despite the shock, the woman was then contacted by a ‘foreign bank employee’ who insisted that despite the tragedy, she would be compensated for the loss to the tune of R2.6 million in insurance fees. Having been deafened by the earlier alarm bells, she obviously did not hear the new ones ringing, and as per his instruction, she made another payment, this time as a ‘guarantee or administration fee’.

What followed was a series of forty Bitcoin transactions between July and November, worth R13.5 million. According to an article in Business Insider, the lady only realised in January of this year that something was amiss and reported the case to police. By that time the scammers were surely as gone as her common sense, and authorities have not yet been able to track them down.

There are a few lessons to be learned from this woman’s tragic tale. Online scams involving cryptocurrencies have increased sixty-fold in the last year, with losses to unsuspecting victims totalling $1 billion in 2021 alone. This number climbs to R247 billion if Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis is to be believed. That’s a lot of kittens.

Perhaps the biggest lesson is that if someone wants to mail you a kitten from Thailand, make sure that they don’t seal the envelope up entirely as getting your money back will take six months and R 13.5 million. Also, if you fork out millions in payments, in order to receive payments, you are the human embodiment of a facepalm emoji and should rather get a dog. You’re also in luck, I have an uncle, who is also a Nigerian prince, that has a secondhand poodle that I can fax to your location from anywhere in the world. Just send me all your details and your atm card and we will be in touch.

[source:bussinsider]