Craig Grant and Trevon James Hit With First of Many Lawsuits In Relation to Bitconnect Scam
I wrote an article a few weeks ago calling out certain youtubers about being complete scam artists and pushing people to buy certain altcoins. I wanted to refrain from using names but I heavily hinted at Craig Grant and Trevon James being a part of that group, especially with what I have said about bitconnect in other articles. Bitconnect was always obviously a scam and it is very sad that people lost money that might take them years to make back. Any simple investment that revolves around loans making you 1% a day is a scam. By simply doing the math you realize in just a few years the amount of money invested into the system would trump the world's gdp, its insane.
The saddest part is most people who were investing knew it was a ponzi and were pushing others to invest as well. The idea was “yeah its a ponzi, but as long as you get out quickly enough, youre fine”. This way of thinking is a complete joke and literally just rolling the dice. Worse than that, people were telling people to get in, knowing that it would extend the time before the project would shut down. This entire situation makes the entire industry look terrible and will be one of the reasons why the government will start going after crypto. They might not be able to shut it down, but make to mistake, they can make it a real pain in the ass to use and hurt new possible investment by a lot.
I didnt want to go after Trevon and Craig in other articles before because honestly, I didnt want to start drama and they have prominent channels on Steemit. I apologize, I should have spoken up and said more, mostly because I hope that many of you didnt lose your money. If I could have stopped one person from investing it would have been worth it. For many this is going to be a very expensive lesson and to more it will be a warning about doing proper due diligence before investing a large portion of money into something. Its easy to throw around 20k-30k in this market, but people dont really take a step back and say “hey that's a years salary, losing that would hit me hard”.
There's what looks like a lawsuit in the state of Florida getting passed around naming Trevon and Craig along with bitconnect and other individuals in a class action lawsuit. Who knows if they will be successful but there is a case to be made that they gave financial advice and possibly was compensated by bitconnect. If the government digs deeper they might find something to charge them with. I expect many more lawsuits to go after them, not just class action ones, but criminal ones. I would not be surprised if someone tries to make an example out of Trevon and Craig.
However, I will say in their defense that people should always do their due diligence and never listen to anyone but a financial professional with a fiduciary duty to you as a client. Putting your money in someone else's hands is almost always an extremely stupid thing to do. That being said though, I believe that Trevon and Craig might have crossed over the line into promotion for the company. Like I said before whether or not there are criminal charges we should all realize their credibility is out the window. They dont care about you and they are the ones who profited off those who lost life savings. Its despicable that it seems like they have no sympathy and think this is just part of the crypto game.
-Calaber24p
No surprise here. I doubt they will receive much of a punishment (apart from some hefty legal bills), but the biggest loser in this entire saga will be the public perception of cryptocurrencies.
Yeah I dont think they will be hurt as much as people are thinking, but I do hope their credibility is lost. They had to turn off voting and comments on youtube because of the blowback.
I got in and got out! Those daily withdrawals were juicy.. Thank you bitconnect..
I'm by no means a lawyer or legal expert but I think lumping everyone together is a big mistake. Each one of them will argue they are not part of the Bitconnect company,and potentially argue that Bitconnect isn't even a company and will try to get themselves seperated from this lawsuit.
At that point whomever is moving forward with the lawsuit will have to file a seperate suit for each potential defendent ie one for Bitconnect, one for Trevon, one for Craig one for Nick, etc, etc, etc.
Also, I don't know much about Craig but I do recall him in videos talking about how he keeps his money in Jamaica to avoid taxes or something along those lines so I'm pretty sure he'll be tougher to get to.
I suppose at the end of the day anyone can sue anyone for anything, I'll be curious to see how far this thing goes and what the end result is.
The whole thing is a black eye on crypto so that upsets me and I in no way support this type of stuff. That said I do think the vast majority of people involved at least to some extent knew what they were getting into and hoped their timing getting in and out would be correct. The only people I really feel for are the people who were completely clueless and new to crypto and had 0 idea what they were getting involved with.
This is just for a class action lawsuit, most likely if there were to be criminal charges, they would go after them separately. Putting money in any bank account can pretty much have the data seized by the US government so even hiding money abroad isnt safe (unless hes hiding it in corporations and obfuscated accounts). I do agree that there needs to be some level of personal responsibility for those who invested, but at the same time I do think that promoting what is essentially a financial product to incompetent people is still extremely predatory. They also framed it as legit in the beginning when I can almost guarantee they knew it was a ponzi. Later on they moved onto "yeah its a ponzi but you still can make money".
Nice find. Sadly, I think this will open up the door for a lot more regulation of crypto, you tube bloggers and even message boards like Reddit and steem.
I think the regulation is going to start in a much harder way as well, which is bad for the whole industry. Like I said they cant stop people from transacting in crypto, but they can make it a pain in the ass to use.
Yes last bubble gave us the nyc bitliscence I wonder what his will bring! It looks like more kyc more strict in icos but I bet something else bad will also happen. Now crest cats companies are reducing liquidity to bitcoin
The liquidity trade works both ways!
Yeah, that whole situation was pretty crazy, but not unsurprising. More people need to do their due diligence and not get FOMO. Seriously, if it seems to good to be true, it is. But it shows you how desperate people are to make some money and get out of the rut our economic system has put them into.
Don't be scared to call people out. If you can protect at least a few people from the BS Ponzi schemes that are flooding the market, it will be worthwhile.
Thanks for posting! :)
Right now the speculation in the whole market honestly scares me. Its at the point where why make a successful innovative project when you can make a scam and make much more money in the short term.
You know, I've asked myself that question more than once... society rewarding the lazy isn't a new thing, but nowadays it's way too common. Stay strong and stick to your guns of being a good person!
I the law makes an example on bitconnect. Something has to be done to protect the unknown from scam coins or even scam ICOs.
I remember talking to a friend when I started with crypto, I told him "hey the bitconnect graph looks pretty good it seems to be a good investment" and he warned me otherwise I might have invested in it aswell.
After that I basically watched every crypto video on youtube which popped up and due to the fact that serious youtubers warned about Bitconnect and unserious youtubers didnt, It was quite easy to get an idea which youtubers care about their viewers and being trustworthy and which not.
The peak of the mountain right now is the BitconnectX ICO.
Its nothing less than stealing peoples money. I hope the law acts like they did with poker a few years back and put those people behind jail where they belong to.
I hope people keep in mind what happened with Bitconnect so something like this wont happen in such a big manner again..
& nice article, keep on the good work!
Make sure you always look at things in depth before you invest. If something seems fishy in this space it usually is. Scammers come out of hiding with new tech and will take peoples money without a second thought.
Hmmm. True . Some people say this to me as well, that it might be a ponzi scheme, but who cares, its not running away right after you put your money. You can benefit a lot until they run away.
But it is a big risk afterall!! Your words might save a lot of people. Appreciate your efforts. 👏🏻👏🏻
That way of thinking is such a gamble and only adds to the speculation. People are going to get in and lose all their money because they dont think its a ponzi. These projects need to be nipped in the bud.
Indeed !!
I think Bitconnect is really going to crush the confidence in HYIPs which is a good thing IMHO
I agree that Bitconnect should be taken to the ringer, their assets seized, and whatever leftover BTC returned to the people that got screwed. But this does bring up a good point. DO NOT INVEST WHAT YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE. Also, I don't care if you knew it or not, you cannot look me in the eye and tell me you expected this would last. I took one look at this and was like no way, plus I make more than their 1%/day in a single trade so why lock my money up where it would not be making as much.
Come on people, anyone with half a brain can make 1 trade a day in crypto and net 1%, even 2% is easy.
As far as going after the people that promoted it on Youtube and social media outlets. Keeping in mind that I am not a lawyer of course. But unless someone can prove that they took payment from the company (it could technically be argued that the affiliate program is considered payment) I do not see them being in trouble. Just because someone promotes something on their own free will does not mean they are accountable for the actions of others, freedom of speech gives them that right.
Yeah they will have to find some sort of connection, but I think its there. I would be destroying hard drives right now if I were them.
If there is lawsuits going after them, then they better have some against Bitconnect. I'm not a fan the whole situation but you can't attack these members and keep bitconnect around thats not right. Also Not for or against the two people they are talking about but how many of yall would have not done the same thing if you were in there shoes??? Would yall have turned down millions???
They are getting lumped in with bitconnect via the class action suit from what it looks like. Bitconnect will also probably face legal action separately. To answer your second question, yes I would have turned down the money. I personally couldnt sleep at night if I knew I lost someone their entire savings on a scam. Im fine with not making it in that way.
You just stoped one from investing in BCC. Not that I was going to, but I was looking at it.
That’s scary staff.
How do you know what is Ponzi and what is not. If you think about it the goverment is a whole Ponzi scheme full of bureaucrats.
Anyway thanks for info, realy appreciate it.
I mean its pretty much lost a majority of its value and things will only get worse. Ponzi schemes are usually obvious because if something is too good to be true it usually is.
"I didnt want to go after Trevon and Craig in other articles before because honestly, I didnt want to start drama and they have prominent channels on Steemit."
I know where you're coming from, but the way I see it, sometimes, we really need to stoop to their level, play it at their game and beat them at it.
So if drama is what's needed, so be it.
"By simply doing the math you realize in just a few years the amount of money invested into the system would trump the world's gdp, its insane."
What's more insane is this idiot of a speaker. It's... unreal. Typical ponzi scheme-like conference that's all hype and zero substance.