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.
I got scammed out of £8000 on my Betfair account. They gave me 3 winners in a row by email and then told me to pay for more tips. Once I had paid the money, the next tip lost. I kept paying and the tips kept losing.
They kept emailing me for more of my money and said the next tip was a “pro tip” but I had run out of money so I couldn’t give them any more.
Watch for this one they tell u they will put money say 50 on a horse for u it wins they send u the cash in the post twice I got the money but was asked to pay their commission up front no problem as at that stage I was using their money I had to send the commission up front in cash to them then the biggie 3 horses same day I was on at 50 ein each horse and 50btreble they went nuts yea they all one I watched the races I was contacted told I’d won over 20 k but as usual I’d to send their commission first to release my 20 k I said if iv won 20 k take it out of my win I refused told them it was a scam and was threatened etc they were past posting the results very clever they send u actual cash 2 or 3 times so u think they are honest traders iv still got the phone nos they tried again weeks later different names
I was approached in November December last year by a company called BetFred brokers and there’s a lead guy called Nigel and he had a counterpart of call Lawrence Lawrence was the trader and Nigel was the businessman behind the kind of thing and what they promised is that they could we account every single day start with 200 quid goes to 400 on Monday 8800 on Tuesday 16 Wednesday 3200 Thursday 6400 Friday 12800 on Saturday Sunday is a day off you enjoyed that 200 so basically what they say is you have to pay a lump sum up front to get access to to use that platform and then you get approach to open a bit back account the same principle we got a pay in advance for that and I think it was about 2 grand and then also sporting index so what they say is it got these multiple accounts running weather the same thing over and over and over so you can in effect have 48.50 grand a week turnover of which you give them 252525 sounds great start with so you put your 200 quid in actually you put 400 quid in because it’s not on Tuesday with you always call you on a Tuesday I’ll contact you in the week saying the cycles already started to enter you’ve got to be at this point etc and you first week they do marry what you say so it looks really good to be fair however as they get a bit more greedy and they get a bit more ambitious and and put more pressure on you to confirm to keep going they it is kind like your head into US into an expanding scam so it start what’s on the black and white situation looks you know genuine then Lawrence will phone you to say we’ve got these other account should be going to that as well so paid to Grandma get you into bed back so you can double up and get more money in the tube and we can get you onto sporting index get 3 x amount of money so of course people have been going to go for that which I did fortunately in the end it took quite a lot of convincing and give me a bit of breathing space I lost about 4 grand in the end in total which I’m not too fussed about but in the big scale of things but they were constantly harassing and they’re constantly on on it and it was bad cop good cop situation between this Nigel and Lawrence I’ve put phone trackers on their phone numbers the Hollies pay-as-you-go Sims the email addresses etc they’re all put through VPN so there’s no way back to find out where these people are in Downton obviously although in the time when we’ve been through the pandemic I had a bit more time to spare and a bit more cash to play with so I did fall foul something which seems you know absolutely the best thing since sliced bread and I’ve been involved in gambling for last 30 years so I just really want to put it out there that no matter how you no good this comes out then you’ve got to be very very careful however saying that I really want to sort these guys out more than prepared to put myself on the front lines punishing the police and just not interested at all the so many things going on out in the world that you have to put an application into a website and three months later to pick up the inquiry by that point you know the moved on and then gets caught and you’re trying to go back into history to find where you were and what you doing which is very difficult so if anybody wants to join me or indeed if you want to if you got a contact first shoe this about sooty delighted especially when this is how stupid they are the since contact me again and they’ve asked me to give them a call today so I got a new contact number and you lead name and they’re waiting for my call which I’m not going to make it so I can get back to me as soon as I can have been much appreciated so I can set these guys up find them and get them sorted out properly
Hi all,
Recently contacted by these scammers. It was the guarantee of doubling my pot every day that raised my suspicion. Come on everyone, we all know nothing in racing is guaranteed and a winner certainly ain’t. Don’t be fooled. Google is an amazing tool and will show reviews for almost anything. The guy rang me back and as soon as i mentioned I’d googled his website reviews he hung up and hasn’t tried again.
I’ve been contacted by a guy today 27th September 2022 who’s promised me unlimited winning on my Betfair account. I’m completely ignoring him . I know it has to be a scam.
If anyone else is contacted by this person please ignore or report them.
.He said his name was Peter Moore and he represents Betfair City Traders
It’s really frustrating to see this is still happening!
Thanks for the heads up Peter. Being in IT I’m probably a little more aware of looking out and recognising these scams because it’s drummed into you never ever give account details to ANYONE that includes your coworkers, your boss or tech support. I’d also like to reiterate how important it is to enable multi factored authentication on your Betfair account. For anyone who is unsure what that is, when you login to Betfair, you’ll be asked to supply a unique 6 digit code that is generated from an authenticator app on your phone. Without that anyone else who somehow acquired your Betfair password would not gain access. I hear horror stories of people who’ve seen their accounts drained by hackers through phishing or other scams. It’s so easy to setup and I hope those that don’t have this will protect themselves.
In May 2022 I was contacted by Mark Francis-Hart of Betfair City Traders. Unfortunately I hadn’t come across the warnings given on this website and I fell for their scam. They made a small profit on the first day (I forget exactly how much) but they then wanted me to deposit £5000 into my Betfair account which I said I wasn’t prepared to do.
I forgot all about them until last week when I was contacted by another firm called Betfair Advantage. It all sounded worthwhile so, having forgotten about last year’s experience, I deposited £100 into my account. The next day I checked the results. They’d made 5 bets of £10 each, then one of £50, all on the same horse. It won, netting a total profit of £250. They then placed all of this profit on a runner in the next race and it lost, so I was £100 down. I immediately changed my Betfair password, even though my account now only had a few pence in it. I tried to contact Betfair Advantage as they had promised to refund any money I’d lost. However, the phone went to an answering machine and my message wasn’t replied to.
Then, last week, I tried again and this time received a call back from someone called Lauren. She came across as genuine but claimed they had no record of dealing with me last week, despite my supplying the phone number of the man who I’d originally dealt with. (That number is no longer valid) She denied any knowledge of Betfair City Traders.
I told her I’d be posting my exeriences on relevant forums, which is what I’m doing. I’ll be more careful in checking my records next time!.
Was victim of betfair advantage.co.uk and lost £100 , worse thing I had my betfair account closed for good , many thanks
Sorry to hear that. That URL doesn’t seem to point anywhere, is it still valid?