I’ve recently been contacted by someone who had fallen victim of a scammer. Through this unfortunate turn of events, he had £17k of his unclaimed money stolen from his Betfair account.
Sadly, through the years I have heard many stories of victims of fraud and this recent example of a Betfair exchange scam has prompted me to highlight the problem again, this time with a blog post. A few years ago I produced a video on this particular Betfair scam and wanted to expand on this to hopefully unite those who have been tricked of their money and inform everybody how to spot these scammers.
Scams: however, much you think you’d never fall for them; it is good to be familiar with the popular Betfair trading scams
I wanted to share with you a type of fraud that puts Betfair account holders at risk of being stolen from. It’s important for us to help protect each other against these thieves as many people have lost money through this scam!
This particular scam is clever in that it leverages the Betfair trading opportunity, it makes it seem legitimate by using existing sites and better than that. You can see their fantastic results appearing right on your Betfair account. There is a clear moral in this story as well, don’t give people your personal information.
The manipulative thief: how he does it!
The scammer begins his con by finding a way to speak to you. This typically starts with an email, a text or a phone call of some sort. Let’s set up the conversation that would take place against the scammer and with you:
Hi, is that Peter? I’m calling from *insert trading website name in here*, I just wanted to let you know about a special offer that we’ve got on that would really improve your trade profits! This offer comes at no risk to yourself as an experienced trader will boost your account and help you win money without you needing to trade!
– Scammer
At this stage, they would use a name that exists already, even I’ve had my name used in the past. We put a stop to that pretty quick! But it could be any website that exists out there that could have trading related content, they may even pretend to be a bookmaker.
Yeah it is, that sounds interesting, how does that work?
– Victim
Well there isn’t really any risk at all, all we’d do is trade for you and then you get to keep a chunk of those profits. You don’t have to do anything! We’ll look after all of it for you and all you do is keep the profits that we get from trading! Check out *insert trading website in here*, you’ll see it’s run by Mr (whoever!) who’s an excellent trader! He’s run out of capacity because of the premium charges as well as of other hurdles, sp he actually wants to trade on your behalf which is great as you will be able to keep the profit. If we don’t make any money for you, you don’t get to pay us!
– Scammer
Well that sounds like a no brainer, so there’s no catch? What do I do next?!
– Victim
There is absolutely no catch whatsoever. You get to keep whatever money we make as we want create commission off that anyway. Our team of specialist traders will be able to trade for you. All we would need is to access your account as we cannot use our own because of the premium charges and don’t know if you’ve heard about all these problems… etc, etc… Check our website if you have any worries, I promise you this is completely secure and we’ll do all the hard work by trading on your account. You will get to keep the profits and we’ll just take commission from that!
– Scammer
This is where the scam really starts, at this stage, they are basically saying handover your account details…
Fantastic, sounds great! Here’s my login details…
– Vicitm
Uh oh, that’s really not fantastic! You’ve just fallen for a scam!
You should never give your account details to anybody. It’s a bit like going to a bank and then saying here’s my bank account details Mr Fraudster, steal all my hard-earned money in my account!
Simply you should never give your personal details out and never let anybody trade on your account. I’ve done a video on this in the past if you want to learn more about betting scams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VNZ68-hW50
So how do they do it?
Firstly they go into your Betfair account and they place a large back bet on, say, a 16/1 outsider. Then on their Betfair account, they do the opposing bet and lay it against the back bet they placed in your account. The advantage for them is this, say the horse wins they just phone you up again and say:
‘Hey, the horse won, fantastic news! We’re going to make loads of money; all we need is more money in your account. We’re ready to continue boosting your profits!’
That’s how they rip you off!
But of course, if the horse loses, then all of a sudden… silence. All they’ve done is they’ve transferred that money you backed £2000 at 10/1 which they laid their £2000 at 10/1, basically at no risk. It’s very clever…
Of course, if the horse wins, then you win a fortune! Equally, they may lose a fortune too, but they get to keep a cut of the win on your account, so that’s not a disaster. Then these fraudsters keep coming back, insisting that your account will need more and more of your own money.
It would only take a few strikes before, of course, before your bank is bust. But up until then, it looks like they have gifted you the chance of an amazing winning and consistently profitable Betfair trading strategy. But when the stakes are high and your bet loses, your money is lost!
Unfortunately, I’ve been contacted by several people who’ve been a victim of this specific scam. I’ve been trying to get them as a group together to go after these people and prosecute or at least get the police involved. But people feel a bit foolish and don’t want to do that! I am hoping that this blog post shows you are not alone, so please share with others and we can bring to light this same for the benefit of everybody.
Remember: protect your Betfair account details
This scam still comes around every now and again. And it’s a neat one!
The scam is very structured, it has a mask through a legit name and website, so there appears to be no catch. The only red flag that gets thrown up is that people offer to trade on your account and want your account details to do so. Nobody should ask you for your Betfair account details, so please don’t do it. By Betfair account details, we mean your Betfair username and password. Giving somebody your Betfair username isn’t specifically a major threat, especially if you use two-step authentication. But your password is a definite NO!
All these facts to one side, if you trade profitably, you do not need other people’s money. But because of all of the confusion dropped in around winning accounts and stuff like that, you sort of transported ourselves back a bit to the age where betting tipsters would say, well, my account was closed and therefore this is the only way that I can make money. This modern scam similar, but with a Betfair trading angle thrown over the top.
What can I do if you’ve been affected by these scammers?
I can’t specifically get involved in individual cases as I am not allowed to represent account holders with Betfair. But it would make sense to contact Betfair security directly as they may be able to link together the counterparty on the bets.
I would suggest that those who have been affected by these scams should comment below on this blog post. We can reach out to anybody affected so that people affected as a group can focus on working together.
Sadly the gambling commission can’t get involved in these scams as they are just a regulatory body for the industry. In the past, I’ve even reached out to the city of London police because of scams, so it’s important to talk to services like action fraud and the police to create awareness. If enough people get scammed and they have awareness of it, it is more likely to be escalated to a national fraud. I’ve no idea if it’s broad from a geographic perspective, as it only seems to be affecting customers in the UK.
Anyhow, I hope this blog post raises awareness of it.
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