The Truth About Vestatrades: Legit or Scam? Our Review

Recently, Vestatrades.com website popped up, promoting itself as a platform to store cryptocurrency and other assets securely. I managed to gather credible evidence that unmistakably reveals it is, actually, a fraudulent platform.

Contrary to the statements of Vestatrades.com, they won’t ever return your capital. Regardless of the figures displayed in the “member area”, there is no way to take out even a single coin. All promises regarding crypto rewards are baseless as well.

Vestatrades Scam Overview

The key offering that Vestatrades aims to provide is a safe and user-friendly cryptocurrency wallet service. The website promises crypto exchange facilities, tools for controlling wallets, transfers, dashboards, and similar stuff. In fact, they try to emulate the functionality of a crypto marketplace, akin to Binance or Coinbase. However, it actually solely serves as a cover needed to lull the vigilance.

Vestatrades Scam

To begin with, Vestatrades reproduces the layout of multiple similar online platforms. There are quite a few examples, like Wuteslax, Zaxbit or Whitnex. They are completely undistinguishable in terms of visual elements, with minor discrepancies in the site header. Other specific elements, and sometimes even crypto wallet addresses, are matching. Most likely, all these deceptive sites are led by the same group of fraudsters.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Vestatrades Scam Works?

Vestatrades is yet another online platform within a wide-ranging network of linked crypto deceptive platforms. The operators utilize various brand titles and sites, like Vestatrades.com, to trap victims. Nevertheless, these fraudulent websites have in common identical website designs, terms of service, and About Us content. This reveals their beginnings as components of the identical scam network, which endorses the similar type of scam under various appearances. The fraudsters merely replicate the identical deceptive site under diverse names to fool users into believing they are joining a new platform. However, in actuality, it’s the same group of swindlers orchestrating the fraudulent commitments and attempts to grab deposited money. The managers cleverly make use of psychological tactics and captivating propositions to carry out their deceitful plans.

Step 1: Spreading

To initiate the fraud, criminals create and fill accounts on well-liked social media platforms. They generally focus on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the advertising campaign begins. Employing bots and paid advertisements (when possible), fraud actors boost the exposure of their fraudulent activities to potential victims. This approach permits them to cast a wide net and connect with their focused spectators. The latter usually comprises of cryptocurrency fans looking for prospects to generate profits.

Users get a stimulus to sign up, attracted by the promise of getting crypto benefits valued at thousands of dollars, all without cost. To augment the appeal of the offer, fake suggestions of sponsorship by a celebrity are added. As you may guess, these claims are entirely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Users who express interest go to Vestatrades.com via links included in ads or robotic posts. The site utilizes captivating visuals, design aspects that appear legitimate, and claims of having a legitimate license, all designed to project an initial image of reliability.

Step 3: Data Gathering

To redeem their benefits, users need to proactively sign up on Vestatrades and get guidance to submit sensitive and personal information throughout the sign-up procedure. This includes linking their cryptocurrency wallets, providing email addresses, supplying phone numbers, sending in identification documents, and the like.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Once registered, users notice significant amounts of cryptocurrency, valued at hundreds of dollars, within their Vestatrades wallets. However, as it usually happens with such rewards, you cannot withdraw them prior to topping up your account. Usually, a funds transfer of $100 is asked to withdraw the sign-up bonus. This stipulation serves as the snare that eventually culminates to the money loss.

Step 5: Disappear

Signs of Scam

I gathered several facts that point at the scammy nature of the Vestatrades.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Vestatrades 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 duration of the scam, its masters may get in touch with you with specific documents. Alternatively, they may propose you to deploy “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to facilitate access to your cryptocurrency savings. As we previously determined, these rascals have no plan of restoring your capital. So, what can these email messages and browser plugins represent? Correct – that is another element of the scam designed to entice you into willingly running harmful software onto your computer.

Both plugins and attachments added to email messages can act as a shell for various malicious code. In this scenario, I foresee the presence of spyware and stealers among other types of threats. While it is not mandatory for scammers to distribute malware, the probability is always existent. As noted, their ethics is of no concern, and their reputation is already seriously marred. They have nothing to lose and aim to boost profits.

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