We Investigated Muricabit: Legit or Scam? The Facts

Recently, Muricabit.com service popped up, promoting itself as a place to store cryptocurrency and other assets safely. I managed to gather reliable proof that unmistakably indicates it is, in truth, a deceptive platform.

Despite the promises of the most convenient, dependable, and customer-centric service, Muricabit.com does not fulfill any of them. In fact, all this is just a gilded wrap around a clear scam, which takes your money and never gives them back. Any tales about bonuses, endorsement from celebrities etc are non-existent as well.

Muricabit Scam Overview

Originally, Muricabit poses as a cryptocurrency trading & cryptowallet platform with remarkably low commission fees. Another notable selling point for this site is backing from celebrities that have relation to the crypto world. 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 more realistic, rascals use AI-generated videos where those celebrities advertise the fraud as 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 blatant wrap around an obvious scam.

Muricabit Scam

To begin with, Muricabit copies the layout of multiple similar online platforms. There are quite a few examples, like Menorex, Wopnex or Tebrex. They are entirely identical in terms of graphic elements, with slight discrepancies in the website header. Other specific elements, and sometimes even crypto wallet addresses, are the same. Probably, all these deceptive online platforms are led by a single team of frauds.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Muricabit Scam Works?

Muricabit is a part of a extensive cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating vividly in 2023. Rascals who stand behind it use various website designs, which still share the similar 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 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 begin the fraud, criminals set up and fill accounts on popular social media platforms. They primarily aim at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the advertising campaign starts. Employing bots and paid promotions (when achievable), fraud actors increase the exposure of their fraudulent activities to potential victims. And as I said, crooks do not disdain using generative AI for creating clips 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 joins the service immediately.

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

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

After following the promotions, users end up on a page filled with appealing offers. “Crypto starts with Muricabit”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Muricabit, “Start earning with Muricabit – they look rather reliable. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, scammers say that obtaining the pledged bonus requires registration. And since nothing concerning happens at this point, unexperienced users happily proceed – especially since the reward appears to be right behind the corner.

At this point, it is possible to get away from the scam without any losses. Before you sign up using your personal information, rascals will not 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, scammers bait folks for registration with bonuses. And all the personal data needed for it – username, email, cryptocurrency wallet address – are valuable for user identification. Exclusively by gathering this information and selling it further into the Darknet, swindlers 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 stage of the scam.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Obviously, any crypto purchases require having capital on your account. In the case of Muricabit, users are also coerced to top up to claim the bonuses. And these top ups is what creates the majority of the cash flow to this fraudulent website. By topping up the account, users hope to get the promised gift (usually $500-1000 in USDT), and may start engaging on this site hoping to use all the transferred money and withdraw them.

This, however, is where the first obvious problems start to surface. When comparing the real crypto 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

Needless to say that swindlers have no intentions to send you money. But to make the denial look more legitimate, they’ve made up a whole pack of reasons to decline the withdrawal request. Most of them repeat what KYC guidelines say, but in this case they are here only to make the withdrawal impossible.

By asking for your personal info, scammers 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 grand back. And each of these checks will uncover more and more information, which – you guessed it right – will be then sold 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 Muricabit.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Muricabit 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 course of the fraud, its masters may contact you with specific documents. Alternatively, they may offer you to install “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to facilitate access to your cryptocurrency savings. As we already figured out, these scoundrels have no intention of returning your money. So, what can these emails and browser add-ons represent? Correct – that is another component of the scam designed to entice you into willingly running malicious programs onto your device.

Both extensions and files included to email messages can act as a carrier for different malicious code. In this scenario, I anticipate the presence of spyware and stealers among all kinds of malware. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the likelihood is always existent. As stated, their conscience is of little concern, and their dignity is already seriously marred. They have no principles to lose and intend to boost gains.

Frequently asked questions