What is the Fake Article About?

Another fake cut & paste article concerning Dragon's Den and Michael Carroll has been seen this week. The article has been copied so that you can see it below:

The article is an obvious cut and paste job and Michel Carroll's face has been pasted over the face of a Dragon's Den entry to try and convince people that Michael Carroll has a new scheme that will make anyone rich. As you can see from the above, the article uses all of the Dragons from Dragon's Den to affirm the idea that this is a great deal, and that Bitcoin Motion is an easy, reliable and simple way to make money without really encountering risk. 

What Does the Article Claim?

Well the article is quite long and uses a lot of prose to try and make the point that Bitcoin Motion is a good deal. 

The first paragraph reads:

They have used a photo of Michael Carroll, he won the lottery in 2002 when he was 19 years old & blew it all before he was 21, naming himself as the 'King of Chavs' and the 'Lotto Lout'. Since then he has been working as a bin man up until the end of 2021 when he created an automated Bitcoin trading platform; 'Bitcoin Motion'. The idea was simple: allow the average person the opportunity to invest in Bitcoin, even if they have absolutely no prior investment, blockchain or technology experience.

The user simply makes an initial deposit in to the platform, usually £250 or more and then the platform will allow you to make trades when it detects the value of Bitcoin will rise or fall due to multiple factors that influence price. All you have to do is fill out a short form to get access to the system.

Carroll intends to make money from his platform by charging a small commission on only the profits a user generates. He asked the Dragons for £750,000 for 25% of the company, valuing the company at £3,000,000.

Time and time again we see that same sentence: The idea was simple: allow the average person the opportunity to invest in Bitcoin, even if they have absolutely no prior investment, blockchain or technology experience. which is just complete nonsense. No one is ever going to make an app or website that makes everyone rich as it wold simply just make money worthless. There is only so much money to go round, as otherwise there would be no point in having any money as it would be worthless. This paragraph makes no sense financially in any way whatsoever, and is a strong indication that this article is just a scam designed to defraud people.

What is Bitcoin Motion?

The idea that any system can detect when the price of Bitcoin will rise or fall is quite simply a ridiculous claim. A robot can only predict from the numbers it has seen so far, just like any trader analysing for bull markets or any other kind of simple system based upon behaviour.

Can A Market Be Predicted?

There is no way to detect what a market may or may not do as that market would then be predictable. Once a market is predictable then someone can use the advance knowledge of what will happen to corner that market, and effectively own the assets within it. Once this happens, that market has been changed and is affected by different properties compared to how it functioned before. This means that the market is no longer predictable especially for when the new owner manipulates that market. Either way, no one can know what a market will do unless they own and manipulate it. 

We go on to read:

“If your system automatically makes profitable trades with Bitcoin, why not just keep it for yourself and get rich?” asked Deborah Meaden. 

Good question, replied Carroll. Simply put, I've only made £40,000 so far from the system. If I manage to get funding from the Dragons, I can invest a larger sum of money and gain returns faster.

And once again, these sentences just do not make sense. If you had made £40k from £250 then that is an increase of 16,000% so it would only take as long again to make £6.4m. The last thing you would do is to appear on television if you had discovered a secret way to get rich. The article goes on to claim that Deborah Meaden made nearly ten percent in just three minutes and was impressed by the software, and that in the end all five Dragons invested for £1m each for a company valuation of ten million pounds. Now think about this for a minute. The stupidest man in Britain has invented a system that makes anyone rich and then taken it onto Dragon's Den where he proved that it worked in front of everyone. This is without doubt the stupidest idea they have invented so far. Why would you suggest that the stupidest man in the country could invent something that would make everyone rich? Surely they could choose a better person to have invented this supposed trading platform?

What is the Purpose of this Article Really?

It may be hard to believe but this article is a confidence trick. It is a device to get you into a certain state of mind through misrepresentation in order to defraud you. 

The idea is very simple - tell you that this whole process is designed to make you rich so that what you believe is so far away from the reality that you take a long time to realise that you are actually being robbed, that is the basic idea. You sign up for a programme promising to make you money that then takes your money.

You will be convinced that you are entering a secret, eclectic programme of genius that are very privileged to be given the chance when in reality you are one of thousands of people being defrauded that day. You are registered with an offshore, unregulated CFD broker and contacted by a 'financial advisor' who is actually a boiler room scammer. A boiler room is a high pressure environment where people are literally at breaking point to make money and are prepared to lie to other people to get it. A boiler room is quite simply a call centre full of scammers.

What Happens After the Boiler Room Scammers Call?

You have been directed through to an alleged offshore CFD broker like so:

And you will be shown a trading interface. Within this interface is what appears to be your balance, the amount of money that the boiler room person persuaded you to invest. This amount will grow, encouraging you to invest more and more money which the boiler room person will aid you in. They will put more and more pressure on you until they are satisfied that you have no more money to 'invest.' Once this occurs you will start asking how to withdraw and as soon as you do the trades will start to go badly. You will lose money time and time again whilst you persist in trying to withdraw, but there will be obstacles. You will be asked for documentation, passports, ID cards, driving licenses, proof of address, faxes from councils. All of the while your balance will dwindle until you have nothing left at all. Then you will be convinced that it was just the way CFD trading goes, when in reality, you never had an account at all. The numbers and trading interface were just to keep you quiet whilst they made their escape. That is the boiler room scam!

In Conclusion

This fake article eventually goes on to claim that the journalists writing the article sent a member of their team to test the Bitcoin Motion system and that it quickly made them rich with no risk or difficulty. There are also hundreds of fake quotes at the bottom claiming to be written by wealthy investors who have made a fortune without any skill or risk. What would money be worth if you could earn it with no skill or risk?

The whole article is complete nonsense designed to defraud anyone who reads it, so beware!