We have issued a warning against the broker scam AlgofGain (www.algofgain.com) on May 18, 2021 (see report here). Currently, the scam is promoted via fake news articles on the website https://yucosmos.com praising the fraudulent BitQT campaign on Best Invest News (https://best-invest-news.com/bitqt). They are attacking German-speaking consumers. The scam has built an extensive collection of supporting payment processors via its BoxiPay cashier. On Trustpilot, AlgofGain now has only a 2.8-star rating with a “Poor” trust level. Do not fall for BitQT and AlgofGain.
The list of scam-facilitating payment processors from the two scams reads like a who’s who of high-risk payment processors. Specifically, we found the following payment processors behind AlgofGain. We have only listed those that were still active at the time of our review:
- Euro Payment Group GmbH (www.europaymentgroup.com and www.epg-services.com) d/b/a EPG, a German payment processor with the Maltese subsidiary EPG Financial Services Limited (www.epg-financials.com), licensed by the Maltese Financial Services Authority (MFSA) as an e-Money Institution with the license code C 68611.
- Ikajo (www.ikajo.com and www.fxpaymentservices.com) operated by Ikajo International BV, a Ukraine high-risk payment processor operating via a Dutch company and offices in Kyiv and Amsterdam;
- PayCent (www.paycent.com) is operated by Texcent Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore.
- NeoBanQ (www.neobanq.ltd and www.neobanq.global), an unregulated high-risk payment processor operated by UK-registered NeoBanQ Ltd.
- BitOfHeaven (www.bitofheaven.io) operated by Loyalfinance OÜ (companies register) licensed by the Estonian FIU;
- Bitngo (www.bitngo.co) operated by European Consulting Consultant OÜ (companies register) with an FIU license, listed as GrecoPay in the scams’ payment options;
- Bitexchain (www.bitexchain.com) operated by CoinFarm OÜ (companies register) with an FIU license;
- Hospic (www.hospic.io)
- Certus Finance (www.certus.finance) operated by Estonian Sreda Monay OÜ (companies register), licensed by the Estonian FIU
- PaymentsPro (www.paymentspro.de), currently not active.
- Payneteasy (www.payneteasy.com) is a Russian payment processor claiming to have an office in Gibraltar;
- RHG Partners (www.rhgpartners.com), a Turkish FX provider and (illegal) payment processor, which site went under construction after our first report on YuanPay (here).
Some of the payment processors listed, such as BitOfHeaven, operate without deep integration. As a result, the victims of the scams have to register there and go through the “normal” onboarding procedure. However, others like Payneteasy or PaymentsPro have deep integration into the scams’ BoxiPay Cashier, i.e., a merchant agreement is in place.
