Wessel entered his phone number during his research and received a message from a “fellow crypto newbie” on Whatsapp, who convinced him to try the Earning Field site and invest a small amount to gain confidence in trading.
He purchased cryptocurrency from a legitimate merchant and then transferred the cryptocurrency from the merchant's wallet to Earning Field, in the process of doing so severing ties to any traceable money transfers.
Earning Field claims to be the best investment plan of 2018, with plans users invest in that vary in percentage of earnings depending on the amount you invest, with the most expensive earning claiming to give a 30 percent return.
Wessel first invested US$100. He received a 15 percent return after 24 hours and was able to withdraw the full amount of money.
However, things changed when the WhatsApp user convinced him to invest in the most expensive plans.
When Wessel tried to withdraw his money from the plan, he was told that he had to invest $1,000 a week for six weeks as part of additional conditions that he was not told, and that if he wanted to withdraw, he could buy the plan with half of the total investment.
When Wessel tried to buy the investment, he was told to invest in another plan because his system "couldn't handle the change" and then asked to provide multiple additional payments to the company.
"Stupid, I transferred money again hoping to get out," he said.
Alarm bells began to ring for Wessel and he realized that he had lost over NZ$5,000 that he would not get back.
"In hindsight, there were so many warning bells that should have stopped me from the get-go."
He went to his electronics class at Otumoetai College after getting frustrated with the company and one of the students who knew a lot about crypto looked at the website and told him it was a scam.
Wessel said there were indications the class discovered it was a scam, including that the company's registration was bogus and no physical or email addresses were shown, but when searched online, the company has rave reviews. .
Wessel has been unable to get his money back, as his bank told him they have no responsibility for what he does with the money after it has reached a legitimate destination.
"Bottom line, if you suspect something is wrong, bail out immediately — don't dig any deeper because losses only increase as they go pro," he says.
One of his students, Logan Roelofs, says that despite being an electronics professor, Wessels was not an expert when it came to the Internet, making him an "ideal target" for scammers.
"Especially with cryptocurrency scams, it's happening a lot more now that more people find out about it and a lot of older people and people who aren't that familiar with the internet don't really know what it is," Roelofs said.
"All they hear is that it's a good place to invest money, but without really knowing how it works, people are profiting from it."
Netsafe said in a statement to Newshub that reports of investment scams during the first quarter of this year (January to March) were up 13 percent compared to the same period last year.
A Netsafe spokesman said investment scams cover a variety of situations where people are tricked into sending money with the promise of receiving more in return.
The nonprofit online security organization said cryptocurrency transactions cannot be reversed and the only way to get the money back is if the recipient chooses to send it to you, which scammers won't do.
"Cryptocurrency transfers are tracked through a decentralized ledger, many 'nodes' in the network will confirm the transaction on the blockchain," a Netsafe spokesperson said. "Since there is no single person or entity that maintains this record of the transaction, this means that there is essentially no method to reverse the payment."
Netsafe urges people to know who they are sending cryptocurrency to and only buy cryptocurrency from trusted sources that have a strong track record of delivering their service to avoid being scammed.
The organization also said that it is safer to hold crypto in your own wallet.
When you first buy cryptocurrencies on an exchange, they are held in your exchange account, but technically the cryptocurrency will still be held by an exchange on the blockchain.
“It is safer to transfer these funds to your own private wallet so ownership and access to your cryptocurrency is only for you,” Netsafe said.
Wessel says his advice to investors is "if it's too good to be true, it definitely is."
He says that for people who want to get started with cryptocurrency investing, it is a good idea to first attend training sessions from reputable experts to understand the intricacies of cryptocurrency investing and never invest money that you cannot afford to lose.
Earning Field has not responded to Newshub requests for comment.
