VanguardTrade – Account Balance (Fraudulent Platform)

A Californian reported a typosquatted crypto trading platform called “VanguardTrade”, at http://user.vanguradtradeprocrm.com. Typosquatting is a method where individuals register common misspellings, typos, or slight variations of popular domain names to lure users to malicious websites. VanguardTrade used a deliberate misspelling of an established investment management company – the Vanguard Group (at vanguard.com ) – to lure victims.

The victim was contacted by “Jane” and “Josh”, who referred them to an online trading group. In the group, Jane and Josh advertised VanguardTrade, and provided group members with what appeared to be wildly successful trading signals. For several months, the victim watched as other members reported large returns by trading based on the signals on VanguardTrade. Eventually, the victim began trading along with the group.

The victim invested $100,000 on VanguardTrade and believed they had doubled their profit after just a couple months. Then, the victim tried to withdraw $20,000 from their account, but the site blocked them. Jane and Josh subsequently cut contact with the victim. The site is no longer operational.