Calgary man out-cheats would-be scammer, donates money to charity

CALGARY – Fraudsters often try to cheat people out of their hard-earned cash, or in an increasingly digital age, their cryptocurrencies.

However, a would-be scammer recently found themselves out-cheated by a Calgarian.

Ben Perrin is a Calgary-based YouTuber who teaches people about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

He says he got a message on Instagram from a potential fraudster who claimed they could double his money every 24 hours if he took part in their investment scheme. Little did they know, however, that Perrin would turn the tables.

“I pretended I was very, very worried about sending my money to the wrong place and losing it that way, so I asked if they would send me a test transaction of 50 or 100 bucks, and then I could try sending it back to them,” he explains.

Perrin admits the scammer didn’t go for it at first, but eventually, he was able to convince them.

“So the scammer ended up actually sending be 50 bucks,” he says. “I used some colourful language to let them know I knew they were a scammer.”

Once the jig was up, Perrin says the scammer begged him to send the money back, all while “keeping up the facade.”

Instead of sending the bitcoin back, Perrin donated the money to a charity.

“You know, you get so sick of seeing these messages, and you get sick of seeing people that, unfortunately, sometimes fall for these things,” he says. “Honestly, it feels a little bit nice to have the tables turned for once.”

Perrin is reminding you to be wary if anyone you don’t know promises any type of return on an investment.

“They are either naive or they’re malicious — you can’t really guarantee anything with any investment.”