The Truth About Ventulor: Legit or Scam? Our Review

Recently, Ventulor.com service surfaced, promoting itself as a place where you can safely store cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather reliable supporting information that clearly confirms it is, actually, a deceptive service.

Regardless of the promises of the most user-friendly, reliable, and client-friendly service, Ventulor.com does not fulfill any of them. In fact, all this is just a shiny wrap around a clear scam, which takes your money and data and never returns them. Any tales about bonuses, backing from celebrities etc are absent as well.

Ventulor Scam Overview

Originally, Ventulor poses as a cryptocurrency trading & cryptowallet service with outstandingly low commission fees. Another bright selling point for this service is partnerships with celebrities that are known in the crypto world. 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 with those celebs advertise the fraud as if it was the best thing in the world. For obvious 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.

Ventulor Scam

To begin with, Ventulor repeats the design of numerous equivalent pages. There are quite a few examples, like Upbit, Swminex or Saoxdex. They are totally indistinguishable in terms of visual elements, with small discrepancies in the webpage header. Other specific elements, and sometimes even crypto wallet addresses, are identical. Presumably, all these scam websites are managed by a single gang of frauds.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Ventulor Scam Works?

Ventulor is a part of a extensive cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Swindlers who stand behind it use various 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 sophisticated psychological tricks that make the user believe in the authenticity of the website. But let’s review them one by one.

Step 1: Promotion

To start the fraud, criminals establish and fill accounts on well-liked social media platforms. They primarily target Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the advertising campaign commences. Utilizing bots and paid promotions (when feasible), scam actors increase the presence of their fraudulent activities to potential victims. And as I said, crooks do not shy away using deepfake for creating clips with the aforementioned celebrities that advertise their scam to the public. To boost the folks even more, deceivers claim the bonus for every user who registers the service immediately.

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

Users receive a stimulus to register, enticed by the commitment of getting cryptocurrency rewards valued at hundreds of dollars, all free of charge. To augment the appeal of the offer, fake claims of sponsorship by a celebrity are incorporated. As you may guess, these assertions are completely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

After clicking the promotions, users end up on a page filled with appealing offers. “Crypto starts with Ventulor”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Ventulor, “Start earning with Ventulor – they look rather reliable. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, crooks say that obtaining the promised bonus requires registration. And since nothing concerning happens at this point, uninformed users happily move on – especially as the gift appears to be right behind the corner.

At this point, it is possible to skip the scam without any losses. Before you register using your personal data, rascals will not be able to 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, frauds bait folks for registration with bonuses. And all the personal information needed for it – email, username, cryptocurrency wallet address – are valuable for user identification. Exclusively by gathering this information 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 to use right away. To make it at least usable for crypto purchases, 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

It is obvious that any crypto purchases require you to have funds on your account. With Ventulor, 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 site. By topping up the account, users hope to get the promised gift (usually $500-1000 in USDT), and may start trading on this website hoping to use all the deposited funds and withdraw them.

This, however, is where the issues start to surface. When comparing the real crypto wallet vs what the website says, you can observe that no transactions are done whatsoever. And then, when you’d try to retrieve the funds 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 0 intentions to give your money back. But to make the denial look more realistic, they’ve crafted a whole pack of reasons to decline the transfer-out request. Usually, they repeat what KYC requirements say, but for the Ventulor.com they are here only to make the withdrawal impossible.

By asking for your personal information, scammers 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 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 Ventulor.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Ventulor 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 duration of the fraud, its masters may get in touch with 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 earlier determined, these scammers have no plan of restoring your capital. So, what do these email messages and browser plugins represent? You guessed – that is another element of the scam designed to entice you into willingly installing destructive applications onto your system.

Both plugins and files included to emails can act as a shell for diverse malicious code. In this scenario, I expect the presence of spyware and stealers among other types of threats. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the likelihood is always above zero. As stated, their ethics is of no concern, and their dignity is already severely tarnished. They have nothing to give up and aim to boost revenues.

Frequently asked questions