An announcement

[jtr1962]

As everyone here may know last year I was scammed out of $260,000. This and the loss of most of my business income due to the tariffs, and someone pirating our device, has caused me to finally run out of liquid funds. Within a few days my electricity, phone, and Internet are going to be turned off. As a result, I may not be able to post here for a long time, perhaps ever if I can't get back on my feet. If I can't continue to pay the real estate taxes the city will seize and auction off the house. I'll face being homeless for the first time in my life. Of course, I'm not going to live like that. I have cyanide tablets for such an eventuality.

I have a few days left with electricity. They have to give 24 hours notice before cutting my power. I haven't received that notice yet.

It's been a great run I had here with everyone. I hope it continues but in case not I wish you all well. I'll check in periodically as long as I'm able to before my power is cut.

 

[Mercutio]

Joe, have you examined City resources for addressing your situation? I do see that there are programs in your Borough and City-wide for helping out older persons as well as programs run by Con Ed. I'm not entirely sure what you might qualify for, but surely it is a better option to consider than your pills.

As I recall, you do have siblings. Are they in any position at all to help you out?

I am not judging you for your decision, and I do suspect that you've looked in to alternative options already, but at the same time I have to hope that you are not quite at the point of catastrophe and that there are still options to consider.

 

[jtr1962]

Here's the problem. I have assets but they're not liquid. My money in my retirement accounts is currently frozen until next January. It's a long story but the short version is I took out a rollover to get the scam site to release my account. Of course they didn't but Chase had a hissy fit that I had to liquidate my brokerage account to cover the rollover. At least I didn't miss the deadline and get stuck paying taxes on $135,000. So they locked the retirement accounts until next year so they don't have to deal with this again. Anyway, the fact I have assets disqualifies me from help from the city, as well as ConEd. It's great NYC has a system of safety nets but you have to be virtually broke to qualify.

My siblings are both living paycheck to paycheck. I only told my brother part of the scamming situation. He thinks I only lost $130,000, not twice that. My sister would go ballistic if I told her so I'm not. How can I explain to either of them that my bank accounts are nearly empty?
My last hope is that I get an order for control boxes and then I'll ask my friend to pay me a few thousand in advance. Hopefully that will be enough for ConEd to keep the power on for a while. They want about $8,000 for that. About half is unpaid prior bills. They no longer trust me to pay monthly, so they also want an amount approximately equal to a year's worth of my normal usage in advance. After that I'll be able to go back to paying monthly. Maybe I can talk them out of paying the advance.

I also need about $75,000 to get current on all my other bills. Unfortunately I borrowed money to keep me going, about $21,000 in total. Now I owe out about $65,000. You can guess the source of this money given the ridiculous interest but it was my only option.

I do have the cryptocurrency investment which is launching within a few weeks. If it does very well then I can easily repay all my debts. The problem is how to survive until then.

 

[mubs]

Truly sorry about your situation, jtr. Keep those pills away. Things will work out.

 

[Mercutio]

You do still have assets and presumably those do have value that exceed your current financial obligations to someone. There's probably an instrument to use those to get back on solid ground.

A Crypto IPO probably isn't a ticket to wealth unless you're set up as a pre-offering owner of the coin; almost all currency offerings are set up to be rug-pulls where the only people who receive wealth are the people who create the coin in the first place. Cryptocurrency is for the most part just a tool for money laundering. They exist more as a way to get around banking regulations than anything else.

 

[jtr1962]

I'm just going to ask if the members here can start a GoFundMe on behalf of me. Maybe you all have better knowledge of how to promote it so it actually gets donations. I'll give my bank account number for them to send the funds to. This is how desperate I am right now.

You know the background of my situation from this thread:

I've been scammed and I need help

Unfortunately I fell victim to an online crypto investing scam and I'm usually very careful with things like this. I have a considerable amount of money being held hostage. I already filed reports with the FBI and SEC. Here's the story: I was first contacted by a person named Xinyue Chen on...

www.storageforum.net

My current assets easily exceed my financial obligations by a large margin once Chase unlocks my retirement accounts BUT I have to pay taxes on everything I take out. My preference was not to have to touch these accounts at all until I'm forced to take RMDs at age 75.

 

[jtr1962]

A Crypto IPO probably isn't a ticket to wealth unless you're set up as a pre-offering owner of the coin; almost all currency offerings are set up to be rug-pulls where the only people who receive wealth are the people who create the coin in the first place.

I'm dubious this is a rug pull. There's a working cryptocurrency exchange behind it. This is similar to the IPO of the Binance coin. Anyone who got into that IPO did very well. The coin sold for about 10 cents in the IPO. Now it's going for about $600. It peaked at a bit over $1,000. Do the math. A $100 investment in the IPO became over $1 million. I don't think this one will do as well but 100x or more seems very possible. Right now I have over 2.8 million tokens. The launch price is $0.05, so my $25K investment will be worth north of $140K on launch. Some analysts think $1 or more this year is possible. That makes me a multimillionaire.

Cryptocurrency is for the most part just a tool for money laundering. They exist more as a way to get around banking regulations than anything else.

It used to be that way. More and more it's being used as currency. The nice thing about cryptocurrency is you can send or receive money 24/7/365, not just during normal banking hours.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm dubious this is a rug pull. There's a working cryptocurrency exchange behind it.

FTX was a highly regarded Crypto Exchange once upon a time.

I have no idea how to promote a GoFundMe. Social media? Does anyone here use that?

 

[jtr1962]

FTX was a highly regarded Crypto Exchange once upon a time.

They got hit with a bunch of withdrawals at the same time.

Here's what I bought:

https://cryptonews.com/price-predictions/blockchainfx-price-prediction/

I know a prediction is only speculation but there's a lot of consensus on the token reaching $1 or more this year. I'll also continue to get over 11,000 tokens of daily interest at least for a year I think. After that they might lower the interest rate, or even stop the interest altogether. But in any case I should end up with over 6 million tokens a year from now. I'm getting excited at the 2030 high prediction of $3.89. With 6 million tokens even if they're only 10 cents that's $600K on a $25K investment. Part of what they plan to do is use some of the fees to buy back tokens to increase the scarcity, and presumably support higher prices. Too many of these ICOs kept issuing tokens as rewards or interest until the flood of tokens crashed the price.

Then there's the USDT interest rewards. Those will be about $2,500 a month on launch. That's enough to cover all my bills.

I have no idea how to promote a GoFundMe. Social media? Does anyone here use that?

Does your partner have any idea? I was hoping someone here would know how to promote a GoFundMe. I tried two and only got one donation of $25.

 

[Mercutio]

I know people with big followings on IG, Snapchat or Twitter but posting a random GoFundMe between the thirst traps would cost them thousands of followers.

 

[jtr1962]

I'll just hope the ICO bails me out then. I'll get about $2,500 USDT rewards each month when it launches, more if the price goes up. That's enough to live on.

 

[Handruin]

I genuinely believe it's important that you reach out to someone local for counseling for your mental health concerns and even a fiduciary that's not aligned to sell you a product to help figure out a plan to get you to solvency. I understand none of this is easy and you have a ton on your plate to deal with right now. All of us here want to see you get to a better place but I don't think any of us are professionals in the areas that can help you the most.

I gotta say, given what happened originally with crypto, I'm really surprised you are gambling a sizable amount into another crypto situation. I exited the crypto scene 12-13 years ago because it was already a sketchy mess and it's even worse now. The amount of times I read about investors going into a crypto ICO and then a rug pull happens is far too often. That $25k you gambled would have given you a decent runway to work through things.

I realize this won't be a favorable viewpoint related to a GoFundMe but this isn't the right help you need. Throwing real liquid cash into more crypto isn't the answer, it's always a case of if it's too good to be true, then it is. I do hope it works out for you but don't know why you didn't use that to give you the time needed to have your assets unfrozen.

Can you not sell your house and take the profits from that to reset and stabilize things financially and then move and downsize to another place to live? Will they not work with you to unfreeze assets during a hardship situation?

 

[jtr1962]

I genuinely believe it's important that you reach out to someone local for counseling for your mental health concerns and even a fiduciary that's not aligned to sell you a product to help figure out a plan to get you to solvency. I understand none of this is easy and you have a ton on your plate to deal with right now. All of us here want to see you get to a better place but I don't think any of us are professionals in the areas that can help you the most.

Counseling is a waste of money. If I had money to spare I would be getting dental work. I'm already in considerable pain.

I gotta say, given what happened originally with crypto, I'm really surprised you are gambling a sizable amount into another crypto situation. I exited the crypto scene 12-13 years ago because it was already a sketchy mess and it's even worse now. The amount of times I read about investors going into a crypto ICO and then a rug pull happens is far too often. That $25k you gambled would have given you a decent runway to work through things.

This isn't a gamble. You're assuming every ICO is a rug pull. It's launching when they raise $15 million, which will happen in a matter of weeks. That's definite. What the price does after launch depends upon supply and demand but my investment will be worth at least $150K on launch.

I realize this won't be a favorable viewpoint related to a GoFundMe but this isn't the right help you need. Throwing real liquid cash into more crypto isn't the answer, it's always a case of if it's too good to be true, then it is. I do hope it works out for you but don't know why you didn't use that to give you the time needed to have your assets unfrozen.

Remember the frozen assets are retirement accounts. I can't use those for expenses even if they weren't frozen because they would be subject to income taxes. If I needed $25,000 for expenses I'd have to take out about $35,000 to cover the taxes I would need to pay.

Can you not sell your house and take the profits from that to reset and stabilize things financially and then move and downsize to another place to live? Will they not work with you to unfreeze assets during a hardship situation?

No, I can't and I won't. The house is in my mother's name. It has to go through probate which takes at least 18 months before it can be sold. More importantly, neither me nor any of my siblings have the money to pay for probate. Besides every other living option is more expensive. Even a modest apartment is about $4,000 a month. With utilities and other expenses I'll be bleeding cash to the tune of $60K annually. In about 4 years my retirement accounts are gone. 4 years later my share of the money from selling the house is gone. At that point I have absolutely nothing to live on. I'm homeless and I'd be in my early 70s. Staying in the house is the cheapest option. My total expenses are about $2,000 a month.

I need the ICO to do well or possibly my lost funds to be recovered. A GoFundMe would help a lot also if it did well. I'm kind of disgusted because I've asked for help on multiple places. There were times I offered help to people when I could. I also gave lots of technical help and posted experimental results which others claimed were useful. Now I need help and I haven't got a fucking dollar from anyone. If I get rich everyone can all go to hell. I'm using it all for my own enjoyment and indulgences. Fuck the world.

 

[jtr1962]

So this is what I get for giving up over ten years of my life to care for my mother so she didn't end up in one of those horrible nursing homes? Being homeless? We really need caretaker laws to ensure that time spent caring for family members is taken into account when dividing estates, regardless of what the will says. I would have cared for my mother regardless but having to pay my siblings their share of the overly inflated home price is a ridiculous burden. I did agree to pay them their share of the inflation-adjusted price, and also give them my share of my mother's other assets. The end result would have been that I needed to give them only $50K each. Very manageable given what I had before I was scammed. I never would have touched that questionable investment if this had been the case.

On another note today I learned of yet another person scammed by this mother f to the tune of $2.8 million. They also arrested some key members of the ring in Cambodia. I hope they enjoy torture because that's how they extract information from criminals over there. I just wish I was there to watch.

 

[Mercutio]

Sadly torture won't actually get you your money back.

 

[jtr1962]

They recovered over $10 million so far.

Torture is also how they pay for their crimes. I hope Cambodia has capital punishment for crimes like this.