"Black" brokers, fake services, games for money or how scammers disguise scams

Internet fraud is rampant. This happens not only because a large number of scammers have divorced on the network, the problem is also in the gullibility of users of online resources. The desire to make money quickly and easily turns off common sense, which is very beneficial for scammers. But sometimes it is enough to check a project that promises a lot to understand that you have contacted ordinary thieves. We suggest that you familiarize yourself with the list of the most common scams operating on the network in order to make it easier to recognize fraud.

"Black Brokers"

“Black” brokers are fraudulent organizations that steal money under the guise of trading. They appear to be forex brokers or CFD brokers. There are also binary options brokers. If with respect to the first two it is still possible to understand whether they are honest or not, then binary brokers automatically fall into the category of scammers.

"Black" brokers are not always easy to recognize, because they are skillfully disguised. How do they do it?

• They expose fake registration data on their websites: legal address, certificate of incorporation.
• They attribute fake licenses to themselves or do not mention permitting documents at all, ignoring the very fact of the need to obtain them for legal activities.
• Tales are told about many years of work, pointing to the presence of numerous clients.
• They create visually attractive sites that fill with descriptions of their own advantages, of course, non-existent and useless guarantees.

“Black” brokers lure victims with promises of 100% earnings without difficulty, and after all, trading is always associated with the risk of financial losses, and experienced traders know this. But fraudulent brokers are aimed at those who do not understand anything about trading in the financial markets.

How does a divorce happen? Scammers offer to replenish the account with a minimum amount, assign a consultant or analyst to the client, whose task is to recommend deals that are beneficial to the broker. He leads the client, all the time persuading him to replenish the account and discouraging him from withdrawing profits. It all ends with the drain of the deposit and the blocking of the trading account.

Some brokers do not bring transactions to the markets at all, but only create the appearance of trading. All this happens on a platform that is their property, so you should be wary of dealing centers that offer customers only their own terminal, without providing an alternative.

To understand whether a reliable broker is in front of you or not, you should check its registration data, license, and also read the reviews that are written about it on the network.

Fake financial regulators

Financial regulators are state organizations that exercise control over the activities of financial companies, as well as control and regulate the distribution of financial instruments. Regulators inspect each company and issue a license, which is a confirmation that the company and its activities are under supervision, and its customers are protected. But not all regulators are honest.

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Today, the network is run by front regulatory organizations that issue fake licenses to brokers and investment companies. They pretend to check licensees, and their clients are promised comprehensive protection and assistance. In fact, such organizations are engaged in covering scammers, in principle, they are created by scammers, and often the same ones that are released into the network by brokerage and other investment scams.

That is, one gang of swindlers produces a false broker, and then a fake regulator that provides him with the same fake license. The presence of a license has a positive effect on the reputation of the company, even if it is not real, because investors do not know this. If during the check it turned out that the regulator is not state, but commercial, then it can be safely written down in the ranks of dummy sharagas.

Chargeback companies

Brokers, HYIPs, pyramid schemes and other scams steal clients' money, and chargeback companies return the lost funds to their owners. If the payment was made with Visa and MasterCard, then you can really count on getting your money back, provided that the chargeback company is honest. Today, hundreds of scammers are operating on the network offering this service, but in reality they simply steal the money of those who trusted them. Sad statistics says that only 5% of all Chargeback services are honest, the rest are fraudulent. Below we list the signs by which you can recognize chargeback scams:

• in order to receive the service, the client must make an advance payment, and there would be nothing to worry about if the advance payment was collected after the signing of the contract and its amount was indicated in it. But scammers do not bother with such actions, they simply take the money and create the appearance of vigorous activity to return the funds, and then stop getting in touch with the robbed victim;
• the company charges the client an insurance fee or fee, which is called sponsorship;
• to transfer funds, the company provides customers with wallets of electronic payment systems, personal bank cards, or even offers to transfer funds to the phone. If the company does not have corporate details for accepting client payments, then this is definitely a scam;
• the company guarantees that it will be able to return the funds. But she is not authorized to make a decision regarding the return, this is the competence of the bank, and therefore she cannot guarantee anything.

Pyramids and HYIPs

Pyramids are another scam, which is built according to the scheme developed by Charles Pontius. Its brightest representative is the MMM project, which was sensational in the 90s. A pyramid is an investment project, the task of which is to attract as many new customers as possible, and, accordingly, as much money as possible as an investment. Sometimes customers invest their hard-earned money into something, for example, in the case of MMM, investors invested in tickets.

Some pyramid schemes do have a real product that investors invest in. This is how the B2B Jewelry scam scheme worked. The scammers offered customers to buy either jewelry or gift certificates, naturally it was necessary to actively bring in newcomers, build a structure, for which the pyramid promised to pay a reward. You can promise anything, but the organizers are in no hurry to fulfill the promise. In pyramid schemes, only the top always earns and, perhaps, the first investors who are also close to the top.

HYIP is one of the types of pyramid, the distinctive feature of which is the presence of the so-called “magic button”, through which quick earnings occur. Such scams do not have a long lifespan, if classic pyramids can exist for years, then HYIPs - no more than a couple of months. There are, of course, exceptions.

Let's give an example of a hype to make it clearer: Telegram10 and TON10 and their branches. Projects offer to invest in cryptocurrency and immediately receive impressive profits. The need to attract newcomers never goes away. As a rule, HYIPs speculate on the names of famous people, in the case of the indicated scammers, speculation revolves around the personality of Pavel Durov.

By what signs can you recognize a pyramid and a hype?

• Such scams promise very high income, which always exceeds the income from bank deposits.
• Payments to investors are made at the expense of funds invested by new customers.
• Project advertising is always intrusive and aggressive.
• For beginners, scammers offer big payouts, bonuses and other chips.
• It is difficult to understand what to invest in, the product is usually presented vaguely.
• The lack of financial statements and a clear explanation of where the company takes such a lot of money to pay rewards to customers.

Cryptocurrency exchanges

Not all cryptocurrency exchanges are scams, these include fake platforms, which, as a rule, are very similar to the original ones. The growing interest in digital assets gave scammers yet another scam: the creation of pseudo-services for cryptocurrency trading. Very often, scammers churn out fake mobile applications of well-known cryptocurrency exchanges or copy the websites of these exchanges and lure victims to them. It is difficult to see the difference between the original site and the fake, in any case, those who do not have experience in cryptocurrency trading cannot do this if they do not know the nuances. We recommend that you pay attention to the spelling of the name of the exchange and the presence of the http or https data transfer protocol in the address bar.

Fraudsters often create fake cryptocurrency exchanges that sell cryptocurrencies that are fake. In return, they receive real money, with which they then safely disappear. A priori, such fake services cannot live long, because a lot of negative reviews about them very quickly appear on the network, which, of course, prevent them from attracting new victims.

Scammers lure clients to fake crypto exchanges with guarantees of high income, bonuses, and low commission fees. But the only thing that awaits those who fall for the bait of scammers is financial losses.

Cryptocurrency wallets

The growth of interest in digital currency naturally led to an increase in demand for services for its storage, that is, for crypto wallets. The crooks did not fail to take advantage of such a fertile period and came up with a divorce scheme. They began to fake original cryptocurrency wallets and launch them on the network. The name and design are difficult to distinguish from the original, so the number of victims of such scams is increasing every day. Users download wallets, deposit cryptocurrencies there and, without suspecting anything, store it there and conduct transactions. Fraudsters, in turn, pocket the clients' crypto and block the robbed users from accessing the wallet. In order not to fall for the bait of crooks, it is worth downloading crypto wallets on official websites. Even Google Play is not suitable for this, because scammers also place slip applications there.

The scheme of divorce with cryptocurrency wallets may look different: fake wallets are used as phishing resources, with the help of which scammers collect victims’ mobile banking data and then withdraw money from bank cards.

There is another kind of divorce with cryptocurrency wallets, cappers are involved in it. In this case, we are talking about cappers who trade in theft. They attract victims with promises of quick income with minimal investment, and then they take a deposit and start making money on it. All income is sent to a crypto wallet, which was created specifically for this income. The investor rejoices until he discovers that it is impossible to withdraw profits, since a lot of fees and commissions must be paid to carry out the withdrawal. And these are quite decent amounts! Thus, the crooks are trying to breed the victim not once, but several times.

Economic games

Economic games are the same financial pyramids, only carefully disguised. And this means that the risk of being left without income and losing investments is very high. This type of investment projects is not under the control of state financial regulators, so it is not surprising that there are a huge number of outright scams among them.

Let's look at the principle on which economic games are based. The game has certain actors in which users are offered to invest. You can also invest in the construction of various kinds of objects, these can be settlements, agricultural buildings, shopping centers and so on. Investors receive profit due to the processes that take place in the game. They are different and depend on the theme and scenario of the economic game.

The organizers of scams lure victims with favorable conditions, all kinds of prizes and bonuses, tales of quick withdrawal of funds without commission. An integral element of economic gaming scams is an affiliate program. Scammers encourage clients to refer newbies by promising a decent fee for each referral.

Customer accounts are filled with money, the amounts are growing rapidly, which awakens excitement and lulls vigilance. But as soon as the client decides to withdraw what he has earned, “sobering up” occurs, because the organizers of the scam immediately demand to pay a commission and other fees. Compliance with the requirements will still not contribute to the conclusion, because this function is not provided in economic scam games. Only the organizers earn here, and investors are used as “cash cows”.

Fake banks

The scam with fake banks looks like this: scammers fake websites of real banks, usually well-known ones, and lure customers there by offering to open deposits. Those who believe give their money to scammers, they will not receive anything back. Next, we will tell you how not to become a victim of a fake bank.

Once on the bank's website, the first thing to pay attention to is contact information: phone number, email, office address. If no one answers the phone and the answering machine does not work, and at the indicated address there is a building that has nothing to do with the bank, then you have a fake sharaga.

If a license is indicated on the bank’s website, then you can “break through” its number in the Central Bank database. Pay attention to whether there is https in the site address. This seemingly insignificant detail indicates a secure connection, as well as the fact that messages are encrypted during transmission. The absence of https means that the site is fake.

If a bank offers too high an interest rate on a deposit compared to other banks, then it is likely that this bank is fake.

Fake casinos and betting shops

The gambling business has always been and will be an ideal area for fraud. Swindlers forge the sites of popular casinos and rob unsuspecting players, appropriating their deposits, instead of which numbers are drawn on the accounts. Naturally, players cannot withdraw their money.

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Bookmakers have also become targets for the activities of swindlers. Scammers are cheating victims by offering paid predictions for upcoming matches that are "sucked out of your finger" or bets on matches that are fixed. In sports betting, a fraudulent scheme with the promotion of accounts in bookmakers is common. Often, scammers offer to pay for some very expensive, but “guaranteed accurate” forecast. The fraudulent tricks of pseudo-bookmakers also include the sale of strategies, the use of which allegedly allows you to win on bets.

The list of fraudulent schemes in the gambling industry is not limited to those listed above; crooks update their arsenal with enviable regularity. By the way, the presence of a casino or bookmaker's license does not provide them with reliability, and safety for players. We also note that in Russia such establishments are not licensed at all.

Fake exchangers

With fake exchangers, everything is clear, the essence of the divorce lies in the fact that crooks create fake exchange offices, naturally in an online format, and attract users with a favorable rate. Users deposit money for exchange, and scammers take it for themselves. If the exchange concerns cryptocurrency assets, then it makes no sense to seek help from the state, because they are not under the control of state financial institutions. Conclusion

We have listed the most popular fraudulent schemes that are now actively exploited by crooks. We hope that after the release of our material, the number of victims of scammers will decrease. After all, only knowledge and vigilance can become a reliable protection against the intrigues of online scammers.