The Tonexup Scam – What You Need To Know

Recently, Tonexup.com site popped up, promoting itself as a place where you can safely keep cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather credible evidence that clearly confirms it is, in fact, a fraudulent service.

Despite the promises of the most user-friendly, trustworthy, and client-friendly service, Tonexup.com does not fulfill any of them. All this is just a golden wrap around a dirty scam, which takes your money and data and never returns them. Any tales about gifts, sponsorship from celebrities etc are non-existent as well.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

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Tonexup Scam Overview

Originally, Tonexup poses as a crypto trading & cryptowallet service with remarkably low commission fees. Another bright selling point for this site is backing from celebrities that have relation to the crypto world. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Vitalii Buterin, Warren Buffet – the site claims having significant support from them. To make these claims look more realistic, frauds use deepfake videos where those celebrities promote the scam 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 blatant wrap around a transparent scam.

Tonexup Scam

First and foremost, Tonexup repeats the design of many similar pages. There are quite a few examples, like Bufbtc, Jolotex or Silunex. They are totally identical in terms of visual elements, with minor discrepancies in the website header. Other particulars, and at times even crypto wallet addresses, are unchanged. Probably, all these deceptive sites are led by the same gang of scoundrels.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Tonexup Scam Works?

Tonexup is a part of a significant cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Scammers who stand behind it use several 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 validity 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 well-liked social media platforms. They mainly focus on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the marketing campaign commences. Employing bots and sponsored ads (when feasible), scam actors boost the exposure of their fraudulent activities to possible victims. And as I said, fraudsters do not disdain using generative AI for creating clips with the aforementioned celebs that advertise their scam to the public. To boost the folks even more, deceivers claim the bonus for every user who enrolls the service immediately.

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

Users get an incentive to sign up, attracted by the promise of obtaining cryptocurrency rewards valued at thousands of dollars, all without cost. To augment the attractiveness of the offer, fake suggestions of sponsorship by a celebrity are incorporated. As you may guess, these assertions are entirely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon clicking the ads, victims end up on a page filled with appealing offers. “Crypto starts with Tonexup”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Tonexup, “Start earning with Tonexup – they look rather authoritative. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, crooks say that claiming the promoted bonus requires registration. And since nothing concerning happens at this point, uninformed users happily proceed – especially as the bonus 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 information, swindrels will not 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, scammers bait folks for registration with bonuses. And all the personal information needed for it – username, email, crypto wallet address – is valuable for user identification. Exclusively 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 claimed bonus right away. To make it at least usable for cryptocurrency purchases, you need to top up the account with the equivalent sum. At this point, the final stage of the scam kicks in.

Step 4: Requesting funds

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

This, however, is where the first obvious problems start to surface. When comparing the real cryptocurrency wallet vs what the website says, you can notice 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

Needless to say that fraudsters have 0 intentions to return your money. But to make the denial look more realistic, they’ve developed a whole pack of reasons to decline the transfer-out request. Usually, they repeat what KYC regulations say, but for the Tonexup.com they are here exclusively to make the withdrawal impossible.

By requesting your personal data, scammers just stall hoping for you to accept the loss 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 reveal more and more info of yours, 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 Tonexup.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

• False Celebrity Sponsorship. Tonexup often resorts to fake endorsements from celebrities such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mr. Beast, and Mark Zuckerberg. This fraudulent tactic extends to claiming partnerships with reputable companies like Coinbase, Binance, or MetaMask, despite lacking any genuine affiliations.
• Cryptocurrency-Only Payments. Tonexup.com exclusively accepts payments in cryptocurrencies, rejecting traditional bank transfers and other methods. This approach not only masks the company’s identity but also eliminates the possibility of seeking refunds.
• Dubious Company Information. Tonexup raises suspicion by withholding essential ownership, location, and registration details. Furthermore, the absence of legitimate contact information and the recent establishment of domain and social media pages intensify skepticism.
• Unsubstantiated Hype. Tonexup.com employs groundless hype tactics, fabricating events like securing contracts with Coinbase or receiving endorsements from Elon Musk. These manipulative techniques aim to instill false confidence and encourage further investments.
• Potential Pyramid Scheme. The scam relies on a structure resembling a Ponzi scheme, leveraging a referral system spread through social media. However, only initial participants benefit, often at the expense of subsequent investors.
• Implausible Claims. Promising returns of 50-100-200%, Tonexup preys on the desire for quick profits. Yet, the volatile nature of the cryptocurrency market makes such gains highly unlikely, definitively labeling Tonexup as a scam.

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Tonexup 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, rascals may contact you with specific documents. Alternatively, they may offer you to install “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to streamline access to your cryptocurrency funds. As we already figured out, these scammers have no plan of restoring your funds. So, what do these emails and browser add-ons represent? You guessed it right – this is another element of the fraudulent scheme designed to entice you into willingly installing malicious programs onto your system.

Both add-ons and files attached to email messages can serve as a shell for various malware. In this situation, I anticipate the presence of spyware and stealers among all forms of malware. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the likelihood is always significant. As stated, their ethics is of negligible importance, and their reputation is already severely tarnished. They have no scruples to lose and strive to maximize gains.

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