We Investigated Xanbytrade: Legit or Scam? The Facts

Recently, Xanbytrade.com site appeared, promoting itself as a platform where you can safely keep cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather reliable proof that clearly confirms it is, in fact, a deceptive service.

Regardless of the promises of the most user-friendly, dependable, and customer-centric service, Xanbytrade.com does not offer any of them. In fact, all this is just a shiny wrap around a clear scam, which takes your money and never gives them back. Any tales about gifts, backing from celebrities etc are nowhere to be found as well.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

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Xanbytrade Scam Overview

Originally, Xanbytrade poses as a cryptocurrency trading & cryptowallet platform with exceptionally low commission fees. Another notable selling point for this service is backing from celebrities that are known in the crypto world. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Vitalii Buterin, Warren Buffet – the site claims having significant support from them. To make these claims look real, frauds employ AI-generated videos where those celebrities advertise the scam as the best thing in the world. For known reasons, Elon Musk is the most common among them. But, as I said in the introduction, all this is just a glaring wrap around a transparent scam.

Xanbytrade Scam

To begin with, Xanbytrade copies the appearance of multiple equivalent pages. There are quite a few examples, like Yeplance, Primeflexcapital or Mexdfi. They are completely indistinguishable in terms of graphic elements, with minor discrepancies in the site header. Other particulars, and sometimes even crypto wallet addresses, are identical. Most likely, all these fraudulent online platforms are managed by a single group of fraudsters.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Xanbytrade Scam Works?

Xanbytrade is a part of a significant cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Rascals who stand behind it use numerous 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 legitimacy of the website. But let’s review them one by one.

Step 1: Promotion

To begin the fraud, criminals establish and fill accounts on popular social media platforms. They generally focus on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the marketing campaign starts. Utilizing bots and sponsored advertisements (when achievable), scam actors boost the visibility of their deceptive activities to potential victims. And as I said, crooks do not disdain using deepfake for creating clips with the mentioned celebs that advertise their scam to the public. To boost the folks even more, deceivers claim the bonus for every user who joins the service immediately.

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

Users receive a stimulus to sign up, drawn by the promise of getting crypto rewards valued at thousands of dollars, all for free. To enhance the attractiveness of the offer, fake suggestions of sponsorship by a celebrity are added. As you may guess, these claims are completely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon following the ads, victims end up on a page filled with enticing offers. “Crypto starts with Xanbytrade”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Xanbytrade, “Start earning with Xanbytrade – they look rather authoritative. To heat up users and make them proceed to step 3, crooks say that retrieving the promised bonus requires registration. And as nothing suspicious happens at this point, uninformed users happily proceed – especially as the gift 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, frauds will not 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 data needed for it – username, email, cryptocurrency wallet address – is valuable for user identification. Exclusively by gathering this information and selling it further into the Darknet, crooks can earn quite a penny. Nonetheless, their plans go much further.

As it turns out, the promised bonus is not available for withdrawal right away. To make it at least usable for cryptocurrency purchases, the user should top up the account with the sum of a bonus. At this point, the final stage of the scam begins.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Obviously, any crypto purchases require you to have capital on your account. In the case of Xanbytrade, users are also forced to top up to use the bonuses. And these top ups is what creates most of the cash flow to this scam site. By topping up the account, users hope to get the pledged gift (usually $500-1000 in USDT), and may start engaging on this site hoping to use all the transferred funds and withdraw them.

This is where the first obvious problems start to surface. When comparing the real cryptocurrency wallet vs what the website says, you can spot 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 fraudsters have 0 intentions to return your money. Though to make the fraud look more realistic, they’ve made up a whole pack of reasons to decline the transfer-out request. Usually, they repeat what Know Your Client guidelines say, but for the Xanbytrade.com they are here only 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 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 Xanbytrade.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

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

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Xanbytrade 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 particular files. Alternatively, they may suggest you to deploy “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to simplify access to your cryptocurrency savings. As we earlier figured out, these rascals have no intent of giving back your capital. So, what do these email messages and browser add-ons represent? Correct – this is another component of the fraudulent scheme designed to entice you into willingly installing malicious programs onto your system.

Both plugins and attachments attached to emails can act as a shell for different malware. In this situation, I foresee the presence of spyware and stealers among other forms of malware. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the chance is always greater than zero. As stated, their ethics is of no concern, and their reputation is already seriously marred. They have no principles to give up and aim to maximize profits.

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