We Investigated Baywes: Legit or Scam? The Facts

Recently, Baywes.com website appeared, promoting itself as a platform where you can safely keep cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather reliable supporting information that clearly indicates it is, actually, a fraudulent service.

Despite the promises of the most easy, dependable, and client-friendly service, Baywes.com does not fulfill any of them. In fact, all this is just a golden wrap around a dirty scam, which takes your funds and never gives them back. Any stories about bonuses, sponsorship from celebrities etc are non-existent as well.

Baywes Scam Overview

Originally, Baywes poses as a cryptocurrency trading & cryptowallet service with outstandingly low commission fees. Another notable marketing point for this site is backing from celebrities that are known as crypto activists. Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, Vitalii Buterin, Jeff Bezos – the site claims having significant support from them. To make these claims look real, frauds use deepfake videos with those celebs advertise the fraud as if it was the best thing in the world. For obvious reasons, Elon Musk is the most common among them. But, as I mentioned above, all this is just a vivid wrap around an obvious scam.

Baywes Scam

First and foremost, Baywes shares the appearance of many equivalent websites. There are quite a few examples, like Cryptonov, Cocacocausdt or Clskbtcminer. They are completely identical in terms of visual elements, with minor discrepancies in the site header. Other specific elements, and sometimes even crypto wallet addresses, are unchanged. Probably, all these fraudulent websites are operated by a single gang of scoundrels.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Baywes Scam Works?

Baywes is a part of a extensive cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Scammers who stand behind it use several website designs, which still share the identical overall layout. Another common element are the ways the scams like NAME are promoted, and the manner all this ends up to the victim of the scam. To reach peak efficiency, frauds apply advanced psychological tricks that make the user believe in the legitimacy of the website. But let’s review them one by one.

Step 1: Promotion

To start the fraud, criminals establish and fill accounts on popular social media platforms. They generally focus on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the promotional campaign starts. Employing bots and sponsored ads (when possible), fraud actors increase the exposure of their scam activities to possible victims. And as I said, fraudsters do not shy away using generative AI for creating videos with the mentioned celebs that promote their scam to the public. To boost the folks even more, deceivers claim the bonus for every user who enrolls the service immediately.

Promotions of cryptoscams like Baywes in TikTok. Most of these videos are AI-generated deepfakes

Users receive an incentive to enroll, drawn by the commitment of getting crypto prizes valued at thousands of dollars, all without cost. To enhance the attractiveness of the offer, false suggestions of sponsorship by a celebrity are added. As you may guess, these assertions are completely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon clicking the ads, targets end up on a page filled with attractive offers. “Crypto starts with Baywes”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Baywes, “Start earning with Baywes – they look rather credible. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, fraudsters say that retrieving the promised bonus requires registration. And as nothing suspicious happens at this point, unexperienced users happily move on – especially as the bonus appears to be right behind the corner.

This is the last stage when it is possible to get away from the scam without any losses. Before you sign up using your personal data, rascals will not earn even a penny from your presence on the website.

Step 3: Data Gathering

This is where the main fraud action begins. As I just mentioned, scammers bait folks for registration with bonuses. And all the personal data needed for it – email, username, crypto wallet address – is valuable for user identification. Only by gathering this data and selling it further into the Darknet, fraudsters can earn quite a penny. Nonetheless, their plans go much further.

As it turns out, you cannot use the promised bonus right away. To make at least cryptocurrency purchases on the platform with it, the user should top up the account with the equivalent sum. And this is what starts the final stage of the scam.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Eventually, any crypto purchases require you to have money on your account. With Baywes, users are also compelled to top up to use the bonuses. And this is what creates most of the cash flow to this fraudulent website. By topping up the account, users hope to get the committed gift (usually $500-1000 in USDT), and may start participating on this website hoping to use all the credited capital and withdraw them.

This is where the first obvious issues start to surface. When keeping an eye on the real cryptocurrency wallet vs what the website says, you can spot that no transactions are done whatsoever. And then, when you’d try to retrieve the money from your account, the scam is finally uncovered to the user.

Step 5: Escaping from Funds Withdrawal

There’s no need to explain that swindlers are naught on intentions to give your money back. Though to make the fraud look more realistic, they’ve elaborated a whole pack of reasons to decline the wireout request. Usually, they repeat what KYC regulations say, but for the Baywes.com they are here only to make the withdrawal impossible.

By requesting your personal information, scammers just stall hoping for you to accept the loss and stop contacting them. If you don’t – well, there are a dozen other checks you would desperately need to undergo before getting your money back. And each of these checks will share more and more information, which – you guessed it right – will be then marketed on the Darknet. Never reveal your real info to strangers!

Signs of Scam

I gathered several facts that point at the scammy nature of the Baywes.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

• Absent company details. Baywes does not provide any documentation about its ownership, location or registration. No legitimate contact details are given either. Moreover, it appears that the domain and all social network pages were registered quite recently.
• Fake sponsorship from a celebrity. Scams like Baywes like to pick a celebrity as a sponsor of this entire campaign. For obvious reasons, fraudsters generally choose Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mr. Beast, Mark Zuckerberg, and similar celebrities. They do not disdain claiming partnership with a company as well. Even though Coinbase, Binance or MetaMask never heard of Baywes, they do not care – this creates a halo of credibility.
• Potential Ponzi Scheme. The scam relies on a Ponzi-like referral system to spread reach through social media. In fact, only the first members will receive the payoff, at the cost of the money brought by other members.
• Hype without facts. Frauds can cheer up their victims from time to time, using claims about non-existent events. “We got contracts with Coinbase”, “Elon Musk mentioned us as the most prolific crypto project” – you could likely hear something like that. This is made to make people believe in their money return. This can be the sauce to make people top-up their accounts once again.
• Crypto-only incoming payments. Whether the user tries to top-up the account, hackers will only accept payments in crypto – no bank transfers or other payment methods. Such an approach completely hides the identity of the company and deprives you of the ability to ask for a refund.
• Claims are too good to be true. Let’s be sane and sober: even in crypto space, there are not many places where you can earn 50-100-200%. Being able to participate in all of them is nearly impossible, as well as it is impossible to insure or hedge all the risks. Even by that reason alone I can tell that the Baywes is a definite scam.

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Baywes site and fell victim to that scam, there are still some steps to take. They will make further scam attempts harder, and also boost the knowledge about that scam among folks.

• Secure Your Actions. Begin by promptly reporting the scam to appropriate local authorities tasked with handling financial fraud. Notify wallet providers and engage with social networks’ technical support teams. By taking these measures, you contribute to making the scammers’ operations significantly more difficult.
• Expand Awareness. Extend your efforts by sharing the scam information with your close friends. This action has a parallel effect to reporting to the authorities, as disseminating details about fraudulent crypto services reduces the potential victims they can deceive.
• Gather Evidence. Preserve comprehensive evidence by capturing screenshots and saving all pertinent data linked to the deceptive website. Collect the URL, screenshots of the main page, login interface, end-user license agreement (EULA), account top-up menu, and wallet addresses. These materials could prove invaluable for authorities in their pursuit of the scammers.
• Explore Refund Possibilities. While cryptocurrency payments generally fall outside the scope of refund policies within most banks, it’s worth investigating the potential for a refund in specific circumstances. Maintain optimism until you definitively confirm the loss.
• Convert Mistake into Wisdom. Transform your financial setback into a valuable learning experience. Treat your loss as an investment in understanding the tactics of crypto scam sites. Familiarize yourself with their key characteristics, how they lure individuals, and the grandiose promises they make. Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be well-equipped to recognize and avoid falling into future traps without incurring further losses.

Scan your system for possible malware infections

Beware of cross scams! Scam actors can use your trust to make you download some stuff or interact with certain documents. It may be a trap that installs malware to your system. There are no moral barriers or limits for these scoundrels.

Throughout the duration of the fraud, rascals may reach out to you with specific files. Alternatively, they may offer you to deploy “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to facilitate access to your crypto funds. As we earlier figured out, these rascals have no plan of giving back your money. So, what can these email messages and browser plugins represent? You guessed – that is another component of the deceptive plan designed to throw you into willingly running destructive programs onto your system.

Both plugins and attachments added to emails can act as a shell for diverse malicious code. In this scenario, I foresee the presence of spyware and stealers among other forms of threats. While it is not mandatory for scammers to distribute malware, the probability is always significant. As noted, their morality is of negligible importance, and their dignity is already deeply compromised. They have no scruples to lose and intend to maximize gains.

Frequently asked questions