info markets
Financial Scam
Nexpay & octopuspays together
Companies are currently experiencing significant financial difficulties because their funds have become inaccessible in OCTOPUSPAYS LIMITED, owned by Raitis Kaucis and acting as a front for Nexpay UAB
Raitis Kaucis
On 26 February 2024, Octopuspays Limited (which is regulated by FINTRAC under license number M21473478) unexpectedly and without prior notification shut down its portal, with the business clients not being able to login to the portal and use their funds. Three days later with the portal still being down, on 29 February 2024, Octopuspays informed the business clients of its decision to stop operations. The three day delay was used by Octopuspays to come up with a proper ‘excuse’ (scam) for the cease of services.
The ‘excuse’ was that these business clients were now ‘categorized’ as high risk, halting all transactions and restricting access to Octopuspays portal without any previous notification – clearly stealing the money and running away. This situation may be related to financial troubles that Octopuspays is facing, as they seem to be looking for any reason to deny business clients to access their funds.
It is expected that business clients should have easy access to their own funds, whether held by traditional banks or Money Service Businesses like Octopuspays. Unfortunately, the current situation involves a substantial delay, with companies unable to access their funds from the Octopuspays portal and no valid reason has been provided for this delay.
After many months of persistent inquiries, Octopuspays ‘re-justified’ the delay to funds being blocked in correspondent banks as a better and more reasonable ‘excuse’, changing their initial ‘excuse’ (scam) of the business clients being ‘high risk’. Despite the new ‘excuse’, Octopuspays requested updated KYC by the business clients in order to refund their balance, but although provided, their funds were never refunded. Each day that passes results in losses for the business clients, while Octopuspays gains time (their key persons ran away with the money).
Our position on this matter is that Octopuspays is encountering financial difficulties due to mismanagement and potential misuse of client funds. It appears that, as a measure to mask these inefficiencies, Octopuspays’ management decided to suspend the functionality of their portal for several days, buying time to determine their course of action. Thus, three days later, they chose to provide the justification that they are discontinuing services for high-risk businesses, a strategic move to delay (run away with business client funds).
Regarding the claim about blocked funds in correspondent banks, based on experience with Octopuspays, we find this explanation to be totally fake (not true). The sudden suspension of portal functionality for three working days occurred without any prior notice or explanation. We doubt this scenario because we, as business clients, have consistently used their exclusive EURO SEPA channel, which does not involve any correspondent banks that might block funds. This has been the only method of transaction for these companies. Our experience with the EURO SEPA channel, provided by NEXPAY UAB https://paynexpay.com/ (registration code 304708124, licensed by the Bank of Lithuania No. 18), assures us that NEXPAY does not block companies like the ones mentioned. Whenever an incoming payment was made through the EURO SEPA channel to Octopuspays, it was confirmed by NEXPAY before being deposited into the Octopuspays portal. So, all the incoming funds were approved by Nexpay and were always readily available in the Octopuspays portal, not blocked.
Regarding the justification that these business clients are now considered high risk, these business clients are actually low risk. Octopuspays has labeled them as ‘high risk’, as a pretext to block their funds, refuse refunds and essentially retain (run away with) the money unlawfully.
These business clients urgently need immediate access to their funds due to the financial challenges they are currently facing.
After encountering these issues with Octopuspays, we conducted an online search and quickly discovered that Raitis Kaucis (owner and director of Octopuspays Limited) has been involved in previous fraudulent activities. More details can be found in the following articles:
Furthermore, it raises questions about how Nexpay allowed an individual with a negative media reputation to utilize their services and offer IBAN accounts through their platform. It is clear that Nexpay is participating in this scam, as they facilitated Raitis Kaucis and used Octopuspays as a front to execute this scheme. They did this by accepting businesses and then labeling them as ‘high risk’ in order to block their funds and retain (run away with) the funds unlawfully.
When the business clients contacted the Central Bank of Lithuania to file a complaint, the Central Bank responded that since there is no legal contract between Nexpay and the companies (contracts were signed only with Octopuspays), there is no case to investigate. This response indicates that the ‘Nexpay scam is well structured’.
We aim to inform the public to prevent further scams by Nexpay targeting other companies and individuals.
