We Investigated Gmb1l: Legit or Scam? The Facts

Recently, Gmb1l.online service popped up, promoting itself as a place to keep cryptocurrency and other assets securely. I managed to gather reliable supporting information that clearly confirms it is, in truth, a deceptive service.

Despite the promises of the most convenient, dependable, and customer-centric service, Gmb1l.online does not fulfill any of them. In fact, all this is just a shiny wrap around a clear scam, which steals your funds and never returns them. Any tales about bonuses, backing from celebrities etc are non-existent as well.

Gmb1l Scam Overview

Originally, Gmb1l poses as a crypto trading & cryptowallet service with remarkably low commission fees. Another highlighted marketing point for this site 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 real, frauds employ deepfake videos with those celebs promote the fraud as if it was the best thing in the world. Obviously, Elon Musk is the most common among them. But, as I said in the introduction, all this is just a glaring wrap around an obvious scam.

Gmb1l Scam

Initially, Gmb1l shares the design of numerous similar websites. There are quite a few examples, like Lorunix, Rolsxcas or Venalor. They are totally undistinguishable in terms of visual elements, with minor discrepancies in the website header. Other particulars, and at times even crypto wallet addresses, are unchanged. Most likely, all these deceptive online platforms are managed by the same gang of scammers.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Gmb1l Scam Works?

Gmb1l is a part of a large cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Scammers who stand behind it use several website designs, which still share the same overall layout. Another mutual 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 validity of the website. But let’s review them one by one.

Step 1: Promotion

To begin the scam, criminals create and fill accounts on popular social media platforms. They generally aim at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the marketing campaign begins. Utilizing bots and paid ads (when possible), fraud actors boost the visibility of their fraudulent activities to possible victims. And as I said, crooks do not shy away using deepfake for creating clips with the aforementioned celebs that advertise their scam to the public. To boost the folks even more, swindlers claim the bonus for every user who enrolls the service immediately.

Promotions of cryptoscams like Gmb1l in TikTok. Most of these videos are AI-generated deepfakes

Users obtain an incentive to sign up, enticed by the assurance of receiving cryptocurrency benefits valued at thousands of dollars, all for free. To increase the attractiveness of the offer, false suggestions of cooperation with a celebrity are incorporated. As you may guess, these assertions are completely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon clicking the ads, victims end up on a page filled with attractive offers. “Crypto starts with Gmb1l”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Gmb1l, “Start earning with Gmb1l – they look rather authoritative. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, fraudsters say that claiming the pledged bonus requires registration. And since nothing questionable happens at this point, unexperienced users happily move on – especially since the reward appears to be right behind the corner.

At this point, it is possible to skip the scam without any losses. Before you register using your personal information, swindrels will not 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 said, deceivers bait folks for registration with bonuses. And all the personal information needed for it – email, username, cryptocurrency wallet address – are valuable for user identification. Exclusively by gathering this information and selling it further into the Darknet, crooks can earn quite a penny. Nonetheless, their plans go much further.

As it turns out, you cannot use the claimed bonus right away. To make it at least usable for cryptocurrency purchases, you need to top up the account with the sum of a bonus. At this point, the final stage of the scam begins.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Obviously, any crypto operations require having funds on your account. With Gmb1l, users are also compelled to top up to claim the bonuses. And this is what creates the majority of the money flow to this scam site. By topping up the account, users hope to get the committed gift (usually $500-1000 in USDT), and may start trading on this website hoping to use all the deposited capital and withdraw them.

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

Step 5: Escaping from Funds Withdrawal

Needless to say that scoundrels are naught on intentions to give your money back. But to make the denial look more legitimate, they’ve elaborated a whole pack of reasons to decline the transfer-out request. Usually, they repeat what KYC regulations say, but in this case they are here exclusively to make the withdrawal impossible.

By requesting your personal information, frauds 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 grand back. And each of these checks will share 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 Gmb1l.online. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

• Absent company details. Gmb1l 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 Gmb1l 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 Gmb1l, 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 Gmb1l is a definite scam.

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Gmb1l 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 scam, scoundrels may contact you with particular documents. Alternatively, they may propose you to set up “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to simplify access to your cryptocurrency funds. As we already figured out, these deceivers have no plan of restoring your funds. So, what do these emails and browser extensions represent? Correct – that is another side of the deceptive plan designed to throw you into deliberately running malicious programs onto your device.

Both add-ons and attachments included to email messages can act as a carrier for various malicious software. In this situation, I expect the presence of spyware and stealers among all types of malicious programs. While it is not mandatory for scammers to distribute malware, the chance is always greater than zero. As previously mentioned, their ethics is of no concern, and their reputation is already neck deep in mud. They have no scruples to give up and intend to maximize gains.

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