Added to numerous hacks and scams damaging the cryptoverse are the fraudulent practices of Estonia-based bitcoin trading platform, Paxful Inc. Recently, after listening excessive complaints against Paxful Inc., United Global Resolve for Peace (UGRP) petitioned the illicit nature of practices by Paxful Inc. to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Paxful Inc. is a peer-to-peer finance platform that allows bitcoin trade. It was formerly known as EasyBitz which was later changed to Paxful Inc. by the founders, Ray Youssef and Artur Schaback, in 2014. Initially, the firm dealt with payment processing for brick-and-mortar merchants. Later, after noticing the world’s shift toward bitcoin, Paxful Inc. started providing bitcoin trading to its users. Besides, Paxful Inc. also offers bitcoin wallet and about 300 payment methods for easing the purchase of bitcoin. According to Paxful’s official website, users can buy bitcoin through their bank accounts, gift cards, cash, credit or debit cards and other cryptocurrencies.

The users admitted that their accounts were investigated by Paxful Inc. for illegal activities but they weren’t returned the balance nor were they found guilty after the investigation. That explains why most of them rushed later to UGRP to report the practices of Paxful Inc. The petition mentions what Paxful Inc. was up to:

Paxful Incorporated, the company that owns the online cryptocurrency trading and exchange platform, ‘https://paxful.com’ has been ripping them of their life investment in cryptocurrency by suspending their accounts, deactivating their wallets and refusing to return the value in their accounts to them even after investigation and finding that they were not involved in any fraudulent activities.

The services offered by Paxful may appear appealing however, according to the latest news, they are quite misleading. There have been several allegations and complaints against the firm from Nigerians subscribers experiencing unusual account suspensions. After getting denied of their accounts, Nigerians roared as they could not access their wallets possessing millions of dollars. According to the claims made by the platform’s Nigerian user base, they weren’t involved in any kind of fraudulent or suspicious activities so they find the suspension quite unjust and unethical.

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The petition also revealed that Paxful’s overall profit in 2018 summed up to about $20 million and Nigerians accounted for 40 percent of it. It reaffirmed claims of users that Paxful intentionally released accounts with funds after investigating those accounts.

One of the Nigerian user, Olanrewaju, stated that Paxful didn’t treat Nigerians with respect although about three million of them used the platform and accounted for 40 percent of the firm’s margin. He put more serious allegations than fraud on the leadership of the firm by saying that they regarded Nigerians as ‘scammers’. Olanrewaju even mentioned his interaction with Ray Youssef, on an online platform where he challenged Ray to prove that Nigerians weren’t serious and ethical traders. These statements by Olanrewaju show that Paxful’s inclination toward racism voids the code of conduct imposed on every firm which can even lead to some serious lawful consequences.

Apart from this, there have been a plethora of incidents and events in the past that contribute to the repute of Paxful Incorporated. Three years ago, the CEO and CTO of the company got arrested on weapons and drugs charges. Police caught them red-handed while they possessed drugs and weapons with ammunition. After founding Ray’s intention of distributing drugs, he was charged with drug possesion charges.

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