Investigating Metapool: Legit or Scam? The Truth Revealed

Recently, Metapool.io website popped up, promoting itself as a platform to keep cryptocurrency and other assets safely. I managed to gather reliable evidence that unmistakably reveals it is, actually, a scam site.

Despite the promises of the most easy, dependable, and client-friendly service, Metapool.io does not fulfill any of them. In fact, all this is just a shiny wrap around a dirty scam, which steals your money and never returns them. Any tales about bonuses, sponsorship from celebrities etc are absent as well.

Metapool Scam Overview

Originally, Metapool poses as a crypto trading & cryptowallet service with exceptionally low commission fees. Another highlighted marketing point for this service is backing from celebrities that have relation to 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 employ deepfake videos where those celebrities promote the fraud as if it was the best thing in the world. For obvious reasons, Elon Musk is the most common choise for that. But, as I said in the introduction, all this is just a blatant wrap around a transparent scam.

Metapool Scam

To begin with, Metapool repeats the appearance of many similar websites. There are quite a few examples, like Kipwex, Revoxchain or Sonardex. They are completely undistinguishable in terms of visual elements, with small discrepancies in the site header. Other particulars, and at times even crypto wallet addresses, are identical. Presumably, all these fraudulent sites are operated by the same gang of frauds.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Metapool Scam Works?

Metapool is a part of a extensive cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Swindlers who stand behind it use numerous 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 complex 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 set up and fill accounts on popular social media platforms. They generally focus on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the advertising campaign begins. Utilizing bots and sponsored advertisements (when achievable), fraud actors intensify the presence of their fraudulent activities to potential victims. And as I said, scammers do not shy away using generative AI for creating videos with the mentioned celebrities that promote their scam to the public. To boost the folks even more, swindlers claim the bonus for every user who joins the service immediately.

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

Users receive an encouragement to register, drawn by the commitment of obtaining crypto rewards valued at hundreds of dollars, all free of charge. To increase the attractiveness of the offer, fake suggestions of sponsorship by a celebrity are added. As you may guess, these claims are completely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon clicking the ads, victims end up on a page filled with appealing offers. “Crypto starts with Metapool”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Metapool, “Start earning with Metapool – they look rather authoritative. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, scammers say that claiming the promised bonus requires registration. And as nothing suspicious happens at this point, uninformed users happily proceed – especially since the gift appears to be right behind the corner.

At this point, it is possible to steer away from the scam without any losses. Before you register using your personal data, 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, frauds bait folks for registration with bonuses. And all the personal data needed for it – email, username, crypto wallet address – are valuable for user identification. Only by gathering this data 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 crypto purchases, the user should top up the account with the sum of a bonus. At this point, the final stage of the scam kicks in.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Obviously, any crypto purchases require having funds on your account. In the case of Metapool, users are also forced to top up to claim the bonuses. And these top ups is what creates most of the money flow to this fraudulent 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 deposited funds and withdraw them.

This is where the first obvious issues start to surface. When keeping an eye on the real crypto wallet vs what the website says, you can spot that no transactions are done whatsoever. And then, when you’d try to pull out the funds 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. But to make the denial look more realistic, they’ve crafted a whole pack of reasons to decline the transfer-out request. Most of them repeat what KYC regulations say, but in this case they are here only to make the withdrawal impossible.

By asking for 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 reveal more and more info of yours, which – you guessed it right – will be then traded 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 Metapool.io. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Metapool 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 scam, fraudsters may get in touch with you with specific documents. Alternatively, they may propose you to set up “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to simplify access to your crypto funds. As we previously figured out, these scoundrels have no intention of giving back your funds. So, what do these messages and browser plugins represent? You guessed – that is another side of the scam designed to throw you into willingly running destructive applications onto your computer.

Both plugins and attachments attached to email messages can serve as a shell for various malicious software. In this scenario, I anticipate the presence of spyware and stealers among other forms of malware. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the probability is always existent. As previously mentioned, their conscience is of no concern, and their dignity is already neck deep in mud. They have nothing to give up and intend to boost revenues.

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