AuroraStocks.com – Wife got scammed out of $5k+

Here’s the story/details:

Wife is scrolling Facebook and sees an ad with « Ryan Reynolds » promoting an investment platform called Aurora Stocks. She tells me she wants to try it out. I tell her it’s likely a scam and an AI generated video and Ryan Reynolds isn’t really endorsing this.
Now my wife is very smart, has a business degree, works in IT and makes good money but with 2 kids in university/college, extra money is always welcome. She also makes double what I do so I don’t like to tell her what to do when it comes to money matters.

So she creates a profile on AuroraStocks and gets assigned a « Financial advisor » who contacts her via WhatsApp. (We don’t use this normally but she is aware of the platform.)
He says his name is Dave Williams and he lives in Toronto. He sends her a link to a FINRA profile to prove he’s legitimate. She even talks to him on the phone via WhatsApp. « He’s really nice! He’s originally from Ukraine! »

So she sends $250 and he says he’s investing it in crypto or Bitcoin.
She logs into her « account » on Aurora Stocks and almost overnight her $250 has grown to over $450!! WOW!

A couple days go buy and « Dave » convinces her to send $2000+ for more investments. She says she doesn’t have it now. He says they can loan her the money as long as she pays back within 7 days. He tells her he « invests » the $2000+ in NVDA stock and again, almost overnight her « trading account » shows a balance of over $4000. She send him around $2500 in Bitcoin.

About a week goes by and he contacts her again, this time he wants her to send him $30,000 not to invest, but to put into an Ethereum ETF or something and it will be worth $50,000 in 6 months. It’s no risk he says because this is just like a savings account. Meanwhile, her investment account is up to about $8K. He says « I’m sure I can do some more trades and get that up to $10K so you only have to send me $20K. »
At this point, I have been pretty hands off but I’ve told her many times that I am almost certain this is a scam. We fight about it and she will not even speak to me about it. But at this point I need to get involved and I flat out tell « Dave » we don’t have the $20K to « invest. » He knows I’m on to him but he’s still got the missus on the line. I will admit, he’s a good talker but obviously, that’s how they dupe the unsuspecting.

Another week goes by… the « investment account » is up to $13K. He contacts her again, once more looking for more money to invest. He gets really pushy. She says she doesn’t have more to invest. He calls her a liar. She is now pissed off and decides she is done with him and wants to cash out. She tries to withdraw via the Aurora Stocks website but nothing happens. She contacts support via email. They tell her to contact her advisor. Now the account is up to about $22K. He has her set up a CoinBase (Base) wallet so she downloads the app. She sees $22,000 worth of DHN deposited into in her wallet.
« Dave » says now that she is closing her account she must pay him his 10% commission before she can get her money. She sends him $2300. I get angry and say « So he conned you out of another $2300. » We don’t speak for the rest of the evening.

I have a friend who works in cyber security and I reach out to ask him if there’s some way I can see if the website is legit. He sends me to a website I can plug the URL in. I get 2 results. 1 says no issues, the other one, Gridinsoft tells me that the website is 4 months old and based in Russia. That would explain « Dave’s » Russian accent…. but I can’t say anything to the wife lest I incur her wrath again.

The next day her wallet now has $64000 in it and Dave says « Isn’t that great, another trade went through! » She gets an email from « Aurora Stocks » with a form she has to sign and send along with photos of her Drivers License and a selfie. She gets an email from « Coinbase@crypto-online support » saying that in order to withdraw the funds, she has to pay 7% ($4500) in fees. She texts me before she send the money (thankfully!) and I convince her not to send it. I show her screen shots of the legit Coinbase emails and the fees associated with withdrawals ($0-25). I think she might be finally understanding that it’s a scam. She emails the Coinbase@ crypto-online address to get an explanation and the send her a reply. She contacts « Dave » and he confirms and says but you have to act fast because the fees will go up the longer you wait. Of course!

I convince her to reach out to Coinbase support and she does. She send the email address and confirm its a scam email. She starts to research how she can withdraw this DHN from her wallet. The next day, « Dave » tries to contact her and tells her she must send the money soon or it could impact her Aurora Stocks account. She ignores his messages and calls.

She spends hours trying to get this money out. Finally, she finds out that the DHN is pretty much worthless. Even though it shows as $64K in her wallet, the coin has no liquidity. Her $64K in DHN is only worth about $5. And now she can’t even log into her « Aurora Stocks » account… go figure.

So she’s out about $6000 CAD and she feels terrible so I’m trying hard not to say « I told you so. »
And at least she’s learned a lot about crypto and has put an alert on via chatGPT that if DHN ever gets liquidity, she’ll get notified and maybe be able to get some money back… (unlikely of course!)

So that’s the story…. sorry it’s so long. Oh and BTW, when I just did a Google search for Aurora Stocks, there are several scam warnings that weren’t there a month ago.

And DM’s offering to help get the money back will be ignored.