We Investigated Parecoin: Legit or Scam? The Facts

Recently, Parecoin.com site appeared, promoting itself as a place where you can safely keep cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather reliable evidence that unmistakably confirms it is, in fact, a scam site.

Regardless of the promises of the most convenient, trustworthy, and customer-centric service, Parecoin.com does not follow any of them. In fact, all this is just a golden wrap around a blatant scam, which steals your money and data and never returns them. Any tales about gifts, endorsement from celebrities etc are absent as well.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

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Parecoin Scam Overview

Originally, Parecoin poses as a crypto trading & cryptowallet service with outstandingly low commission fees. Another bright marketing point for this site is partnerships with celebrities that are known as crypto activists. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Vitalii Buterin, Warren Buffet – the site says about being supported by them. To make these claims look more realistic, frauds employ AI-generated videos where those celebrities promote the fake crypto service as the best thing in the world. For obvious reasons, Elon Musk is the most common among them. But, as I mentioned above, all this is just a glaring wrap around an obvious scam.

Parecoin Scam

Initially, Parecoin repeats the design of numerous equivalent pages. There are quite a few examples, like Biticrypto, Top or Tonex. They are totally indistinguishable in terms of graphic elements, with slight discrepancies in the website header. Other particulars, and sometimes even crypto wallet addresses, are matching. Presumably, all these fraudulent sites are managed by a single team of fraudsters.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Parecoin Scam Works?

Parecoin is a part of a large cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating vividly in 2023. Swindlers who stand behind it use numerous website designs, which still share the same 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 sophisticated psychological tricks that make the user believe in the authenticity 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 well-liked social media platforms. They generally target Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the marketing campaign starts. Using bots and paid advertisements (when feasible), fraud actors boost the visibility of their deceptive activities to potential victims. And as I said, scammers do not shy away using generative AI 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 registers the service immediately.

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

Users receive a stimulus to enroll, enticed by the assurance of obtaining cryptocurrency benefits valued at thousands of dollars, all free of charge. To enhance the appeal 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 following the promotions, targets end up on a page filled with enticing offers. “Crypto starts with Parecoin”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Parecoin, “Start earning with Parecoin – they look rather credible. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, scammers say that retrieving the promised bonus requires registration. And since nothing suspicious happens at this point, unaware users happily proceed – especially as the gift appears to be right behind the corner.

This is the last stage when it is possible to get away from the scam without any losses. Before you register using your personal information, crooks 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 mentioned, scammers bait folks into registration to get bonuses. And all the personal info needed for it – username, email, crypto wallet address – is valuable for user identification. Only by gathering this information and selling it further into the Darknet, swindlers can earn quite a penny. Nonetheless, their plans go much further.

As it turns out, you cannot use the alleged bonus right away. To make at least cryptocurrency purchases on the platform with it, the user should top up the account with the sum of a bonus. And this is what initiates the final step of the scam.

Step 4: Requesting funds

It is obvious that any cryptocurrency purchases require you to have funds on your account. In the case of Parecoin, users are also compelled 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 promised gift (usually $500-1000 in USDT), and may start participating on this site hoping to use all the deposited capital and withdraw them.

This, however, is where the victim notices the issues. When keeping an eye on the real cryptocurrency wallet vs what the website says, you can spot that no transactions are done whatsoever. And then, when you’d try to retrieve the capital from your account, the scam is finally uncovered to the user.

Step 5: Escaping from Funds Withdrawal

Needless to say that fraudsters have 0 intentions to return your money. Though to make the fraud look more legitimate, they’ve made up a whole bunch of reasons to decline the transfer-out request. Usually, they repeat what KYC regulations say, but for the Parecoin.com they are here exclusively 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 would desperately need to undergo 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 Parecoin.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Parecoin 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.

• Secure Your Actions. Begin by promptly reporting the scam to appropriate local authorities tasked with handling financial fraud. Notify wallet providers and engage with social networks’ technical support teams. By taking these measures, you contribute to making the scammers’ operations significantly more difficult.
• Expand Awareness. Extend your efforts by sharing the scam information with your close friends. This action has a parallel effect to reporting to the authorities, as disseminating details about fraudulent crypto services reduces the potential victims they can deceive.
• Gather Evidence. Preserve comprehensive evidence by capturing screenshots and saving all pertinent data linked to the deceptive website. Collect the URL, screenshots of the main page, login interface, end-user license agreement (EULA), account top-up menu, and wallet addresses. These materials could prove invaluable for authorities in their pursuit of the scammers.
• Explore Refund Possibilities. While cryptocurrency payments generally fall outside the scope of refund policies within most banks, it’s worth investigating the potential for a refund in specific circumstances. Maintain optimism until you definitively confirm the loss.
• Convert Mistake into Wisdom. Transform your financial setback into a valuable learning experience. Treat your loss as an investment in understanding the tactics of crypto scam sites. Familiarize yourself with their key characteristics, how they lure individuals, and the grandiose promises they make. Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be well-equipped to recognize and avoid falling into future traps without incurring further losses.

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 scam, rascals may reach out to you with particular files. Alternatively, they may offer you to install “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to simplify access to your crypto assets. As we earlier figured out, these scoundrels have no plan of returning your capital. So, what do these emails and browser plugins represent? Correct – this is another side of the fraudulent scheme designed to entice you into willingly running destructive software onto your system.

Both extensions and files added to email messages can serve as a shell for diverse malicious code. In this scenario, I anticipate the presence of spyware and stealers among other forms of malicious programs. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the likelihood is always greater than zero. As noted, their morality is of no concern, and their reputation is already seriously marred. They have no scruples to lose and intend to boost profits.

Remove spyware with Gridinsoft Anti-Malware

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