Confido, a startup listed on the Ethereum, has vanished from the internet after raising $374,000 through an ICO.
The company had pitched itself as a “blockchain-based app for making payments and tracking shipments”. However, the company’s website has been displaying a 404 message and its Twitter account has been deleted.
In addition, the linkedIn profile of founder and CEO Joost van Doorn and several posts on Medium and Telegram have also disappeared.
Ironically, the company had claimed to provide a way of combating cryptocurrency scams by holding payments in escrow and only releasing them once a service delivery has been verified. During the ICO, which ran from November 6 – 8, Confido sold over $300,000 worth of bespoke tokens to investors, which were apparently representative of their investment in exchange for ether.
The tokens are now worthless.
On 20 November, a company representative posted a statement on the company’s (now private) subreddit, that offered a vague explanation of events:
“Right now, we are in a tight spot, as we are having legal trouble caused by a contract we signed. We signed the contract with assurance from our legal advisor that there was minimal risk and it would not be an issue. I can’t and won’t go into details, but he was wrong. It is a problem.”
“Very good scammers”
The Confido ICO was handled by TokenLot, who are now stuck in the middle of a complex and uncertain financial situation. Since the investors paid in ether, it is currently unclear how they could begin getting back their funds.
Eli Lewitt of TokenLot told Motherboard:
“We’re the only remnant online right now in terms of people contacting us asking for answers. These were very good scammers.”
As for what happened to Confido, questions now abound. Founder van Doorn seems to have no internet presence besides his now deleted LinkedIn. A company representative did post on the cryptocurrency subreddit in which he claimed to have no idea what was going on, saying:
“Look I have absolutely no idea what has happened here. The removal of all of our social media platforms and website has come as a complete surprise to me.”
EthNews reports that an archived version of the Confido websites show that it states that all funds raised through the ICO would be escrowed by legal company Kraft & Wurgaft, P.C. The legal firm, however, only appears in a handful of Google searches, all of which relate to the Confido token sale.
Confido’s tokens have taken a predictable hit, falling by as much as 92%.
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