Investigating Punars: Legit or Scam? The Truth Exposed

Recently, Punars.com website appeared, promoting itself as a place where you can safely store cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather credible evidence that clearly indicates it is, in truth, a fraudulent service.

Despite the promises of the most convenient, trustworthy, and customer-centric service, Punars.com does not follow any of them. In fact, all this is just a shiny wrap around a blatant scam, which steals your funds and never returns them. Any stories about gifts, endorsement from celebrities etc are nowhere to be found as well.

Punars Scam Overview

Originally, Punars poses as a cryptocurrency trading & cryptowallet service with exceptionally low commission fees. Another notable selling point for this platform is backing from celebrities that are known as crypto activists. Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, Vitalii Buterin, Jeff Bezos – the site says about being supported by them. To make these claims look more realistic, rascals use deepfake videos with those celebs promote the fake crypto service 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.

Punars Scam

First and foremost, Punars copies the layout of multiple similar online platforms. There are quite a few examples, like Doront, Wavebitex or Mefnad. They are completely indistinguishable in terms of visual elements, with slight discrepancies in the site header. Other particulars, and at times even crypto wallet addresses, are identical. Presumably, all these scam sites are led by a single group of fraudsters.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Punars Scam Works?

Punars is a part of a large 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 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 authenticity of the website. But let’s review them one by one.

Step 1: Promotion

To begin the fraud, criminals create and fill accounts on well-liked social media platforms. They mainly focus on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the promotional campaign begins. Using bots and sponsored ads (when achievable), fraud actors boost the visibility of their fraudulent activities to possible victims. And as I said, scammers do not disdain using generative AI for creating videos 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 registers the service immediately.

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

Users obtain an encouragement to register, enticed by the promise of obtaining crypto prizes valued at hundreds of dollars, all without cost. To enhance the attractiveness of the offer, fake suggestions of cooperation with a celebrity are incorporated. As you may guess, these claims are entirely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon following the promotions, targets end up on a page filled with attractive offers. “Crypto starts with Punars”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Punars, “Start earning with Punars – they look rather reliable. To heat up users and make them proceed to step 3, fraudsters say that getting the promised bonus requires registration. And as nothing questionable happens at this point, unaware users happily keep on – especially since the gift 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, frauds will not earn even a nickel from your presence on the website.

Step 3: Data Gathering

This is the starting poing of the main fraud action. As I just said, deceivers bait folks into signing up for bonuses. And all the personal data needed for it – email, username, cryptocurrency wallet address – are valuable for user identification. Solely by gathering this information and selling it further into the Darknet, fraudsters 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 cryptocurrency purchases, the user should top up the account with the sum of a bonus. And this is what initiates the final stage of the scam.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Eventually, any cryptocurrency purchases require having money on your account. With Punars, users are also compelled to top up to use the bonuses. And this is what creates most of the cash flow to this fraudulent site. 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 problems start to surface. When keeping an eye on the actual crypto wallet vs what the website says, you can observe 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

There’s no need to explain that fraudsters are naught on intentions to return your money. But to make the fraud look more realistic, they’ve developed a whole bunch of reasons to decline the withdrawal request. Usually, they repeat what Know Your Client regulations say, but for the Punars.com they are here only to make the wireout impossible.

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

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Punars 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 contact you with particular files. Alternatively, they may propose you to deploy “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to simplify access to your crypto savings. As we previously figured out, these rascals have no plan of restoring your funds. So, what do these messages and browser plugins represent? Correct – that is another component of the fraudulent scheme designed to entice you into deliberately installing harmful software onto your computer.

Both plugins and files added to emails can serve as a shell for diverse malicious code. In this scenario, I expect the presence of spyware and stealers among all types of threats. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the chance is always significant. As stated, their morality is of little concern, and their dignity is already severely tarnished. They have nothing to give up and aim to maximize revenues.

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