The Truth About Venanco: Legit or Scam? Our Review

Recently, Venanco.com site surfaced, promoting itself as a platform where you can securely store cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather credible supporting information that unmistakably reveals it is, in truth, a fraudulent service.

Despite the promises of the most convenient, reliable, and client-friendly service, Venanco.com does not fulfill any of them. In fact, all this is just a gilded wrap around a clear scam, which steals 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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Venanco Scam Overview

Originally, Venanco poses as a cryptocurrency trading & cryptowallet service with exceptionally low commission fees. Another highlighted marketing point for this platform is backing from celebrities that have relation to the crypto world. Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, Vitalii Buterin, Jeff Bezos – the site says about being supported by them. To make these claims look real, frauds use AI-generated videos where those celebrities advertise the fraud as if it was 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 glaring wrap around a transparent scam.

Venanco Scam

First and foremost, Venanco shares the layout of many similar pages. There are quite a few examples, like Wefnam, Zandonex or Xenerax. They are totally indistinguishable in terms of graphic elements, with slight discrepancies in the website header. Other details, and sometimes even crypto wallet addresses, are identical. Presumably, all these fraudulent sites are managed by a single gang of scoundrels.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Venanco Scam Works?

Venanco is a part of a large cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Swindlers who stand behind it use numerous 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 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 start the scam, criminals create and fill accounts on well-liked social media platforms. They mainly target Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the promotional campaign starts. Utilizing bots and sponsored ads (when feasible), scam actors increase the exposure of their deceptive activities to possible victims. And as I said, fraudsters do not disdain using deepfake for creating videos with the mentioned celebs that promote 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 Venanco in TikTok. Most of these videos are AI-generated deepfakes

Users obtain an incentive to enroll, attracted by the promise of receiving cryptocurrency rewards valued at thousands of dollars, all free of charge. To augment the attractiveness of the offer, false suggestions of cooperation with a celebrity are incorporated. As you may guess, these claims are entirely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon clicking the promotions, users end up on a page filled with attractive offers. “Crypto starts with Venanco”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Venanco, “Start earning with Venanco – they look rather credible. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, fraudsters say that retrieving the pledged bonus requires registration. And since nothing questionable happens at this point, unaware users happily move on – especially since the gift appears to be right behind the corner.

This is the last stage when it is possible to steer away from the scam without any losses. Before you register using your personal data, swindrels 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, frauds bait folks for registration with bonuses. And all the personal information needed for it – username, email, cryptocurrency wallet address – are valuable for user identification. Only by gathering this info and selling it further into the Darknet, fraudsters can earn quite a penny. Still, their plans go much further.

As it turns out, the alleged bonus is not available to use right away. To make it at least usable for cryptocurrency purchases, you need to top up the account with the sum of a bonus. At this point, the final stage of the scam begins.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Eventually, any cryptocurrency operations require you to have capital on your account. With Venanco, users are also coerced to top up to use the bonuses. And this 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 participating on this site hoping to use all the credited capital and withdraw them.

This is where the victim notices the problems. When keeping an eye on the actual 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 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 give your money back. Though to make the fraud look more legitimate, they’ve made up a whole pack of reasons to decline the withdrawal request. Most of them repeat what KYC regulations say, but in this case they are here only to make the wireout impossible.

By asking for your personal data, frauds just stall hoping for you to accept the loss and stop contacting them. If you don’t – well, there are a dozen other checks you would desperately need to undergo before getting your grand back. And each of these checks will reveal more and more info of yours, 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 Venanco.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Venanco 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 duration of the fraud, rascals may reach out to you with specific documents. Alternatively, they may suggest you to deploy “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to streamline access to your cryptocurrency funds. As we already determined, these scoundrels have no intent of giving back your funds. So, what can these emails and browser plugins represent? Correct – this is another side of the deceptive plan designed to entice you into deliberately running malicious software onto your system.

Both extensions and attachments included to emails can act as a shell for various malware. In this case, I anticipate the presence of spyware and stealers among all types of malicious programs. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the probability is always greater than zero. As noted, their conscience is of little concern, and their dignity is already seriously marred. They have no scruples to lose and strive to boost revenues.

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