Is FORTOREX Legit or Another Scam? The Truth Revealed

Recently, Fortorex.com site appeared, promoting itself as a platform where you can securely keep cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather reliable evidence that clearly confirms it is, in fact, a fraudulent site.

Regardless of the promises of the most convenient, dependable, and customer-centric service, Fortorex.com does not follow any of them. In fact, all this is just a golden wrap around a clear scam, which takes your funds and never gives them back. Any tales about bonuses, endorsement from celebrities etc are non-existent as well.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

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FORTOREX Scam Overview

Originally, FORTOREX poses as a crypto trading & cryptowallet service with remarkably low commission fees. Another notable selling point for this platform is backing from celebrities that have relation to the crypto world. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Vitalii Buterin, Warren Buffet – the site says about being supported by them. To make these claims look more realistic, frauds use deepfake videos where those celebrities advertise the scam as the best thing in the world. For known reasons, Elon Musk is the most common choise for that. But, as I said in the introduction, all this is just a glaring wrap around an obvious scam.

FORTOREX Scam

To begin with, FORTOREX repeats the appearance of many similar online platforms. There are quite a few examples, like Btconmy, Boley or Boksp. They are totally undistinguishable in terms of graphic elements, with small discrepancies in the webpage header. Other specific elements, and at times even crypto wallet addresses, are unchanged. Presumably, all these scam websites are led by the same team of fraudsters.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the FORTOREX Scam Works?

FORTOREX is a part of a significant cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating vividly in 2023. Swindlers who stand behind it use numerous website designs, which still share the identical overall layout. Another shared 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 complex 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 set up and fill accounts on well-liked social media platforms. They generally focus on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the marketing campaign starts. Employing bots and sponsored advertisements (when possible), scam actors increase the visibility of their deceptive activities to potential victims. And as I said, fraudsters do not shy away using deepfake for creating videos with the aforementioned celebrities that advertise their scam to the public. To boost the folks even more, frauds claim the bonus for every user who joins the service immediately.

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

Users obtain an encouragement to enroll, drawn by the commitment of receiving cryptocurrency rewards valued at hundreds of dollars, all free of charge. To increase the appeal of the offer, false claims of cooperation with a celebrity are added. As you may guess, these claims are entirely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

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

This is the last stage when it is possible to skip the scam without any losses. Before you sign up using your personal information, frauds 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, deceivers bait folks for registration with bonuses. And all the personal info needed for it – username, email, crypto wallet address – are valuable for user identification. Solely 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 alleged bonus right away. To make it at least usable for cryptocurrency purchases, the user should top up the account with the sum of a bonus. At this point, the final stage of the scam kicks in.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Obviously, any crypto purchases require you to have money on your account. With FORTOREX, users are also forced to top up to get the bonuses. And these top ups is what creates the majority of the money flow to this fraudulent website. By topping up the account, users hope to get the pledged gift (usually $500-1000 in USDT), and may start engaging on this website hoping to use all the credited money and withdraw them.

This, however, is where the victim notices the problems. When keeping an eye on the real cryptocurrency wallet vs what the site says, you can observe that no transactions are done whatsoever. And then, when you’d try to withdraw the money from your account, the scam is finally uncovered to the user.

Step 5: Escaping from Funds Withdrawal

Needless to say that swindlers have no intentions to return your money. But to make the denial look more legitimate, they’ve developed a whole bunch of reasons to decline the withdrawal request. Usually, they repeat what KYC regulations say, but in this case they are here only to make the withdrawal impossible.

By asking for your personal data, frauds just stall hoping for you to accept the loss and stop contacting them. If you don’t – well, there are multiple other checks you should go through before getting your grand back. And every check will uncover more and more information, which – you guessed it right – will be then sold 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 Fortorex.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with FORTOREX 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 the scam to authorities. Search for local authorities responsible for financial frauds, and also notify wallet providers and social networks via their tech support. It is essential to make the further operations of these scammers much harder.
• Tell your close friends. That step is similar to reporting to the authorities, and has similar effects. By posting info about scam crypto service, you decrease the pool of people they can fool.
• Get evidence. Screenshot or save all the information related to the website. URL, screenshot of a main page, login window, EULA, account top-up menu, wallet addresses – all these things may be useful for authorities to find the scammers.
• Check whether you can ask for a refund. As I’ve said above, crypto payments do not fall under refund policies in most banks. Nonetheless, in some circumstances, it is still possible. Never lose hope until you actually confirm it is gone.
• Make your mistake your lesson. Financial losses are always a reason for frustration, but let’s imagine it was a pay for scam revealing courses. Remember the key features of these crypto scam sites, the way they attract people and what they promise. In the future, you will easily recognize a trap of spending no money.

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 specific documents. Alternatively, they may offer you to set up “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to facilitate access to your cryptocurrency funds. As we previously determined, these deceivers have no intention of giving back your money. So, what can these emails and browser extensions represent? You guessed it right – this is another side of the fraudulent scheme designed to throw you into deliberately installing malicious programs onto your device.

Both plugins and files included to email messages can serve as a carrier for diverse malicious code. In this case, I foresee the presence of spyware and stealers among all types of threats. While it is not mandatory for scammers to distribute malware, the likelihood is always greater than zero. As stated, their morality is of negligible importance, and their dignity is already severely tarnished. They have no scruples to give up and strive to maximize revenues.

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