We Investigated Lodfac: Legit or Scam? The Facts

Recently, Lodfac.com website popped up, promoting itself as a place to store cryptocurrency and other assets securely. I managed to gather credible proof that clearly indicates it is, actually, a fraudulent service.

Regardless of the promises of the most convenient, reliable, and customer-centric service, Lodfac.com does not offer any of them. In fact, all this is just a shiny wrap around a blatant scam, which takes your money and never gives them back. Any tales about gifts, endorsement from celebrities etc are non-existent as well.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

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Lodfac Scam Overview

Originally, Lodfac poses as a cryptocurrency trading & cryptowallet platform with outstandingly low commission fees. Another bright selling point for this site is backing from celebrities that are known as crypto activists. Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, Vitalii Buterin, Jeff Bezos – the site claims having significant support from them. To make these claims look real, con actors employ AI-generated videos where those celebrities promote the scam as 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 glaring wrap around a transparent scam.

Lodfac Scam

Initially, Lodfac repeats the layout of numerous similar pages. There are quite a few examples, like Litefair, Hytrex or Golores. They are entirely undistinguishable in terms of graphic elements, with minor discrepancies in the webpage header. Other particulars, and at times even crypto wallet addresses, are matching. Presumably, all these scam websites are led by a single team of swindrels.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Lodfac Scam Works?

Lodfac is a part of a significant cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Scammers who stand behind it use various website designs, which still share the similar 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 validity of the website. But let’s review them one by one.

Step 1: Promotion

To begin the scam, criminals establish and fill accounts on popular social media platforms. They mainly focus on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the marketing campaign commences. Using bots and paid ads (when achievable), fraud actors intensify the presence of their scam activities to possible victims. And as I said, fraudsters do not shy away using deepfake for creating videos with the aforementioned celebrities that promote 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 Lodfac in TikTok. Most of these videos are AI-generated deepfakes

Users get an encouragement to sign up, drawn by the commitment of obtaining cryptocurrency rewards valued at hundreds of dollars, all free of charge. To increase the attractiveness of the offer, false claims of sponsorship by a celebrity are added. As you may guess, these assertions are completely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon clicking the promos, victims end up on a page filled with attractive offers. “Crypto starts with Lodfac”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Lodfac, “Start earning with Lodfac – they look rather authoritative. To heat up users and make them proceed to step 3, scammers say that unlocking the promised bonus requires registration. And as nothing suspicious happens at this point, unaware users happily keep on – especially as the reward 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 information, crooks will not 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 into registration to get bonuses. And all the personal info needed for it – username, email, cryptocurrency wallet address – is valuable for user identification. Exclusively 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, you cannot use the promised bonus right away. To make it at least usable for crypto purchases, the user should top up the account with the equivalent sum. At this point, the final stage of the scam begins.

Step 4: Requesting funds

It is obvious that any cryptocurrency purchases require having capital on your account. With Lodfac, users are also forced to top up to get the bonuses. And this is what creates most of the money flow to this fraudulent website. 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 credited funds 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 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 swindlers have 0 intentions to give your money back. Though to make it look more realistic, they’ve elaborated a whole bunch of reasons to decline the transfer-out request. Most of them repeat what Know Your Client requirements say, but for the Lodfac.com they are here only to make the wireout impossible.

By asking for your personal info, deceivers just stall hoping for you to understand that you’ve been scammed and stop contacting them. If you don’t – well, there are a dozen other checks you should go through before getting your money back. And each of these checks 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 Lodfac.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

• Unsubstantiated Credibility. Lodfac employs fraudulent celebrity endorsements, often featuring names like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mr. Beast, and Mark Zuckerberg. These false claims extend to fictitious partnerships with reputable entities like Coinbase, Binance, or MetaMask, despite the absence of genuine connections.
• Implausible Earnings Claims. Promising remarkable returns of 50-100-200%, Lodfac exploits the longing for quick profits. However, such gains are unrealistic within the volatile cryptocurrency landscape, unequivocally identifying Lodfac as a scam.
• Dubious Corporate Information. Lodfac arouses suspicion by providing inadequate documentation about ownership, location, and registration. Furthermore, the lack of legitimate contact information and the recent registration of domain and social media profiles deepen skepticism.
• Exclusive Cryptocurrency Payments. Lodfac.com solely accepts payments in cryptocurrencies, refraining from traditional bank transfers and other payment methods. This approach not only shrouds the company’s identity but also prevents the possibility of requesting refunds.
• Potential Pyramid Scheme. The scam relies on a Ponzi-like referral structure disseminated through social media. Nevertheless, only initial participants profit, often at the expense of funds brought in by subsequent members.
• Groundless Hype Tactics. Lodfac utilizes fabricated claims about non-existent events, such as securing contracts with Coinbase or receiving endorsements from Elon Musk. This manipulative strategy aims to foster belief in money returns and encourages individuals to top up their accounts again.

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Lodfac 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 duration of the fraud, its actors may contact you with specific documents. Alternatively, they may suggest you to deploy “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to facilitate access to your cryptocurrency savings. As we already figured out, these rascals have no intent of restoring your capital. So, what do these messages and browser add-ons represent? You guessed it right – this is another element of the fraudulent scheme designed to entice you into willingly running destructive programs onto your computer.

Both add-ons and attachments included to emails can serve as a shell for different malicious software. In this scenario, I expect the presence of spyware and stealers among other forms of malware. While it is not mandatory for scammers to distribute malware, the likelihood is always above zero. As stated, their ethics is of negligible importance, and their dignity is already deeply compromised. They have no scruples to lose and aim to maximize gains.

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