Gutans Reviewed: Legit or Total Ripoff? Read This First

Recently, Gutans.com site popped up, promoting itself as a place to keep cryptocurrency and other assets safely. I managed to gather credible evidence that unmistakably indicates it is, actually, a deceptive site.

Despite the promises of the most user-friendly, trustworthy, and customer-centric service, Gutans.com does not fulfill any of them. All this is just a golden wrap around a clear scam, which steals your money and never returns them. Any tales about bonuses, backing from celebrities etc are absent as well.

Gutans Scam Overview

Originally, Gutans poses as a cryptocurrency trading & cryptowallet service with outstandingly low commission fees. Another bright marketing point for this site is backing from celebrities that are known as crypto activists. Vitalii Buterin (Ethereum creator), Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet – the site says about being supported by them. To make these claims look real, con actors employ deepfake videos with those celebs promote the fake crypto service as if it was the best thing in the world. For obvious reasons, Elon Musk is the most common among them. But, as I said in the introduction, all this is just a blatant wrap around a transparent scam.

Gutans Scam

First and foremost, Gutans copies the design of multiple similar pages. There are quite a few examples, like Punars, Doront or Wavebitex. They are totally identical in terms of graphic elements, with small discrepancies in the website header. Other details, and sometimes even crypto wallet addresses, are the same. Presumably, all these fraudulent websites are operated by a single gang of frauds.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Gutans Scam Works?

Gutans is a part of a large cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating vividly in 2023. Swindlers who stand behind it use several website designs, which still share the same 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 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 initiate the fraud, criminals set up and fill accounts on popular social media platforms. They primarily target Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the advertising campaign begins. Employing bots and sponsored ads (when feasible), scam actors intensify the exposure of their deceptive activities to potential victims. And as I said, fraudsters do not shy away using deepfake for creating videos with the aforementioned 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 Gutans in TikTok. Most of these videos are AI-generated deepfakes

Users get an incentive to sign up, enticed by the promise of receiving cryptocurrency rewards valued at thousands of dollars, all without cost. To enhance the attractiveness of the offer, false claims of cooperation with a celebrity are incorporated. As you may guess, these claims are completely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon clicking the promotions, victims end up on a page filled with enticing offers. “Crypto starts with Gutans”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Gutans, “Start earning with Gutans – they look rather reliable. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, scammers say that obtaining the promised bonus requires registration. And since nothing concerning 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 be able to earn even a nickel from your presence on the website.

Step 3: Data Gathering

This is the starting poing of the main fraud action. As I just mentioned, frauds bait folks into signing up for bonuses. And all the personal information needed for it – email, username, crypto wallet address – is valuable for user identification. Exclusively by gathering this info and selling it further into the Darknet, swindlers can earn quite a penny. Nonetheless, their plans go much further.

As it turns out, the alleged bonus is not available for withdrawal right away. To make it at least usable for cryptocurrency purchases, the user should top up the account with the sum of a bonus. And this is what starts the final stage of the scam.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Eventually, any crypto purchases require having funds on your account. With Gutans, users are also compelled to top up to claim the bonuses. And this 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 capital and withdraw them.

This is where the problems start to surface. When comparing the real cryptocurrency wallet vs what the site says, you can spot that no transactions are done whatsoever. And then, when you’d try to retrieve the capital 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 send you money. Though to make the fraud look more legitimate, they’ve developed a whole pack of reasons to decline the withdrawal request. Usually, they repeat what Know Your Client guidelines say, but for the Gutans.com they are here only to make the wireout impossible.

By asking for your personal information, deceivers 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 grand back. And every check will reveal more and more info of yours, 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 Gutans.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Gutans 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 scam, fraudsters may reach out to you with particular documents. Alternatively, they may propose you to set up “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to facilitate access to your crypto funds. As we already determined, these deceivers have no intent of restoring your funds. So, what can these messages and browser plugins represent? Correct – this is another component of the fraudulent scheme designed to throw you into deliberately installing harmful applications onto your device.

Both plugins and files included to emails can serve as a carrier for various malicious code. In this situation, I anticipate the presence of spyware and stealers among other kinds of threats. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the likelihood is always above zero. As stated, their conscience is of negligible importance, and their reputation is already seriously marred. They have no principles to lose and intend to boost gains.

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