Nevo Finance: A classic investment scam
It started with a surprise add to a Telegram group called NevoFinance. This was full of happy investors posting their about their successful withdrawals and how much money they’d made already using the platform. I’m added to random telegram groups on a daily basis (it’s why I have so much content to write about!), and 99% of them are scams. This is one of them… I’ll walk you through how I knew straight away…
Guaranteed Returns
I noted this in my previous post about Sharon the Instagram scammer and it’s always a huge red flag. No one can promise you guaranteed returns in crypto, it’s a highly volatile market and even the most advanced trading firms in the world can make a loss. The returns you’d get (if any) from this type of platform are from other victims putting in their cryptofunds — this is called a ponzi scheme!
They promised returns consistently; on the telegram, on the website and even when I reached out to them via the website chat functionality. They offered the following explanation for how they could guarantee the profits:
“Our company’s system is developed to work with a 99percent loss proof. Remember no system is 100% loss proof, but your investments are totally secure from any loss. … With daily returns of investment paid to you after the first 48 hours depending on the term of investment you want (Long,Middle,or Short Term) exclusive the date which you fulfilled the contract. And an annual percentage too is paid accordingly. Aside this benefits, you earn from every referral made.”
The Hype Brigade
Most often in groups like this you’ll see a flurry of messages from other ‘investors’ who have received their profits and had their lives changed. They might even post pictures of their crypto wallets or send photos of the blockchain transaction to ‘prove’ this. These photos are fake. I’ve seen enough of these crypto groups to see the same photos appear repeatedly, and I’ve even manually typed in some of the transaction hashes and addresses from the photos into block explorers only to see that they’re either fake or linked to completed different entities then being claimed. Don’t trust, verify!
The Website
It’s a classic out the box website with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and stock photos/icons aplenty.
I particularly enjoyed some of the items on the FAQs page which were wonderfully unhelpful
- Which e-currencies do you accept?
We accept e-currencies.
- How long does it take for my deposit to be added to my account?
Your account will be updated as fast, as you deposit.
- Who manages the funds?
These funds are managed by a team of nevofinance.co investment experts.
And the incredibly brazen:
- Can I lose money?
There is a risk involved with investing in all high yield investment programs. However, there are a few simple ways that can help you to reduce the risk of losing more than you can afford to. First, align your investments with your financial goals, in other words, keep the money you may need for the short-term out of more aggressive investments, reserving those investment funds for the money you intend to raise over the long-term. It’s very important for you to know that we are real traders and that we invest members’ funds on major investments.
The website lists a business address so I popped that into Google maps to see what professional office space this investment company was operating out of …
Nevo Finance either looks to be operating from a residential flat, K’s spice african express, newsagent Aces One Stop or Fix It Pal Repair Shop. It looks to be an interesting location choice, but many people run businesses from surprising locations so this wasn’t in itself damning. Just a red flag.
I then stumbled across two testimonials from ‘satisfied’ customers but a quick reverse image search of “Andrew Bright” revealed that this photo is actually of a creative writing professor at Harvard College called Clem Samson: https://clemsamson.medium.com/.
What also gave me a chuckle was the scrolling banner below which is usually to display the logos of your most valued customers. Instead Nevo Finance had included a bunch of sample logos without changing the dummy text of “Creative Graphic Design” and “Unique Premium Quality”.
With the evidence above it was clear that this was a scam, so I duly posted a warning in the telegram group to alert others. Interestingly they had a bot in the group which immediately deleted my message since it contained the banned word “scam”. I was given a warning. I posted again, this time getting round the bot message but within seconds my message was removed and I was ejected from the group.
However whilst I may have been banned from the scam group on telegram, I did open an account on the Nevo Finance website and collect the Bitcoin, Ethereum (which they spelt as “Etherum”), Dogecoin and Tron deposit addresses. These addresses didn’t appear to be generated per user but more likely static for all users, and from a quick who is lookup I could see that the website was registered on 8th July 2022. So considering these addresses had received a grand total of $71.69, it’s hardly the scam of the century. In fact, the domain address probably cost more than that!
As I always do, I then reached out to the scammers using the Intercom pop up on their website to ask them why they were scamming people. For the first time I got not only a reply but ended up having a chat with them!
After some back and forth where they refuted all my claims about them being a scam and promised all money was safely invested with them, I asked them what their motivation was for doing this.
I also offered them option d) that they genuinely believed this was a legit investment platform and no one was losing money.
The scammer once again assured me that all money was safe and the platform was real.
I asked them if they were being forced to do this or if it was the only source of income they could find but it appeared that they had enough of me and the message pop-up completely disappeared! I’d been blocked. ⛔
Nevo Finance has all the telltale signs of an investment scam, but luckily it appears to have had limited success, at least for now. Hopefully this piece has given you more information about this scam typology and the tactics used so that you won’t fall foul to it yourself. Stay safe in the cryptosphere!
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
