Description

I was contacted via WhatApp text by a recruiter who identified herself as Julia Stevenson. She described to me a way to earn $5000/month with minimal qualifications. She told me she was a user just like I was becoming. She said it was called AWAL Promotional platform and the position was called a "Data Optimizer" for the AWAL Music Label. I was curious (being a musician myself) and accepted. They trained me and provided about $1100 in a digital wallet to train me. Once I completed the training I was provided with the commission I received during the training plus a small commission for just signing up for the job ($10). This was a task-based job that "optimized" song and album rating/ranking data from various artists. You complete 45 tasks and receive a small commission of 0.5% They explained the process and my "mentor" (Julia Stevenson) was available throughout the experience. She explained how to pace yourself and at first one had to use THEIR OWN PERSONAL FUNDS to continue progressing toward compensation. When a certain task appears (a "Bundle" of 1-3 albums/songs), the price of the item was higher than the users digital cache of dollars and the balance went negative. The compensation was higher though at 6%. In order to receive compensation, the user had to pay the difference to receive an amount higher than what you invested. When I first experienced this, the mentor was very enthusiastic and said that I was lucky to receive it so soon in my employment. She explained that at first your own funds would be needed but after accrewing more it would be easier to compensate. On top of that they provide bonuses randomly generated between $17 to $1,777,777 that sometimes appear. I received a bonus once of $87,777 and was blown away. After I'd finished the task I would have received over 100k. The company sent me to an alternative customer service agent "dedicated to me" (1(253) 737-9053) who sent me to the financial department (1(646) 718-0266) and provide very specific instructions via email on how to withdraw such a large amount. They warned me that I had to do this very carefully or there could be dire consequences. They also warned me to NOT SHOW THE EMAILED INFORMATION TO OUTSIDE SOURCES. They offered to send me a one-time pass to keep the money secure and circumvent the control of AML and FATF and I accepted. The sent me a set of specific instructions to my email in order to correctly withdraw the money via BTC. I made a few critical mistakes following the instructions which alarmed the AML and other government risk alerts. This locked my account and the company is very angry with me and I said I wanted to know how to fix my mistake and get the money back. They said in order to pay for the audit costs, I would have to pay 20% of the profit. They offered financial assistance reducing it from 20k to 12k but that is still too much. Now they are threatening to charge me with custodial fees and long term shelving of funds. The only financial information that they have is my CashApp and Crypto.com BTC and ETH wallet addresses. They also have my email. That is all the information I have given them that I am aware of. I have the complete conversation transcript of each of the users and administrators of the fraudulent company. This process occurred between July 1st and July 21st 2025 and I believed it was a very real job.