Investigating Cronoswap: Legit or Scam? The Truth Revealed

Recently, Cronoswap.com website surfaced, promoting itself as a place where you can securely store cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather reliable supporting information that unmistakably reveals it is, in truth, a scam service.

Regardless of the promises of the most user-friendly, trustworthy, and customer-centric service, Cronoswap.com does not offer any of them. All this is just a golden wrap around a blatant scam, which steals your money and data and never returns them. Any stories about gifts, backing from celebrities etc are absent as well.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

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Cronoswap Scam Overview

Originally, Cronoswap poses as a cryptocurrency trading & cryptowallet platform with outstandingly low commission fees. Another highlighted marketing point for this service is partnerships with celebrities that have relation to the crypto world. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Vitalii Buterin, Warren Buffet – the site claims having significant support from them. To make these claims look more realistic, con actors use AI-generated videos with those celebs promote the fake crypto service as if it was the best thing in the world. Obviously, Elon Musk is the most common among them. But, as I mentioned above, all this is just a vivid wrap around a transparent scam.

Cronoswap Scam

Initially, Cronoswap shares the layout of multiple equivalent pages. There are quite a few examples, like Coinlex, Truebit or Wolcax. They are completely undistinguishable in terms of visual elements, with minor discrepancies in the website header. Other details, and at times even crypto wallet addresses, are the same. Presumably, all these scam online platforms are operated by a single group of frauds.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Cronoswap Scam Works?

Cronoswap is a part of a extensive cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating vividly in 2023. Scammers who stand behind it use various website designs, which still share the same 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 sophisticated 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 begin the deceptive scheme, criminals establish and fill accounts on well-liked social media platforms. They primarily aim at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the marketing campaign begins. Utilizing bots and paid ads (when possible), scam actors boost the visibility of their scam activities to possible victims. And as I said, crooks do not disdain using deepfake for creating videos with the mentioned celebrities that advertise their scam to the public. To boost the folks even more, deceivers claim the bonus for every user who registers the service immediately.

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

Users receive an incentive to enroll, enticed by the commitment of receiving cryptocurrency prizes valued at hundreds of dollars, all without cost. To augment the attractiveness of the offer, fake claims of sponsorship by a celebrity are added. As you may guess, these assertions are completely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

After following the promos, targets end up on a page filled with attractive offers. “Crypto starts with Cronoswap”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Cronoswap, “Start earning with Cronoswap – they look rather authoritative. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, crooks say that obtaining the promoted bonus requires registration. And since nothing suspicious happens at this point, uninformed users happily keep on – especially since the reward 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 register using your personal data, swindrels will not be able to earn even a nickel 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 info needed for it – email, username, crypto wallet address – are valuable for user identification. Exclusively by gathering this data and selling it further into the Darknet, fraudsters can earn quite a penny. Still, their plans go much further.

As it turns out, you cannot use the claimed bonus right away. To make it at least usable for crypto purchases, you need to top up the account with the sum of a bonus. And this is what initiates the final stage of the scam.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Eventually, any crypto operations require having money on your account. With Cronoswap, users are also compelled to top up to get the bonuses. And this is what creates most of the money flow to this fraudulent website. By topping up the account, users hope to get the promised gift (usually $500-1000 in USDT), and may start engaging on this website hoping to use all the credited funds and withdraw them.

This is where the first obvious issues start to surface. When comparing the actual crypto wallet vs what the website says, you can spot that no transactions are done whatsoever. And then, when you’d try to pull out 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 send you money. Though to make the denial look more realistic, they’ve developed a whole bunch of reasons to decline the withdrawal request. Usually, they repeat what KYC requirements say, but for the Cronoswap.com they are here exclusively to make the withdrawal impossible.

By asking for your personal information, deceivers just stall hoping for you to understand that you’ve been scammed and stop contacting them. If you don’t – well, there are multiple other checks you should go through before getting your funds back. And each of these checks will uncover more and more information, which – you guessed it right – will be then traded 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 Cronoswap.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

• Absent company details. Cronoswap 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 Cronoswap 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 Cronoswap, 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 Cronoswap is a definite scam.

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Cronoswap 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.

• Report to Authorities. Your initial action should involve reporting the scam to local authorities responsible for addressing financial fraud. Additionally, reach out to wallet providers and engage with the technical support teams of social networks. This collective effort raises the bar for the scammers’ operations.
• Inform Your Inner Circle. Extend your impact by sharing information about the scam with your close friends. Similar to notifying authorities, this dissemination of details curbs the scammers’ potential to deceive.
• Document the Trail. Assemble a comprehensive record by capturing screenshots and archiving all relevant website-related data. This encompasses the website URL, screenshots of the main page, login interface, end-user license agreement (EULA), account top-up menu, and wallet addresses. These materials offer invaluable leads for authorities in their pursuit of the scammers.
• Explore Refund Possibilities. While cryptocurrency payments may not typically align with traditional bank refund policies, it’s worthwhile to explore potential refund avenues under specific circumstances. Maintain a positive outlook until you secure confirmation of the loss.
• Transform Loss into Insight. Shift your focus from the financial loss to gaining wisdom. Consider your loss as an investment in comprehending the tactics employed by crypto scam sites. Familiarize yourself with their distinctive traits, the methods they employ to entice individuals, and the extravagant pledges they make. This knowledge equips you to recognize and avoid future traps, minimizing the risk of enduring further financial setbacks.

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 timeline of the fraud, its masters may reach out to you with particular files. Alternatively, they may propose you to install “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to simplify access to your cryptocurrency funds. As we earlier determined, these scammers have no plan of giving back your capital. So, what do these emails and browser plugins represent? You guessed – this is another side of the scam designed to throw you into deliberately installing destructive programs onto your system.

Both plugins and files included to email messages can function as a shell for diverse malware. In this situation, I expect the presence of spyware and stealers among all types of threats. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the likelihood is always above zero. As previously mentioned, their conscience is of little concern, and their dignity is already severely tarnished. They have no scruples to give up and strive to boost revenues.

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