Investigating Weotax: Legit or Scam? The Truth Exposed

Recently, Weotax.com service appeared, promoting itself as a place where you can securely keep cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather reliable evidence that clearly confirms it is, in fact, a fraudulent platform.

Regardless of the promises of the most user-friendly, reliable, and customer-centric service, Weotax.com does not follow any of them. In fact, all this is just a shiny wrap around a blatant scam, which steals your funds and never returns them. Any stories about bonuses, backing from celebrities etc are nowhere to be found as well.

Weotax Scam Overview

Originally, Weotax poses as a cryptocurrency trading & cryptowallet platform with remarkably low commission fees. Another notable selling point for this site is partnerships with celebrities that are known in the crypto world. 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 use deepfake videos with those celebs advertise the fake crypto service as if it was the best thing in the world. For known 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.

Weotax Scam

To begin with, Weotax copies the appearance of multiple similar websites. There are quite a few examples, like Xmfox, Jenbor or Fonlinex. They are totally undistinguishable in terms of visual elements, with small discrepancies in the website header. Other specific elements, and at times even crypto wallet addresses, are the same. Most likely, all these fraudulent sites are managed by the same gang of fraudsters.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Weotax Scam Works?

Weotax is a part of a large cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Scammers who stand behind it use various 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 legitimacy of the website. But let’s review them one by one.

Step 1: Promotion

To begin the deceptive scheme, criminals establish and fill accounts on popular social media platforms. They generally target Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the promotional campaign starts. Employing bots and sponsored promotions (when possible), fraud actors intensify the visibility of their fraudulent activities to possible victims. And as I said, scammers do not shy away using deepfake for creating videos with the mentioned celebs 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 Weotax in TikTok. Most of these videos are AI-generated deepfakes

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon clicking the promos, targets end up on a page filled with enticing offers. “Crypto starts with Weotax”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Weotax, “Start earning with Weotax – they look rather reliable. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, scammers say that getting the promised bonus requires registration. And since nothing suspicious happens at this point, unaware users happily proceed – especially as the bonus 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 info, crooks will not be able to 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, deceivers bait folks for registration with bonuses. And all the personal info needed for it – email, username, cryptocurrency wallet address – are valuable for user identification. Only by gathering this info and selling it further into the Darknet, crooks 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, the user should top up the account with the equivalent sum. At this point, the final stage of the scam begins.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Eventually, any cryptocurrency operations require you to have money on your account. With Weotax, users are also forced to top up to claim the bonuses. And this is what creates most 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 site hoping to use all the deposited funds and withdraw them.

This is where the first obvious problems start to surface. When keeping an eye on the actual cryptocurrency wallet vs what the site says, you can notice that no transactions are done whatsoever. And then, when you’d try to withdraw the money from your account, the scam is finally uncovered to the user.

Step 5: Escaping from Funds Withdrawal

Needless to say that scoundrels are naught on intentions to give your money back. Though to make it look more legitimate, they’ve made up a whole bunch of reasons to decline the wireout request. Usually, they repeat what Know Your Client regulations say, but in this case they are here exclusively to make the wireout impossible.

By requesting your personal info, frauds just stall hoping for you to understand that you’ve been scammed and stop contacting them. If you don’t – well, there are numerous other checks you should go through before getting your funds back. And every check will share more and more information, 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 Weotax.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Weotax 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 timeline of the fraud, its actors may contact you with specific documents. Alternatively, they may offer you to install “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to simplify access to your cryptocurrency funds. As we already figured out, these scammers have no plan of restoring your money. So, what can these messages and browser extensions represent? You guessed – that is another component of the fraudulent scheme designed to entice you into deliberately installing destructive programs onto your computer.

Both plugins and files included to emails can act as a carrier for various malicious code. In this case, I expect the presence of spyware and stealers among all forms of malicious programs. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the likelihood is always existent. As stated, their conscience is of no concern, and their dignity is already severely tarnished. They have nothing to give up and aim to boost gains.

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