Why does a site want a fee before I can withdraw?

If a site shows free gold, XAUT or trading profits in your account but wants a fee, a tax or a deposit before you can withdraw, it's a scam. The balance on the site isn't in your wallet: it's only a number the scammers show you, and paying only loses more money.

What to do now

danger

Don't pay any fee, tax or deposit to withdraw. Scammers keep asking for more, and nothing comes back.

1. Stop using the site, and don't sign anything else on it.
2. If you signed something to join, claim or activate, move your USDC and your other tokens to another wallet of yours at once. A permit that hasn't been used yet may not be cancelled by revoking it. See If you signed something suspicious.
3. Revoke approvals you don't recognise. See Revoke approvals.
4. Report it. Note the site's address and your transaction hashes (TXIDs). See Report it, and beware of recovery scams.

Anyone who offers to get your money back for a fee is part of the same scam.

How the scam works

It starts with a stranger online and ends with a request to sign.

1. Someone you met online, often a "mentor" or an "assistant", tells you to install FxWallet and open their site in the Discover tab.
2. The site offers free gold tokens (XAUT), "AI trading" or fixed income several times a day. To qualify, you must keep USDC or another stablecoin in your wallet. The more you keep, the more there is to take.
3. To join, the site asks you to sign. The signature is usually a permit: it lets the scammer take that token from your wallet whenever they choose, with no fee and no further request from FxWallet.
4. The profits on the site keep growing. When you try to withdraw, its "support" asks you to pay first.

FxWallet doesn't run these sites, and FxWallet support never messages you first. If the site also had you add a network, the balance in your wallet may be fake too: see Fake balances on a custom network.