{"id":1008,"date":"2025-11-13T07:50:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T12:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/?p=1008"},"modified":"2025-11-13T07:50:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T12:50:17","slug":"scammed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/2025\/11\/13\/scammed\/","title":{"rendered":"SCAMMED!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I HAVE NO ONE TO BLAME BUT MYSELF.<\/strong>\u00a0 I write this as a cautionary note.\u00a0 Perhaps someone reading this might be warned against falling prey as I did.\u00a0 Here is my story, and the red flags I missed (or ignored).\u00a0 If this is TL;DR, scroll to the bottom for the recap.<\/p>\n

The scam I fell victim to was based on the concept of “AI Arbitrage.”\u00a0 As we should know by now, AI stands for “Artificial Intelligence.”\u00a0 It’s the hottest thing going in the computer world.\u00a0 The premise is that AI can be used to trade crypto currencies much like day trading on the stock market.\u00a0 Since AI purportedly works at computer speeds, it buys and sells crypto as the prices fluctuate across markets.\u00a0 Sounds plausible, right?\u00a0 It did to me.<\/p>\n

In July of 2025, I began writing in earnest on Substack (see my previous post<\/a>).\u00a0 At one point, I received a comment from a reader who seemed interested in what I was writing, and we began exchanging chat messages.\u00a0 This person was identified only by a first name and last initial:\u00a0 Mary H.\u00a0 The chats were pleasant, and I enjoyed some personal interaction.\u00a0 At one point she suggested moving to Telegram<\/a>, as a better means to continue to communicate.\u00a0 That should have been a red flag, but at the time I didn’t see it as such.<\/p>\n

We continued to have friendly chats.\u00a0 I should mention that Mary presented herself as a 30-ish divorc\u00e9e, a small business owner and entrepreneur living in California.\u00a0 Let me say right here that having an intimate relationship with a woman younger than my daughter was never a motivating factor!\u00a0 She was nice, and I often mentioned the disparity in our ages and life experiences.\u00a0 We were simply “friends.”\u00a0 Toss out the idea of a sexual “honey pot.”\u00a0 In fact, greed wasn’t my motivation either.\u00a0 I think the fascination of technology was what got me.\u00a0 However, the age difference between us should have been a red flag, also.<\/p>\n

Our original conversation on Substack is still saved, so I can retrace back to the beginning.\u00a0 One red flag I definitely saw was that Mary’s profile on Substack was gone.\u00a0 Her avatar and username were still listed, but her presence on Substack is missing.\u00a0 In my ignorance, I thought perhaps she wasn’t into writing and had simply quit the site.\u00a0 Substack only timestamps the date and time a conversation begins and not every message, so I can only report that the first saved message with Mary occurred on July 24, 2025.\u00a0 By July 26, the conversation had edged into the territory of money.\u00a0 She asked if I’d read the book, The Psychology of Money, by Morgan Housel<\/a>.\u00a0 I confessed that I had not, but checked it out from my library.\u00a0 We continued to chat about the book, other books and topics in general, and then on July 28, she asked me about my thoughts on AI.\u00a0 As one who spent his career in the technology field, we talked about the current state of tech, and then on July 29, she asked if I’d heard of AI Arbitrage<\/em>.\u00a0 Looking back, it’s amazing that all this took place in just a few short days!\u00a0 Another red flag!<\/p>\n

So it began.\u00a0 Over the messaging capabilities of the Telegram app, Mary walked me through the process of creating a bitcoin “wallet,” transferring money from my bank to a crypto exchange and converting it to the bitcoin of choices.\u00a0 In this case, it was Ethereum<\/a>, one of the more popular crypto currencies.\u00a0 The next step was to deposit the crypto into an account on the AI arbitrage account.\u00a0 Finally, submit an order.<\/p>\n

Newcomers are allowed to “sample” the system by opening a very limited two-day order.\u00a0 But only twice.\u00a0 At this point, I was playing with “mad money,” which came straight out of my checking account.\u00a0 I thought that if I lost it, it would be a lesson learned, but not the end of the world.\u00a0 I made my two orders and each returned a profit, which I converted back to cash and sent to my bank.\u00a0 I made $465.89.\u00a0 For doing nothing!\u00a0 Since I had used the available two-day orders, the promise of greater returns on a three-day order appealed to me, with an additional influx of cash.<\/p>\n

Uh-oh.\u00a0 You can see where this is going.\u00a0 I had the cash in my checking account, so it was a simple matter to wire the funds needed as before and enter the order.\u00a0 Nothing to it!\u00a0 Three days later, I saw a nice, but not obscene return, so I thought to repeat the process.<\/p>\n

I won’t say that greed didn’t enter into my decision.\u00a0 I’d like to think that it would be a nice “cushion” to have in my retirement funds.\u00a0 Maybe pay off a car loan.\u00a0 Donate to the church.\u00a0 Maybe some home improvements.\u00a0 I wasn’t thinking “overnight millionaire,” but perhaps I was relishing the idea of splurging a bit.<\/p>\n

Then came the first disaster.<\/p>\n

According to the “rules,” which I never saw, if a three-day order cannot be filled due to no available “slots,” the “system” automatically moves the order up to the next “tier,” which in this case was a five-day order.\u00a0 The only problem now was that in order for a five-day order to be submitted, sufficient funds to cover the system-allocated amount were required.\u00a0 I did not have these funds in my checking account, so under assurances that I would be able to withdraw those funds upon completion of the order, I went to my retirement financial advisor and requested a withdrawal from there.\u00a0 Order satisfied, completed, and all was in order.\u00a0 I did this twice.\u00a0 At one point, Mary even added some of her own funds to help me make the minimum amount.<\/p>\n

Mary had mentioned that I should become a “VIP” member, which would allow me to set fine-grained limits on future orders, but when I inquired, I was told my “bank” was short the required amount.\u00a0 Oh well, all I had to do was place three-day orders and set a limit on the allocated funds.\u00a0 I did so, and it worked out.\u00a0 By now, I had actually seen some profit, even though there was more work involved than I’d thought.\u00a0 Still, I already had funds in my “bank” so I placed another order.<\/p>\n

And waited.<\/p>\n

Nearly 24 hours later, I saw on my dashboard that I was registered for a nine<\/em>-day order!\u00a0 From a three-day order to a nine-day order was extraordinary.\u00a0 The problem was the funds needed to complete the order.\u00a0 However, I was tapped out.\u00a0 \u00a0I had no more funds in my retirement account, no income save for Social Security and what had previously been my savings.\u00a0 As I write this, five days remain until I lose my (figurative) shirt.<\/p>\n

RECAP<\/p>\n

To restate the original line, I HAVE NO ONE TO BLAME BUT MYSELF.\u00a0<\/strong> Below are the red flags I should have seen and the warnings some due diligence would have kept me from being scammed:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. An unknown person with no traceable identity reaches out and engages in conversation.\u00a0 Okay, that in itself is fairly benign, but when asked to take it to Telegram (or another platform–especially one I don’t use–is a warning flag.<\/li>\n
  2. This same person does not have, or no longer has an account on Substack where we first connected.<\/li>\n
  3. When AI Arbitrage was mentioned, I should have done better research.\u00a0 I did some cursory investigation, but mostly on the technology, which is why it first appealed to me.<\/li>\n
  4. Querying perplexity.ai<\/a> about AI Arbitrage scams has yielded a wealth of information.\u00a0 It’s likely the only wealth I’ll see from all this.\u00a0 I won’t paste everything, but here are the salient points.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n