Description

I was really tight on money and during the summer, had multiple times where I was on the brink of having absolutely no money to live on and to go to work. I did and still do have a job at a retail store but most of my early paychecks would go off to pay my credit card debt early. Then on July 29th, I received a text message that said it was someone from Indeed about a job offer. This job offer was a remote online job where they helped increase engagement and visibility for YouTube content creators. They would pay you for helping increase engagement and visibility and the text included other details about this job like how it would only take 60-90 minutes a day, there was paid time off, free training where you could work from anywhere and you could earn $250-$500 per day with $1000 every 4 days. At the end of the message, it said to text this number if you’re interested and if you’re 25+ years old. However, I was 20 years old at this time but I decided to still text the number. Even though I had my doubts and deep down knew that this was a sketchy situation where it was likely a scam, I was desperate for more financial and money security. After I texted the number, someone named Gemma texted back and said they were from a company called Make Agency. They asked for my name and age for the registration and I explicitly told them that I was 20 years old and Gemma said okay but that the company allows anyone up to 24. Gemma had me do a task of watching and liking a YouTube video short and then I would get $16. However, in order to get the $16, they advised me to download Telegram so I could message the business manager and they provided me with presumably their username link. The second task from Gemma was to message this business manager with the code provided and then that business manager would set me up with $10 initially then I would get the remaining $6 through completing other tasks provided by the business manager. The business manager was named Seraphina Mitchell and from her telegram information, she was 31 years old. After I messaged Seraphina, she settled my salary with the finance department and told me that they paid in bitcoin and asked if I had cashapp. I had to download cashapp for the first time and had to share my bitcoin address in order to receive the $16 from her and then figure out how to process it to usd and link my bank and other financial items. She then introduced me further into the Make Agency company and explained how there was 20 tasks per day to complete and how newbies like me would get $1.5 per screenshot of the liked video and that number could increase if I became a formal employee. Eventually during the next day, July 30th, she shared the group chat where the 20 tasks would be posted at certain fixed times and had me join it. 17 out of the 20 tasks were just links to YouTube short videos that I had to view and like then screenshot and send to Seraphina. However, the other remaining three were called Lucky Mall Missions where you had to pay and send a certain amount and you would get the amount back plus a percentage commission on top of that amount and sometimes there were options of the amount of money you deposited. I would have to send that money to a bitcoin address that was provided and then create a work account on the Make Agency website where I would complete these lucky mall missions. The first one I did and completed was on August 3rd where I had to prepay and send $30 worth of bitcoin to the provided address and then I should get back $30 with a 30% commission that would total $45. Seraphina had me create a work account on Make Agency and then had me message my mentor named Natalie who would further help me with these lucky mall tasks, with a code Seraphina provided. Natalie instructed me to do something like pressing on the bitcoin/usd thing on the website and put in the amount I prepaid and a certain time in seconds and then buy up. The total funds would appear in my work account balance and after I completed the task, Natalie would give me a withdrawal code that I would send to Seraphina so that the funds could be withdrawn from my work account and sent to my cashapp. I completed the $30 lucky mall task and then after a few more tasks, I completed another lucky mall task where I could’ve chosen to deposit either $60 or $90 with a 30% commission on top of that amount. I chose the $90 option and after completing the task, got $117. It wasn’t until the next lucky mall task where things got really difficult and stressful. This lucky mall task had multiple earning plan options ranging from $150-$8000 with 30%, 40% and 60% commission types. Seraphina told me that completing a task like this would help make me a formal employee of the Make Agency company and raise the pay of $1.50 per YouTube screenshot to $5. I chose the first option for $150 with a 30% commission because that was the only option I could barely afford. I repeated the process with Natalie but what I didn’t know was that there was a second step of this task where before, it was just the amount of the option and then I would be done and completed the task. There wasn’t this second prepay step before and this one was more expensive that I couldn’t afford. The second step of this task had me choose from 3 options of additional prepayment ranging from $550-$1800 with 40% or 60% commission types. I chose the $550 with the 40% commission because it was the cheapest option. However, I told her that I couldn’t afford the prepay and asked if I could skip this step. She said that since this was already generated, I had to compete it in order to get the withdrawal code. I then asked if I could delay and postpone it until August 7th and then complete it because I knew that I was getting my paycheck that day. I then had to delay it to August 8th because that was my birthday and I was counting on the money from various family members but it still wasn’t enough. She was able to delay it but on August 8th, she said I had to do a partial deposit so I could keep the data from the order active in my work account. I had to deposit 30% of $550 which was $165 and I shared that I couldn’t complete it until August 21st when my next paycheck would come in. She was able to delay it but on August 12, I had to do another partial deposit of $108 to get an extension on the order. I asked Natalie what would happen if I just cancel or couldn’t complete the order. She told me that the funds would remain in my work account forever until I completed the task and got the withdrawal code from her. So I deposited another partial prepayment of $108 to get an extension until August 21st. Throughout this whole ordeal, I tried my best to get money so I could have enough and I returned various items to stores and got refunds back from those returns. Also, the money I got from doing the other 17 out of the 20 daily tasks no longer got sent to my cash app and instead went to my work account since I couldn’t complete this lucky mall task and couldn’t participate in other lucky mall tasks. So the money I received from doing the 17 YouTube short video tasks each day was accumulating in my work account. Come August 21st and my paycheck was $511.10 with roughly $17.01 left in my bank account so $528.11 was what I had. I really wanted this task to be done and over with so it wouldn’t continue hanging over my head like it had been over the last few weeks. So I called one of my coworkers and asked if I could borrow $30 and I promised I would pay them back. Before I called them, I even tried to apply for loans for a small amount but fortunately, I was denied. I was able to complete the task with help from my coworker and I thought that was it and I would finally be able to withdraw all the funds accumulated in my work account. However, Natalie then told me of a third and final step of this task where I could choose another prepayment option from options ranging from $1300-$4000 with a 60% commission. I had no money left in my bank account from the $550 task but u had to choose the cheapest option of $1300 and called back my coworker to see if he could lend me roughly $1300. He ultimately couldn’t and I was growing really desperate and stressed because I wanted this task to end. So I called multiple people ranging from old coworkers to old high school friends who I thought could possibly help me. It wasn’t until I called my sister and explained the situation to her that she urged me to not give anymore money and stress to this company and cease all contact with them. She told me that it was very likely that they would not let me withdraw the money in my account because it was such a huge amount and that scams will ask for small amounts of money first then big amounts and won’t let you withdraw them. I ultimately decided to follow her advice and stopped responding to anyone connected to Make Agency after they all said the same thing when I expressed that I couldn’t complete the lucky mall task. I then called my bank and cash app to see if I could dispute the transactions and with my bank, I was able to initially dispute all the transactions with my bank and get temporary credit for the amount of each transaction. However after sending in screenshots of all that I had like screenshots of the text messages and the make agency website and cashapp transfers. They decided that the dispute investigations were not in my favor and have started to reverse the temporary credit.