Fact: Scams, frauds, and hacks happen all the time around us. Even though most of us think we are safe, having an always updated antivirus, being very cautious about which websites we visit or where we keep our keys/passwords, we can never be protected well enough.

Besides, who can protect us from ourselves?

If you are wondering why I am writing all this, please read on. You will see how I evaluated an investment platform that someone recommended to me and why I consider it as potentially fraudulent and definitely one that I would not trust with my personal/financial information.

There will be a tl;dr version at the end of this post if you prefer not to read all the details :)

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Let's start at the beginning.

Receiving message by an unknown user..

I was on telegram when someone I did not know sent me a dm asking me if I am Greek and where I am from. (the first reason to be extra cautious) I usually give some time to people before I consider them to be a scam, this person seemed to be polite and is from a town in Greece. After exchanging a couple of friendly sentences, I asked him directly. How come you contacted me? Do you care to discuss something specific? He said 'yes' - I liked it that he was honest. I said, tell me what.

And then he started

The unknown person shares an amazing one-in-a-lifetime opportunity with me

"You know, there is a platform that I ve been using for 3 months. I have deposited money and gained a great profit. I have proof of it. I can tell you all about it and believe me, I don't gain anything. You can check it yourself before you decide. If you use my ref, then the company pays me 10% (not from your money, from their own money)" etc etc

This is a second red flag. A great investment platform that an unknown person shares with me to help me make money, and him make some extra profit? Hmm

I felt he was honest. I mean, he believed that what he was sharing with me, was really an opportunity. So I wanted to help him out if I could.

And now .. lets go perform a quick analysis at the website

Let's visit the website now. I am not sure if I should mention it here but I will give you the basic

Website

Entering the website, I see that the design is no great - but it is ok for me.

To be very honest I do not understand how I can trade without any trading skills, but let's move to the next point.

Continuing with info about their packages & tokens but .. I do not see any token anywhere, or any blockchain transactions to be mentioned.

No social media?
Not even a Facebook page or a Twitter account? This alone is very suspicious for me.

Who is the team behind the company?
Nice, smiling faces. Do you think that there are links of their linkedin/facebook profiles??
No, of course NOT!

Let's google the first one.
If you google their name, a famous singer appears. With a different face. So, no it is not him.

I wanted to prove that I did not make a mistake so I reverse-searched the image of the fist team member.
Guess what! He has a different name :) A totally different person!

Certificate!?

But wait, there is a certificate!
Opening it, we see a number and also a date in 2014.

Their Certificate The real - prototype

I had to do some digging, and this is where their certificate derives from.
They took, copied and did some photoshop so that it seems real.

https://www.accountablemic.com/wp/?page_id=529

Searching their website who-is information

There are many smaller details, but I will end with the 'who is' where I will search the domain name.

They claim to be a company since 2014.
But if you visit the who-is page, you will see that they only registered the domain in May 2022 (just a few months ago)

Terms & Conditions - Privacy Policy

We forgot one of the most important things. Let's read their privacy policy and terms. This can also help us identify if they are legit

Guess what. The links did not lead anywhere, they are empty.

TL;DR

A person I had just met suggested a great investment platform that would bring me a big profit. I decided to visit the website and see for myself, even though it sounded too good to be true. What I found out and persuaded me not to join (and to warn this person) was

• No social media
• No privacy policy / terms
• Fake images from team members and not linkedin/facebook profiles (dead links)
• Fake certificate
• Searched domain "who-is" and discovered that it was registered in the current year, when they claim to be in business since 2014

Some final thoughts

I told this person, hey look. I dont want to disappoint you, but it seems like they are a scam. He said. Nooo! Why do you say that? They have a certificate. I searched for their founder. I also saw them on trustpilot ...

And guess what, they have only 6 reviews on TrustPilot .. Would that be a good sign to you?

Is there something else that I should look for? If it was not for this person, to try and help him, I would not look deeper than 5 minutes.

But I considered it to be my duty to tell him my opinion.

Let me know what you think. Do you research well a platform before using it? Do you have such stories to share? Let's spread awareness and educate more people if possible.

Let's stay safe.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta