Investor Beware: Phemex KYC Shenanigans

Don't fall for Phemex's "NO KYC required" allure. As soon as you start making tx or activity, they may require it, putting your funds at risk!

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My experience:

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A. I signed up w/ phemex because they didn't require KYC. I and made a small deposit on phemex. With those funds, i send out small transactions ($5-20) to a bunch of personal crypto wallets. I funded the wallets to buy nfts, coins etc. No issues w/ 20-30+ tx. All tx visible on the block chain - nothing shady.

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B. Things were going well, so I deposited a larger amount of funds a few weeks later and did very similar transactions as before - funding some of the same wallets with another coin. This time however, i got flagged quickly by "risk control" after only a few transactions. Again, nothing shady. Everything traceable on the blockchain etc. We're talking $10-30 transactions. Now they have frozen my funds and are requiring "advanced KYC" for me to withdraw or move anything. This is bait and switch. They let you deposit without KYC, but require it when you want to withdraw.

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C. They claim my funds were flagged by "risk control" because the funds came from "an unverified source". I showed them on the block chain the account was funded directly from coinbase and all my send out funds went to personal metamask wallets... no reply to that email when i pointed that out. In fact, they are ignoring my emails now. Is coinbase really setting off their fraud detectors?

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CONCLUSION: DO NOT FALL FOR Phemex's KYC trap! I'm completely stuck as I will not do advanced KYC (i did level 1 Kyc), so I'm making people aware. They lure you in with their "NO KYC required", but then require "advanced KYC" after you send in a decent amount of funds and do a few transactions (and no, it wasn't near $10k... but is enough worth fighting for). Seems like a ploy to seize my funds.

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AVOID PHEMEX. Or at least proceed with extreme caution if you're not willing or able to do advanced KYC.