Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has refused to address the fraud allegations leveled against it by Africans, including Nigerians on social media.
As reported on BizWatch Nigeria, thousands of people have taken to microblogging site Twitter to lament how Binance has subjected their lives to ridicule by blocking their accounts and freezing their digital assets.
Amongst those that called out Binance was one Ama Judy, who stated that after the exchange held her digital assets for a period of 10 months, it on Tuesday, January 25, 2022, disabled her account, a development she said has caused her family agony.
Her tweets read: “It’s been 10 months now that Binance held my hard-earned crypto, I have reached out to customer care severally, till now I have not been given any tangible reason for this act. Binance is purposely out to scam Africans and rip them off their hard-earned crypto and I believe there are many persons out there that can attest to this.
“This morning I tried logging in to my @binance account and I noticed my account has been disabled with my hard-earned crypto in it, disabled with no prior notification. Is this not robbery?”
When our correspondent reached out to Binance for comment on the matter, his mails were not acknowledged, neither were responses fielded to the questions posed at the exchange.
BizWatch Nigeria, however, understands that Pakistan authorities recently launched an investigation against Binance over a $100 million scam.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) of the country commenced the probe after Binance users in its territory accused the exchange of manipulating them to transfer funds into unfamiliar third-party wallets.
Prior to this development, Pakistani authorities had managed to identify around eleven fraud apps that were collecting the users’ funds unlawfully.
What this means
Without thousands of users lamenting the loss of accounts and digital assets not to scammers, but Binance itself, there’s likely to be a significant reduction in the amount of confidence cryptocurrency traders have in the exchange.
With the loss of confidence already expressed by a lot of people, Binance’s users may decline, which would give its competitors the kind of leverage they needed.
To remain relevant and be one of the most-used P2P platforms, it is just right for Binance to review its policies and commit itself to restore the confidence its users should have in it.
