Investigating Qnamo: Legit or Scam? The Truth Exposed

Recently, Qnamo.com site popped up, promoting itself as a place to keep cryptocurrency and other assets safely. I managed to gather reliable evidence that clearly confirms it is, in fact, a fraudulent site.

Despite the promises of the most easy, reliable, and customer-centric service, Qnamo.com does not follow any of them. In fact, all this is just a shiny wrap around a dirty scam, which steals your funds and never gives them back. Any tales about gifts, sponsorship from celebrities etc are absent as well.

Qnamo Scam Overview

Originally, Qnamo poses as a crypto trading & cryptowallet platform with remarkably low commission fees. Another bright selling point for this service 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 where those celebrities promote the fake crypto service as the best thing in the world. Obviously, Elon Musk is the most common choise for that. But, as I said in the introduction, all this is just a vivid wrap around a transparent scam.

Qnamo Scam

First and foremost, Qnamo shares the layout of multiple equivalent pages. There are quite a few examples, like Ogonto, Quickxtrade or Solarxalt. They are totally identical in terms of graphic elements, with minor discrepancies in the site header. Other details, and sometimes even crypto wallet addresses, are the same. Probably, all these deceptive sites are led by a single team of frauds.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Qnamo Scam Works?

Qnamo is a part of a large cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating vividly in 2023. Scammers who stand behind it use various website designs, which still share the same overall layout. Another common 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 start the fraud, criminals create 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 achievable), scam actors boost the presence of their deceptive activities to potential victims. And as I said, crooks do not shy away using generative AI for creating clips with the mentioned celebs that advertise 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 Qnamo in TikTok. Most of these videos are AI-generated deepfakes

Users obtain an incentive to sign up, enticed by the promise of obtaining crypto benefits valued at hundreds of dollars, all for free. To enhance the appeal of the offer, false suggestions of cooperation with a celebrity are incorporated. As you may guess, these assertions are entirely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon following the ads, targets end up on a page filled with appealing offers. “Crypto starts with Qnamo”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Qnamo, “Start earning with Qnamo – they look rather credible. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, scammers say that getting the promoted bonus requires registration. And since nothing questionable happens at this point, uninformed 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 register using your personal information, frauds will not be able to earn even a penny from your presence on the website.

Step 3: Data Gathering

This is where the main fraud action begins. As I just mentioned, frauds bait folks into registration for bonuses. And all the personal data needed for it – username, email, cryptocurrency wallet address – are valuable for user identification. Only by gathering this information and selling it further into the Darknet, fraudsters can earn quite a penny. Nonetheless, their plans go much further.

As it turns out, the claimed bonus is not available for withdrawal right away. To make at least crypto purchases on the platform with it, the user should top up the account with the equivalent sum. And this is what starts the final stage of the scam.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Eventually, any cryptocurrency purchases require having funds on your account. With Qnamo, users are also compelled to top up to use the bonuses. And these top ups is what creates most of the cash flow to this scam site. 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 credited capital and withdraw them.

This, however, is where the victim notices the issues. When keeping an eye on the real crypto wallet vs what the site says, you can spot that no transactions are done whatsoever. And then, when you’d try to retrieve the money 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 have zero intentions to return your money. Though to make it look more realistic, they’ve made up a whole pack of reasons to decline the withdrawal request. Usually, they repeat what KYC guidelines say, but for the Qnamo.com they are here exclusively to make the wireout impossible.

By requesting your personal information, scammers just stall hoping for you to accept the loss and stop contacting them. If you don’t – well, there are multiple other checks you should go through before getting your money back. And each of these checks will reveal 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 Qnamo.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Qnamo 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 fraud, scoundrels may reach out to you with particular documents. Alternatively, they may suggest you to install “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to simplify access to your cryptocurrency savings. As we earlier determined, these scoundrels have no plan of restoring your capital. So, what do these emails and browser add-ons represent? Correct – this is another side of the fraudulent scheme designed to entice you into deliberately installing malicious software onto your computer.

Both extensions and attachments added to email messages can act as a carrier for different malware. In this scenario, I foresee the presence of spyware and stealers among other kinds of malware. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the chance is always greater than zero. As previously mentioned, their morality is of no concern, and their reputation is already severely tarnished. They have no principles to lose and strive to boost profits.

Frequently asked questions