No legit company/trader/investor is using WhatsApp. No legit company/trader/investor is approaching people on dating websites or through a "random" text message. They don't have "professors", "assistants", or "teachers". Those are just scammers.
No legit company forces you to pay a "fee" or "taxes" to withdraw money. That's just a scam to suck more money out of you.
Unfortunately, no online hacker can get back what you've lost. Please watch out for recovery and follow-up scams done after victims have fallen for an earlier scam.
If you see any red flags, please take action.
Report a URL to Google:
- To report a phishing URL to Google: Report Phishing Page
- To report a malware URL to Google: Report malicious software
- To report a Report spammy, deceptive, or low quality webpage to Google.
Where to file a complaint:
- Internet Crime Complaint Center IC3 - File a Cyber Scam complaint with the IC3
- the FTC at http://www.reportfraud.ftc.gov/
- the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) at https://www.cftc.gov/complaint
- the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at https://www.sec.gov/tcr
- if you are located in Europe at https://www.europol.europa.eu/report-a-crime/report-cybercrime-online
How to find out more about the scammer domain:
https://whois.domaintools.com/google.com - Replace the google.com URL with the scam website url. The results will tell you how long the domain has been around. If the domain has only been registered for a few days/weeks/months, it's usually a good indicator that it's a scam.