Tale of a scam

This morning I dedicated half an hour to understand something better about a scam that I had understood to be a scam without ever having seen it in action.

I’ll start with a shortened link I received. A page opens with the graphics of a well-known Italian newspaper (La Repubblica) presenting a series of articles and testimonials on a way to get rich without doing shit.
hxxp://larepubblica[.]vipcanberich[.]top/bx4ng7rcoxggna6/d4wgksheywr/rwrcvjbk/
The page, even if poorly made, could be plausible for someone who is not very smart (there are people who believe in the flat earth…)

All the links on the page lead to a form to be filled out with name, surname, email, telephone number.

I fill out the form and after submitting it I find myself on a page that looks like an online trading dashboard.

The page contains the data I sent. Within a few seconds I receive a call from the number +390645220040, on the other end a young man who says his name is Fabrizio. From the way he speaks you can tell that he is not a native Italian speaker.

He introduces himself, chats and asks me to visit the site hxxps://weonmarket[.]com.

I do it and I find myself back on the previous dashboard. He asks me to visit some pages of this site trying to instill confidence in the system and asks me to send a message in a chat. I do it and after a few seconds I receive the link (hxxps://furyquick[.]io/pjprpZ) to make the first deposit of 250 euros.

I click on the link and I find myself on a checkout page of a Bulgarian site that sells training courses. I make an excuse and end the call (I told him I only have an AMEX card which I saw was not accepted by the platform).

I just receive also an email with information about my pending payment

All very simple.

So, now, what do we know?

• Do not click on links received via email, text message or WhatsApp. It doesn’t matter if we think we know the sender.
• Information has value based on its source. The source must be verified. If you are unable to verify a source or don’t feel like doing so you will probably mess up. Especially if you go to vote.
• The phone number +390645220040 is used to scam.
• The website weonmarket[.]com is used for scamming.
• The intensibio[.]com website is used as a platform to receive money from the scams carried out by these gentlemen.
• The furyquick.io site is used to create links to the intensibio[.]com site
• The scam only works if you don’t want to use an American Express card. AMEX is not an accepted payment method.