Notably, the Coindaq exchange, is registered under the laws of the Commonwealth Dominica. The investor identified as Kazuo Kusunose notes that he intended to buy a new unspecified Chinese cryptocurrency after viewing a Google ad. Upon clicking on the ad, he landed on the Yuan Pay Group website where he purchased the asset via credit card. He was then redirected to the Coindaq exchange where he was asked to further fund his account and ended up spending $15,000. According to Kusunose: He added that the platform employed the tactic of changing the landing page once the ad was clicked. In his complaint, the investor is requesting Google to check into the ad to curb further fraud.
The spotlight on Google
If the scam is confirmed, it will further cast the spotlight on Google which has been promoting cryptocurrencies despite existing strict crypto policies. Back in April, Google’s subsidiary, YouTube faced a lawsuit for promoting cryptocurrency scams. However, there are also concerns regarding Google’s advertising platform. The platform still displays fraudulent crypto ads through its advertising network. According to Google’s advertising policies, it does allow some crypto ads for crypto hardware products and crypto exchanges. By press time the Google support team had not responded to the complaint. To report any suspicious ads on Google please refer to “Report an ad“.
