According to a lawsuit filed in Lubbock courts, a man said he was swindled out of thousands of dollars trying to invest in bitcoin. He said it was all part of a scam and now he wants to get his $25,000 back in his wallet.
Ryan Luelf says he gave a Lubbock man, who was a friend of a friend, $25,000 to invest in Bitcoin for him in January. Now months later, he said there are no investments, he hasn’t seen his money, and hasn’t been able to talk to the alleged scammer.
We are choosing to leave out the name of the accused person since he has not been charged with a crime. We did reach out to the person for comment, but did not receive a message back.
Luelf said he wanted to invest in Bitcoin after hearing about the money that could be made. He said he was interested in “taking back the banking industry” and wanted to support the disruption of the system.
“I just felt like in the next 5, 10, 15 years, it would be foolish if I didn’t understand it on some level,” Luelf said.
He decided to start investing and gave a friend of a friend $25,000. He said this person told him he would invest his money for him. But months went by and Luelf said his money vanished and was never invested.
“About a month or so later, I couldn’t get ahold of him. Then he blocked me on Facebook. And then he never did anything, he never came through,” Luelf said. “That’s when I realized ‘Oh, I lost $25,000.'”
He filed a lawsuit against the person to try and get his investment money back. But he said this lawsuit isn’t just about the money.
“I just hope somehow, some way, they will stop these shenanigans,” he said.
Bitcoin experts at Texas Tech University warn this kind of scam happens pretty often due to the lack of regulations on the crypto currency and that you should be extra careful when and how you invest.
