We Investigated Jonley: Legit or Scam? The Facts

Recently, Jonley.com service appeared, promoting itself as a place to keep cryptocurrency and other assets safely. I managed to gather reliable proof that unmistakably reveals it is, in truth, a fraudulent service.

Regardless of the promises of the most user-friendly, dependable, and client-friendly service, Jonley.com does not follow any of them. In fact, all this is just a shiny wrap around a clear scam, which takes your money and never returns them. Any stories about gifts, endorsement from celebrities etc are non-existent as well.

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Jonley Scam Overview

Originally, Jonley poses as a crypto trading & cryptowallet platform with exceptionally low commission fees. Another highlighted marketing point for this site is partnerships with celebrities that are known in the crypto world. Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, Vitalii Buterin, Jeff Bezos – the site claims having significant support from them. To make these claims look more realistic, rascals use deepfake videos with those celebs promote the scam 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 an obvious scam.

Jonley Scam

Initially, Jonley copies the design of multiple equivalent pages. There are quite a few examples, like Fovelex, Cryptuslab or Crytonet. They are entirely identical in terms of visual elements, with small discrepancies in the website header. Other details, and sometimes even crypto wallet addresses, are identical. Most likely, all these fraudulent sites are operated by the same team of scoundrels.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Jonley Scam Works?

Jonley is a part of a extensive cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Rascals who stand behind it use various website designs, which still share the identical 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 complex 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 start the deceptive scheme, criminals set up and fill accounts on popular social media platforms. They primarily aim at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the marketing campaign commences. Using bots and sponsored advertisements (when achievable), fraud actors intensify the presence of their scam 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 enrolls the service immediately.

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

Users get an encouragement to sign up, enticed by the assurance of receiving crypto rewards valued at thousands of dollars, all free of charge. To increase the appeal of the offer, fake suggestions of sponsorship by a celebrity are added. As you may guess, these assertions are completely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon following the ads, users end up on a page filled with attractive offers. “Crypto starts with Jonley”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Jonley, “Start earning with Jonley – they look rather authoritative. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, crooks say that obtaining the pledged bonus requires registration. And since nothing concerning happens at this point, unaware users happily proceed – especially since the gift appears to be right behind the corner.

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

Step 3: Data Gathering

This is the starting poing of the main fraud action. As I just mentioned, scammers bait folks for registration with bonuses. And all the personal data 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 alleged bonus right away. To make it at least usable for crypto purchases, you need to top up the account with the equivalent sum. And this is what initiates the final step of the scam.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Obviously, any cryptocurrency purchases require you to have money on your account. With Jonley, users are also forced to top up to get the bonuses. And these top ups is what creates most 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 engaging on this site hoping to use all the credited funds and withdraw them.

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

Step 5: Escaping from Funds Withdrawal

Needless to say that scoundrels have 0 intentions to return your money. Though to make it look more legitimate, they’ve crafted a whole bunch of reasons to decline the wireout request. Usually, they repeat what Know Your Client requirements say, but in this case they are here only to make the withdrawal impossible.

By requesting 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 every check 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 Jonley.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Jonley 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 contact you with specific files. Alternatively, they may offer you to deploy “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to facilitate access to your crypto assets. As we already determined, these rascals have no intention of restoring your funds. So, what can these emails and browser extensions represent? Correct – that is another component of the fraudulent scheme designed to entice you into deliberately installing malicious applications onto your system.

Both extensions and files attached to email messages can serve as a carrier for different malware. In this situation, I foresee the presence of spyware and stealers among other types of malware. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the probability is always above zero. As noted, their ethics is of little concern, and their reputation is already severely tarnished. They have nothing to give up and strive to maximize gains.

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