Investigating Kelunax: Legit or Scam? The Truth Revealed

Recently, Kelunax.com site appeared, promoting itself as a place where you can safely keep cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather credible evidence that unmistakably confirms it is, actually, a fraudulent platform.

Despite the promises of the most easy, reliable, and client-friendly service, Kelunax.com does not follow any of them. All this is just a gilded wrap around a blatant scam, which takes your money and never returns them. Any tales about gifts, endorsement from celebrities etc are nowhere to be found as well.

Kelunax Scam Overview

Originally, Kelunax poses as a crypto trading & cryptowallet service with remarkably low commission fees. Another notable marketing point for this site 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, rascals use AI-generated videos with those celebs advertise the scam as 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 vivid wrap around a transparent scam.

Kelunax Scam

Initially, Kelunax shares the layout of many equivalent online platforms. There are quite a few examples, like Lexidex, Bit or Daywint. They are entirely identical in terms of graphic elements, with slight discrepancies in the website header. Other specific elements, and at times even crypto wallet addresses, are identical. Probably, all these scam websites are operated by the same team of scammers.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Kelunax Scam Works?

Kelunax is a part of a extensive cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Swindlers 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 advanced 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 start the scam, criminals establish and fill accounts on well-liked social media platforms. They mainly target Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the marketing campaign commences. Utilizing bots and sponsored ads (when achievable), scam actors boost the presence of their fraudulent activities to possible victims. And as I said, fraudsters do not disdain using generative AI for creating clips with the aforementioned celebs 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 Kelunax in TikTok. Most of these videos are AI-generated deepfakes

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

After following the promotions, victims end up on a page filled with enticing offers. “Crypto starts with Kelunax”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Kelunax, “Start earning with Kelunax – they look rather credible. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, crooks say that claiming the promoted bonus requires registration. And since nothing suspicious happens at this point, unaware users happily proceed – especially as the reward 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 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 said, frauds bait folks for registration with bonuses. And all the personal data needed for it – email, username, cryptocurrency wallet address – is valuable for user identification. Solely by gathering this info and selling it further into the Darknet, crooks can earn quite a penny. Still, their plans go much further.

As it turns out, the claimed bonus is not available to use right away. To make at least crypto purchases on the platform with it, you need to top up the account with the equivalent sum. At this point, the final stage of the scam begins.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Obviously, any cryptocurrency operations require you to have capital on your account. In the case of Kelunax, users are also forced to top up to get the bonuses. And these top ups is what creates most of the cash flow to this scam website. By topping up the account, users hope to get the pledged gift (usually $500-1000 in USDT), and may start trading on this site hoping to use all the deposited money and withdraw them.

This, however, is where the issues start to surface. 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 retrieve the funds 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 have 0 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 Know Your Client regulations say, but in this case they are here exclusively to make the wireout impossible.

By asking for your personal information, scammers 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 should go through 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 Kelunax.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Kelunax 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 scam, scoundrels may contact you with specific files. Alternatively, they may propose you to deploy “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to streamline access to your cryptocurrency savings. As we already figured out, these deceivers have no intent of returning your capital. So, what can these messages and browser plugins represent? Correct – this is another side of the fraudulent scheme designed to entice you into willingly running harmful applications onto your device.

Both plugins and attachments added to emails can function as a shell for diverse malicious software. In this situation, I foresee the presence of spyware and stealers among all kinds of threats. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the probability is always greater than zero. As noted, their conscience is of little concern, and their reputation is already seriously marred. They have no scruples to lose and aim to boost revenues.

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