After soliciting at least $60,000 from investors, PowerBot has pulled the plug on withdrawals.

Owner of the scheme Aidan Parr is blaming CoinPayments but they’re claiming otherwise.

In a communication sent out a few days ago, Aidan Parr informed PowerBot investors withdrawals were frozen.

This has absolutely screwed us but it’s come to my attention that someone has reported out company to our wallet provider and had all our funds frozen.

Yes this means zero withdrawals now until we figure out what we are going to do.

Parr’s communication was accompanied by a screenshot, purportedly of an email sent to him by CoinPayments.

Funds are frozen pending fraud investigation.

Your account is suspended indefinitely without a chance to appeal due to the nature of business your account was used for.

Your information including IP address and access logs will be here for authorities to review including all the dialog here.

We do not tolerate scams, Ponzi schemes, email spoofing, theft or any other illegal activities.

In an attempt to verify the CoinPayments email, a member of the “RB Global (Recycle Bot) & Power Bot – Now What!?” Facebook group reached out to processor.

CoinPayments’ technical support wouldn’t confirm frozen funds but did state they’d never seen the email Parr claims to have received.

Due to privacy laws we can’t give out private information on any user for any reason or even tell you if they have an account unless it is requested by the police with proper warrant referring to a specific account of transaction.

However we do not have any record of this email or log that has been sent to us reference Aidan Parr.

Another email query from a member of the group a day later received a similar response;

This does not seem to be an email sent from Coinpayments and we have no record of it.

We cannot give further information.

I suggest contacting the Police as we can only disclose information via warrants for 3rd party information.

Despite the building uncertainty, Parr doubled down and provided a followup CoinPayments email.

Remember we don’t allow Ponzi schemes.

There is no way we can unban an account once it is banned unless you petition a court of competent jurisdiction and prove to them your business is legal; then they will tell use to unfreeze your accounts.

Here’s what doesn’t make sense…

If CoinPayments was acting of their own resolve, there’s nothing stopping them from unfreezing funds in any account – even if they’ve notified authorities of suspected fraud.

For reference, CoinPayments claim to be based out of the Cayman Islands.

While this is almost certainly a shell incorporation, there’s little to no regulation in the Cayman Islands itself – begging the question who CoinPayments would have reported PowerBot too.

Alternatively if CoinPayments were responding to a regulatory investigation, then asking Parr to “petition a court of competent jurisdiction” makes no sense.

Parr would have to file suit against CoinPayments, which they could ignore if they had no substantial ties to that jurisdiction (and good luck suing anyone in the Cayman Islands).

Both these scenarios require the assumption CoinPayments actually emailed Parr, which they claim they didn’t.

With at least $60,000 in PowerBot invested funds still unaccounted for, Parr went on to inform investors he was going to “open deposits”.

[7:07] We’re gonna have to freeze the investments because all that’s going to do is compound the problem that we’ve got right now.

…

They (CoinPayments) took all of our crypto. We’re in a bit of a hole but we’re not out.

So I’m going to open a new wallet, it won’t be with CoinPayments, and if you want to you can deposit into that – obviously that will help us get going.

…

The support I’ve had is unbelievable. I’m blown away by it.

People see the vision and the mission – and it’s quite obvious I’m not a scammer. D’you know what I mean?

It’s quite obvious. I think that anyway.

PowerBot operates as Pro Mine Technologies, through which investors are offered a 1.2% to 1.5% daily ROI.

Since launch Pro Mine Technologies and ProBot have failed to provide evidence of verifiable external ROI revenue.

Nor is either company registered to offer securities in any jurisdiction they solicit investment in.