Investigating Sanobit: Legit or Scam? The Truth Exposed

Recently, Sanobit.com website popped up, promoting itself as a place where you can securely store cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather reliable evidence that clearly confirms it is, in fact, a fraudulent platform.

Despite the promises of the most easy, trustworthy, and customer-centric service, Sanobit.com does not fulfill any of them. All this is just a golden wrap around a clear scam, which steals your funds and never gives them back. Any stories about bonuses, backing from celebrities etc are non-existent as well.

Sanobit Scam Overview

Originally, Sanobit poses as a cryptocurrency trading & cryptowallet platform with outstandingly low commission fees. Another bright marketing point for this platform is backing from celebrities that are known in the crypto world. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Vitalii Buterin, Warren Buffet – the site says about being supported by them. To make these claims look real, con actors employ AI-generated videos where those celebrities promote the fraud as if it was the best thing in the world. For known 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.

Sanobit Scam

First and foremost, Sanobit shares the design of many similar online platforms. There are quite a few examples, like Ligbex, Trump or Elon. They are entirely undistinguishable in terms of visual elements, with slight discrepancies in the website header. Other particulars, and sometimes even crypto wallet addresses, are matching. Probably, all these deceptive websites are led by a single gang of fraudsters.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Sanobit Scam Works?

Sanobit is a part of a large cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Rascals who stand behind it use numerous website designs, which still share the identical 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 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 initiate the scam, criminals set up and fill accounts on popular social media platforms. They generally aim at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the promotional campaign commences. Employing bots and paid promotions (when achievable), fraud actors increase the visibility of their deceptive activities to possible victims. And as I said, scammers do not shy away using generative AI for creating videos with the aforementioned celebs that promote their scam to the public. To boost the folks even more, frauds claim the bonus for every user who joins the service immediately.

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

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

After following the ads, victims end up on a page filled with attractive offers. “Crypto starts with Sanobit”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Sanobit, “Start earning with Sanobit – they look rather reliable. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, fraudsters say that retrieving the promoted bonus requires registration. And as nothing concerning happens at this point, uninformed users happily move on – especially since the gift 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 data, crooks 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 mentioned, deceivers bait folks for registration with bonuses. And all the personal information needed for it – username, email, cryptocurrency wallet address – is valuable for user identification. Exclusively by gathering this info and selling it further into the Darknet, crooks can earn quite a penny. Still, their plans go much further.

As it turns out, you cannot use the promised 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 step of the scam.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Obviously, any cryptocurrency purchases require you to have capital on your account. With Sanobit, users are also forced to top up to use the bonuses. And these top ups is what creates the majority of the money flow to this scam site. By topping up the account, users hope to get the pledged gift (usually $500-1000 in USDT), and may start trading on this website hoping to use all the transferred capital and withdraw them.

This is where the victim notices the problems. When keeping an eye on the actual crypto 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

There’s no need to explain that swindlers are naught on intentions to return your money. But to make it look more legitimate, they’ve made up a whole pack of reasons to decline the wireout request. Most of them repeat what Know Your Client regulations say, but in this case they are here exclusively to make the wireout impossible.

By requesting your personal info, 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 funds back. And each of these checks will uncover 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 Sanobit.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Sanobit 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 timeline of the scam, its actors may reach out to you with particular files. Alternatively, they may propose you to deploy “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to simplify access to your crypto funds. As we earlier figured out, these scoundrels have no intention of restoring your money. So, what can these messages and browser extensions represent? You guessed – that is another element of the scam designed to throw you into deliberately installing harmful software onto your system.

Both plugins and attachments included to emails can serve as a carrier for different malware. In this situation, I anticipate the presence of spyware and stealers among all kinds of threats. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the chance is always significant. As noted, their ethics is of no concern, and their dignity is already neck deep in mud. They have no scruples to lose and intend to maximize profits.

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