[ad_1]
The industry of cryptocurrencies has been, and still is, afflicted by scammers and scammers who try to use the new new asset class to prey on the inexperienced investor.
Recently, we have seen highly suspicious ads displayed on Facebook the "scam" screamed everywhere and we decided to examine what and who is behind these shady advertising campaigns.
As I dug deeper, I have unveiled that the campaigns are directed by CashlessPayGroup and Coinpro Exchange, and I have found more people who have already been scammed by this organization.
We do not want it to anyone and we want to do our best to expose these (and other) scams so we can keep the secure crypto community to be part of.
Here is a detailed description of the scam we discovered and the people who were victims of it.
The SG-Coin Facebook Ads Crypto Scam and how it works
Level 1: announcements
The scam artists use a variety of different ads, but all are fake.
These articles are obviously not CNBC and the Singapore government will not approve a new national cryptocurrency.
But it is easy to see how a newcomer in space or someone who is uninformed can be quite excited at the idea of this cryptocurrency and see it as a gold opportunity.
Scammers use Facebook groups with a reasonable amount of followers and a long period of non-activity in groups to publish their fake ads. It seems that they often rotate between these groups and launch a campaign in these groups only for a short time, making it impossible for us to follow the live details of the advertising campaign.
Once you click on the ads, you will be redirected to the source of the false news.
Level 2: redirecting the blog
Scammers use ads to attract people to the source of information displayed in ads, which are small and unknown blogs.
In the articles on the blog, the story of Singapore's cryptovaluro is told. And in the first paragraph, there are several hyperlinks to the page where people can actually buy this cryptocurrency before anyone else can, of course.
Level 3: the CashlessPayGroup
It has become clear to us that these scammers specifically target the use of mobile devices.
Their Facebook ads are usually shown only to mobile users and the creation of an account on the CashlessPayGroup website (do not try them at home!) It works only on a phone.
The CashlessPayGroup website screams "scam", with text like "buy 12.500, receive 100.000" and "for every $ XX invested on (date today), you would have potentially made 56038647 profits in a few months".
The functions on the website do not work, no link actually connects to anything and no further information can be found.
Of course they have an artificial intelligence that will optimize your profits, and "Elon Musk" is in agreement with the opportunity:
After creating an account on this site via my phone (without providing personal information), I was redirected to the Cashlesspaygroupapp website.
Immediately the emphasis is on financing your newly created account. How else are you going to buy the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity presented by the scrambled Singapore dollar without a name?
It's kind of them that allow a minimum of $ 250 – that you'll never see again.
I wanted to find out what happens when you try to fund your account and click on the funding button. I was redirected to the final and most elaborate layer of the scam.
Level 4: Coinpro exchange
Disclaimer: both CashlessPayGroup and Coinpro exchange sites are protected by Whoisguard, a privacy protection service that prevents people from seeing any information regarding domain owners.
The last layer of the SG-Coin scam is the Coinpro exchange platform.
It can be said that some work has gone into this level, and it can be assumed that Singapore's cryptocurrency campaign is just one of the many scam campaigns with the ultimate goal of redirecting victims to this site.
Coinpro's exchange is where real theft takes place. I have already found evidence of another scam scheme from the same company that uses the same strategy.
The Coinpro trading website seems very legitimate at first glance, especially for a newcomer in the industry. Use industry jargon, show a nice quote from the technology billionaire Peter Thiel, and the home page does not fail to emphasize how much leveraging money can make its users.
And of course the classic techniques of persuasion to create urgency and FOMO:
As I said before, this website is actually quite elaborate, with the ticking most of the usual legal boxes.
There are payment systems in place, which seem legitimate as they include Mastercard and Visa. However, anyone can request a Mastercard and Visa credit card and call this payment option.
Moreover, their trading platform seems almost decent, until you actually use it. Show and illuminate all features – however, nothing really works.
The more I dug into the platform, the more its true nature came to light.
The team behind the exchange was nowhere to be found, the user simply has to trust this statement from them:
The CEO "John Pang" is portrayed with the blockchain evangelist Don Tapscott.
The fact that the CEO comes from South Korea is completely in line with the geographical dispersion of the company, as it seems to come from all over the world.
There are 2 official companies mentioned on the Coinpro website:
- Luxibrick Limited (scammy affiliate marketing site), based in Cyprus
- Armandex Limited (no online presence), registered on the Marshall Islands
Both companies do not have a valid brokerage license and, therefore, their activities are not controlled by any government agency.
The website is owned and operated by Luxibrick Limited, registered office at Piraeus 24, floor 1, floor 103, Strovolos, 2023, Nicosia, Cyprus and office operating at the 41st office in the apartment 41 at the 4th floor of the building at 62 Athallasis Avenue, Strovolos 2012, Cyprus
The following contact details [email protected] and phone number +441184091034 add to the geographical dispersion, as +44 is the country code for the United Kingdom.
I assume that this is the jurisdiction in which fraudsters actually operate, as even thieves need to be wary of the exorbitant charges of mobile phones.
Our suspicions were partly confirmed by Tony Daniels, an investor who saw through the scam.
After seeing this message, I contacted Tony and he was happy to help us.
Below is the e-mail you received from Coinpro directly after creating your account.
We are very happy that Tony has detected the incorrect game, but some have not done it.
Scam Victims
When I'm describing the scam process here, it could be an obvious scam for you.
However, for a group of people, I do not know how many, it was not so obvious and the thieves actually got what they were looking for.
Source: reddit
Source: bitcoinexchangeguide.com
Source: forexbrokerz.com/
How to identify a Crypto Scam
The scam scheme presented in this article is just one of many strategies.
As the community becomes more informed about the scams and the industry is generating its standards, scammers will probably be more creative and elaborate in their methods to scam people with their money.
As with the entire industry, it is essential to always do your research before sending money or encryption to any party. This includes personal control of the founders of a website / company and the company itself.
Approaching forums and communities can be very useful. People who have been cheated or those who have their doubts based on rooted reasons often share their experiences online, effectively helping other people avoid scams and not fall prey to them.
Some common indicators of cryptographic scams are:
- Guaranteed returns: Any website or company that offers guaranteed returns is a scam.
- False reference: Quotes from (famous) people without sources, fake team members and consultants.
- Vague contact data: A cell phone number for customer service, an address located in regions such as the Cayman Islands or Cyprus, and work-free customer support functions must all be alarm tones.
- False urgency: The scams usually underline the urgency of a specific agreement such as "do not lose" or "just a week" to create a false sense of temporal pressure that obscures people's judgment. Furthermore, scams tend to exert a lot of pressure when you have direct contact with them.
- Prepaid servicesFrauds generally do not provide anything of value, meaning they need money before users can access their special products / services. Be wary of websites / companies that require an upfront payment, especially when this price is unnecessarily high.
- Credit card information / private key: Never ever give your private keys to another party. Be wary of websites / companies that require credit card information.
What to do when locating a scam
If you came across a scam, we strongly urge you to take action to try to get the scam offline and protect others from falling for such scams.
The easiest way to help people is to share your experiences on as many forums and websites as possible.
Evaluating and reviewing websites, for example for ICOs, exchanges and projects, are a good starting point. Furthermore, sharing results on reddit also helps spread the word and expose the scam.
However, decisive actions have a much more valuable impact.
After discovering the scam above, we have taken several steps that you can do yourself.
First of all, we reported all the scam ads and Facebook groups that were used to promote these ads to Facebook users.
Unfortunately, Facebook has done very little so far to remove these scams, but we will continue to try.
Facebook had cryptographic ads previously banned because "companies in space are not currently operating in good faith" and even if they have restored this, they have nonetheless proclaimed to have strict rules for cryptic ads. The fact that the social media company is ignoring the reports of these scams seems highly contradictory to their policies.
A second step we have taken is to contact the domain registrar hosting the scam websites. You can find a reliable website to verify the ownership and hosting package of a website Here.
We took this step and contacted Namecheap, the host of the scams described.
However, Namecheap was not able to act and stated that "the ability to investigate the matter is limited because the content transmitted via the websites is not on our servers".
Later we contacted Cloudflare to try to find their hosting and are waiting for an answer.
Pull out scams as a community
Scams like this have given and continue to give the blockchain and the encrypted assets a bad reputation, creating a barrier to mass adoption.
We are pretty sure that practices like this, perhaps even the same authors who manage the Coinpro exchange scam, will continue to occur, but fully exposing their scheme, we hope to inform novice investors about these practices and fight these scams as an informed community.
We will continue to try and stop the Coinpro exchange scam and the similar disadvantages we encounter. If you find something that looks similar to the scheme described, feel free to contact us [email protected] to let us know
