• African students are coming forward to share their stories about how they were recruited into the now-defunct FTX exchange.
• FTX Africa had a promotional program offering 40% commission for members who referred friends to join the platform.
• The program was largely targeted towards African students, who were encouraged to get their friends and classmates to sign up.

FTX Targeted African Students

African victims are speaking up about FTX after a variety of promotional schemes lured them into putting their money into the now-defunct industry giant. One such deal was an ambassador program promising 40% commissions to members who invited their friends to join the exchange. Africans Speak Out FTX Africa promoted its ambassador program in early August – roughly 3 months before the exchange froze user withdrawals and filed for bankruptcy, due to a multi-billion dollar shortfall on customer and investor deposits.

Recruitment Process

The program was largely targeted toward African students, who were encouraged to get their friends and classmates to onboard the exchange. CNBC spoke with multiple students involved in the program. Gabriel Trompiz said he was contacted by FTX through LinkedIn, and recognized as someone who could promote the company at his college. Though he quickly applied and became an ambassador, no contracts were signed, and he ultimately was never paid. By contrast, a member of the existing campus ambassador program in Africa – Fortunate Atueyi – said he was paid, but only if he met key requirements like getting others to trade and deposit funds on the platform.

Popularity In The Region

The platform was popular in the region not only as a means of trading crypto, but for exchanging local currency into U.S. dollars, making FTX a de-facto bank for many. This increased its popularity among users looking for quick access to U.S Dollars without having access to traditional banking services or remittance companies like Western Union or Moneygram which often have high fees associated with them when sending money out of Africa..

Unpaid Earnings

Many ambassadors reported that after successfully recruiting new customers they would be unable to withdraw any earnings from FTX due to frozen accounts or unresponsive customer service representatives which left them feeling frustrated and taken advantage of by being promised these rewards but not able receive what they had worked hard for .

Conclusion

While it’s unclear why exactly FTX decided target African students specifically or what happened with all of those unpaid earnings , one thing is certain: this incident serves as another example of how vulnerable people can be exploited if they’re not aware of potential scams or illegitimate businesses practices within cryptocurrency markets