Looking for owners of crooked website.

balanga said:
Can anyone in the US tell where to get a definitive reply to whether an Investment company can charge an IRS TAX FEE like that demanded below?
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In general, the IRS taxes US residents. There are some exceptions, but the wording you quote sounds like a scam.

balanga said:
If this company claims to be operating in California what would be most appropriate address to write to?
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Start on the web with the California Secretary of State, and its registry of businesses in California. That will verify whether they are registered there, and if yes what their address and contact information is.

From there, what to do next is an interesting legal question. Ultimately, the answer may be a lawsuit in a California court. Which I will warn you: those are expensive and slow. In practice you will need a lawyer (budget about $5000 for that), and a civil complaint of the form "you committed fraud and took my money, I want it back" is likely to take 2 years to be processed.
 
elephant said:
Another option is the state's OAG. https://oag.ca.gov/
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That's the attorney general, the central law enforcement agency of the state. But they don't usually get involved in civil disputes between individuals and companies, and they don't do much criminal prosecution. Not likely that they would get involved in the (sadly) usual and common cybercrime.

If the location of the evil company can be figured out, and there is real suspicion that a crime has been committed (not just a civil dispute about who owns what) it might also be possible to contact law enforcement, such as city police, county sheriff, or district attorney. But all that should be done with the help of a lawyer.
 
They are more than likely in India or Nigeria; that’s where an overwhelming majority of online scams originate. The only hope of getting your money back or even finding them is contacting one of those hacker groups on YouTube that track down and scam the scammers. If they’re in the U.S., you would be extremely lucky, as this is one of the few places that will actually do anything.
 
ralphbsz said:
That's the attorney general, the central law enforcement agency of the state. But they don't usually get involved in civil disputes between individuals and companies, and they don't do much criminal prosecution. Not likely that they would get involved in the (sadly) usual and common cybercrime.

If the location of the evil company can be figured out, and there is real suspicion that a crime has been committed (not just a civil dispute about who owns what) it might also be possible to contact law enforcement, such as city police, county sheriff, or district attorney. But all that should be done with the help of a lawyer.
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Cyber-crime in the united states is a federal offense.
 
This is a low effort scam.

The logo appears AI-generated, and the site itself is clearly cloned.

If you check the source:

view-source:https://grandaccessinvestment.com/
You’ll find this:

<!-- Mirrored from grandincomeaccess.com/ by HTTrack Website Copier -->
It was literally mirrored from another domain.

Archived version here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230722085604/https://grandincomeaccess.com/

That alone should raise eyebrows.

The site doesn’t even read like a legitimate U.S. financial company.

For example:

“We will endeavour to respond to all queries very shortly.”
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That’s not how U.S. financial firms write. It reads like recycled offshore template copy.

Then there are the spelling and grammar errors:
  • “Croation” → should be Croatian
  • “Ukranian” → should be Ukrainian
  • “guaranties” → should be guarantees
  • “non-volatile cryptocurrency” (crypto is volatile)
This is supposed to be a “regulated financial entity,” yet it can’t spell basic words.

They also claim a California address, but the business is not registered with the California Secretary of State and the address doesn't exist.

You can verify here:
https://bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov/search/business

No legitimate regulated investment firm operates unregistered.
 
OP should just stick with known names when doing anything with money. In US, that would be Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, or even a credit union that is well known in OP's town.

Otherwise, it's just too risky to stick your nose into it. Because if you do - you will have no real recourse against a loss. Complaining to authorities will not do OP any good in the sense that the money is gone, never to be seen again. It's like gambling - if you can't afford to lose that much money, don't bet that much money in the first place!
:rolleyes:
 
Here is the second address they have listed. The next step would be to find a phone number for that location and call it directly. Ask whether it is the office of Grand Access Investment. If they confirm it or hang up when asked you now have a phone number connected to the address they claim to use. I would use a uk number you can get one on https://www.twilio.com I think, better chance of them answering.

Once you have a confirmed location then a whole different set of options open's up. You could bait them, pretending to be a new potential customer who wants to open up a professional plan, but you need to verify some information first ;).


95 St Dunstans Street WartonPR4 9WS, United Kingdom
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zester : I don't think that digging up technical details and inaccuracies is ultimately gonna help OP recover the money.

I think the important part here is not even the specific details/inaccuracies, but the very presence of lots of red flags in that web site. Just the very presence of that many red flags should be enough to drop the whole thing like a hot potato. If one does not know how to deal with the parade of red flags. just steer clear of the whole thing. And it looks like OP just walked into that one.
 
balanga said:
This organisation GRANDACCESSINVESTMENT.COM has robbed me of lots of money.
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Maybe fling some emails at their "partners"; Intel and BlueCross probably don't play around with scam artists (or at least wouldn't want to be publicly associated with em :p)

I'm not too sure what to suggest, but that website to me screams not investing further than a templated gross website check. Plus, financial freedom is literally advertised as a conflict of interest :cool: (you don't mix crypto with someone else; that's the whole point and Coinbase is probably less of a middle-man at that point)
 
Scams happen daily in physical world just via other methods.
In some countries of Europe right now the fake deaf scammers hassle tourists, to give 20eur "donation" to a fictitious fake union, and put a signature on it.

That is petty fraud, street fraud. You can also lose thousands of euros if a service contract is made in your name.

I would expect a domain such as grandaccessinvestment.com being nothing more than a fraud.
I would also expect a prudent user to check the domain and the company behind it, beforehand.

In my opinion the OP failed the sanity test here - to do a background check of a sussy sounding domain in a very fraudulent market (crypto).

With standard e-banking you are protected, at least in EU, if you file a fraud, the bank will flag the transaction. Money does not disappear instantly.
 
kent_dorfman766 you'd be surprised how hard some companies make that. "I'm sorry, we can't take cash, only credit or debit." Not that infrequent. Sometimes there are reasons, I remember my local Trader Joe's master cash register computer or something went down one day---or anyway, something system went down, so they couldn't take cash. And with large sums, of course, it just becomes very difficult.
 
zester said:
They are more than likely in India or Nigeria; that’s where an overwhelming majority of online scams originate. The only hope of getting your money back or even finding them is contacting one of those hacker groups on YouTube that track down and scam the scammers. If they’re in the U.S., you would be extremely lucky, as this is one of the few places that will actually do anything.
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This is the first I've heard of any hacker groups on YouTube. Do you have a link to any?

The person that introduced me to them went to a conference of their's three years ago in Florida. That person lives in LA. One of the addresses they claim to have is in Fremantle, California, so I suspect it is an American outfit.

What I'm looking for most is some government statement saying that an Investment company charging an IRS Tax fee on an investment is illegal.

This company states it is legal and everyone has to pay it.
 
zester said:
This is a low effort scam.

The logo appears AI-generated, and the site itself is clearly cloned.

If you check the source:

view-source:https://grandaccessinvestment.com/
You’ll find this:

<!-- Mirrored from grandincomeaccess.com/ by HTTrack Website Copier -->
It was literally mirrored from another domain.

Archived version here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230722085604/https://grandincomeaccess.com/

That alone should raise eyebrows.
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That's a great find!

The two things which stood out for me were their false UK Companies House certificate and their non-existant addresses.
 
zester said:
Here is the second address they have listed. The next step would be to find a phone number for that location and call it directly. Ask whether it is the office of Grand Access Investment. If they confirm it or hang up when asked you now have a phone number connected to the address they claim to use. I would use a uk number you can get one on https://www.twilio.com I think, better chance of them answering.

Once you have a confirmed location then a whole different set of options open's up. You could bait them, pretending to be a new potential customer who wants to open up a professional plan, but you need to verify some information first ;).


95 St Dunstans Street WartonPR4 9WS, United Kingdom
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Actually the street address and postcode don't match up. There is no PR4 9WS.

PR4 9 postcodes

A full list of UK postcodes in the PR4 9 district covering the areas of Becconsall, Catforth, Clifton, Cottam, Eaves, Elswick, Freckleton, Hesketh Bank, Hutton, Inskip, Kirkham, Longton, Much Hoole, New Longton, Newton, Tarleton, Thistleton, Walmer Bridge, Warton, Wesham, Woodplumpton, Wrea...
www.doogal.co.uk www.doogal.co.uk
 
scottro said:
kent_dorfman766 you'd be surprised how hard some companies make that. "I'm sorry, we can't take cash, only credit or debit." Not that infrequent. Sometimes there are reasons, I remember my local Trader Joe's master cash register computer or something went down one day---or anyway, something system went down, so they couldn't take cash. And with large sums, of course, it just becomes very difficult.
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and as long as the sheeple are willing to fall into line it gets harder and harder for those of us who have some sanity, and value our security and privacy to coexist...so no, I'm not surprised. I'm far from surprised...but am disgusted that consumers let them get away with it.
 
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