Website Name
Bank-of-tron.com
Website Type
TRON Investment Platform
Is Bank of Tron Fake or Real?
Fake
Why Is Bank of Tron Fake?
Bank of Tron claims to be a platform for investing in the cryptocurrency TRON, or TRX. It is designed as a blockchain smart contract, similar to Forsage and AutoEtherBot which have been covered on this blog. Both of those were determined to be scams, with Forsage officially being declared so. This article goes into detail about why Bank of Tron is no different.
Bank of Tron has investment plans which are said to generate a daily profit between 3.7% to 6.7%. These figures are ridiculous for anyone with investment knowledge as they equate to annual profits of 1,350% to 2,445%, which are absurd numbers. There is no mention of any product or service that the company provides.
What also defies logic is that long-term investments give lower profits. In the Telegram group, it was found that there are contests being held which reward members for not withdrawing funds. Due to these facts and as there is no evidence of any income being generated other than the money deposited by investors, Bank of Tron is showing signs that it is a Ponzi scheme.
A domain name lookup of the website shows that it was registered on 5th April 2019. No information about the registrant’s name and location is available as it has been hidden for privacy. Traffic data of the website indicates that the platform has been active since June 2019.
Much like Forsage and AutoEtherBot, Bank of Tron is trying to portray itself as safe because it is running as a blockchain smart contract. A smart contract is merely code which allows for automatic payments when conditions are met. While the contract is indeed decentralized, it does prevent the investment plan from being a Ponzi scheme.
The website is a simple one-pager containing all relevant information. There are no detailed FAQs which explain the plan. Even on such a bare-bones website, the creators managed to make very noticeable a spelling mistake, which makes me question their professionalism.
Bank of Tron has a referral plan which gives commissions up to 3 levels. It is a 5%-2%-0.5% referral program which means that an investor earns 5% commission on deposits made by direct referrals, 2% commission on deposits made by referrals of referrals and 0.5% commission on deposits made by the third level of referrals. This clearly shows that Bank of Tron is a Ponzi scheme.
There is no contact information such as an email ID, phone number or address given on the website. There are two links in the footer which are of their Telegram and Discord channels. The Telegram channel had links to their social media pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Though the website has been active for more than a year, these pages have been created as recently as a month back.
The Facebook page provides the email ID charlesewusi335@gmail.com and the Instagram page claims to provide support in Persian language. These suggest that the website has African or Middle Eastern origin.
There are some reviews available for Bank of Tron on sites such as TrustPilot and Scamadviser. The reviews are all positive and the users claim that they are getting payouts. The credibility of these reviews is low as they seem to have been created to gain referrals. Many of them contain the Telegram IDs of the reviewer so that others can contact them to inquire about Bank of Tron.
It seems quite clear that Bank of Tron is a Ponzi scheme. There is no information on who set up the scheme. We can see from the Telegram group that there are multiple people involved who are paying extra rewards to members. Even though it is a blockchain smart contract, it is still set-up in such a way that the earliest investors get the maximum benefits. Therefore, everyone is not equal in the scheme.
The company does not have any product or service. Revenue is only generated from the deposits made by investors. The 5%-2%-0.5% referral program incentivizes members to rope in more people to invest in Bank of Tron. Therefore, it seems obvious that money from new investors is used to pay off old investors.
The reviews saying that users have received payouts may be true. Such a scheme always pays investors initially to make gain their confidence. This is done so that they reinvest larger amounts and generate referrals. However, pyramid schemes are unsustainable as they rely on deposits of new members to pay old members. Such a scheme will inevitably collapse when no new members invest in the company. The profits will slowly reduce and stop completely at one point. A majority of investors in Ponzi schemes end up losing their investments.
Schemes such as Bank of Tron can gain momentum for years before eventually going bust. Bank of Tron is barely a year old, which makes it a relatively new scheme. It is advisable to avoid investing in the scheme as there is a high probability of losing your money. Pyramid schemes are considered a form of fraud and are illegal all over the world.
How to Get Your Money Back from a Scam
Remember: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
If you have been a victim of an investment scam, you can take the following steps:
- File a complaint with the payment portal. However, investment scammers mostly use methods such as Bitcoin, Western Union, MoneyGram and other untraceable methods which make refunds impossible.
- File a formal police complaint with the Cybercrime department.
- Leave a negative review on review portals such as Scamadviser and TrustPilot
- Report the website to Google using the Suspicious Site Reporter extension for Chrome
- Give a low rating to the website on Web of Trust. You can also install their extension for the same.
- If the company has a listing on Google My Business or Google Maps, file a complaint using the Business Redressal Complaint Form. Also, leave a negative review explaining what kind of experience you had.
Disclaimer: This review is intended for information only and should not be relied on when making financial or business decisions. If you are a website owner and would like to provide clarifications regarding your business and/or website, please get in touch using the Contact Form.