We Investigated Twonpix: Legit or Scam? The Facts

Recently, Twonpix.com website appeared, promoting itself as a place where you can securely store cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather reliable supporting information that clearly confirms it is, in truth, a fraudulent service.

Despite the promises of the most convenient, reliable, and customer-centric service, Twonpix.com does not offer any of them. All this is just a golden wrap around a dirty scam, which steals your money and data and never gives them back. Any tales about gifts, sponsorship from celebrities etc are nowhere to be found as well.

Twonpix Scam Overview

Originally, Twonpix poses as a cryptocurrency trading & cryptowallet platform with exceptionally low commission fees. Another notable selling point for this site is partnerships with celebrities that are known as crypto activists. Vitalii Buterin (Ethereum creator), Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet – the site claims having significant support from them. To make these claims look real, con actors 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 vivid wrap around an obvious scam.

Twonpix Scam

To begin with, Twonpix copies the layout of multiple equivalent websites. There are quite a few examples, like Zedxbit, Afovert or Satochange. They are totally undistinguishable in terms of graphic elements, with small discrepancies in the site header. Other details, and sometimes even crypto wallet addresses, are matching. Presumably, all these scam sites are operated by the same team of scammers.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Twonpix Scam Works?

Twonpix is a part of a large cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Rascals who stand behind it use several website designs, which still share the same 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 begin the scam, criminals set up and fill accounts on well-liked social media platforms. They primarily aim at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the advertising campaign commences. Utilizing bots and sponsored advertisements (when feasible), fraud actors intensify the exposure of their deceptive activities to potential victims. And as I said, crooks 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 Twonpix in TikTok. Most of these videos are AI-generated deepfakes

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

After clicking the ads, targets end up on a page filled with enticing offers. “Crypto starts with Twonpix”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Twonpix, “Start earning with Twonpix – they look rather credible. To heat up users and make them proceed to step 3, scammers say that obtaining the promoted bonus requires registration. And since nothing suspicious 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 sign up using your personal data, swindrels will not be able to earn even a penny from your presence on the website.

Step 3: Data Gathering

This is the starting poing of the main fraud action. As I just said, scammers bait folks into signing up to get bonuses. And all the personal data needed for it – email, username, crypto wallet address – are valuable for user identification. Solely by gathering this data and selling it further into the Darknet, swindlers can earn quite a penny. Still, their plans go much further.

As it turns out, the claimed bonus is not available for withdrawal 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 funds on your account. In the case of Twonpix, users are also forced to top up to use the bonuses. And these top ups is what creates most of the money flow to this fraudulent website. By topping up the account, users hope to get the committed gift (usually $500-1000 in USDT), and may start trading on this website hoping to use all the transferred funds and withdraw them.

This, however, is where the first obvious problems start to surface. When keeping an eye on the real crypto wallet vs what the site says, you can observe 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

Needless to say that swindlers are naught on intentions to return your money. But to make the denial look more realistic, they’ve made up a whole bunch of reasons to decline the wireout request. Usually, they repeat what Know Your Client guidelines say, but for the Twonpix.com they are here exclusively to make the withdrawal impossible.

By requesting your personal information, frauds 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 grand back. And each of these checks will uncover more and more information, 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 Twonpix.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Twonpix 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 to Authorities. Your initial action should involve reporting the scam to local authorities responsible for addressing financial fraud. Additionally, reach out to wallet providers and engage with the technical support teams of social networks. This collective effort raises the bar for the scammers’ operations.
• Inform Your Inner Circle. Extend your impact by sharing information about the scam with your close friends. Similar to notifying authorities, this dissemination of details curbs the scammers’ potential to deceive.
• Document the Trail. Assemble a comprehensive record by capturing screenshots and archiving all relevant website-related data. This encompasses the website URL, screenshots of the main page, login interface, end-user license agreement (EULA), account top-up menu, and wallet addresses. These materials offer invaluable leads for authorities in their pursuit of the scammers.
• Explore Refund Possibilities. While cryptocurrency payments may not typically align with traditional bank refund policies, it’s worthwhile to explore potential refund avenues under specific circumstances. Maintain a positive outlook until you secure confirmation of the loss.
• Transform Loss into Insight. Shift your focus from the financial loss to gaining wisdom. Consider your loss as an investment in comprehending the tactics employed by crypto scam sites. Familiarize yourself with their distinctive traits, the methods they employ to entice individuals, and the extravagant pledges they make. This knowledge equips you to recognize and avoid future traps, minimizing the risk of enduring further financial setbacks.

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 fraud, its masters may reach out to you with specific documents. Alternatively, they may offer you to deploy “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to simplify access to your crypto savings. As we already figured out, these scoundrels have no intention of returning your money. So, what can these email messages and browser plugins represent? Correct – this is another component of the deceptive plan designed to throw you into deliberately running malicious programs onto your device.

Both add-ons and attachments included to email messages can act as a carrier for various malware. In this case, I expect the presence of spyware and stealers among all kinds of malware. While it is not mandatory for scammers to distribute malware, the likelihood is always significant. As previously mentioned, their ethics is of negligible importance, and their reputation is already deeply compromised. They have nothing to lose and strive to boost revenues.

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