Breaking: Largest (Tech) Scam on the Internet.

    Update: On December 31 2022 A person called me and said that they were not involved more evidence is coming: Hello, this is TheTechBoy and today I will be exposing the major tech scam behind the Shadow X drone aka the SkyQuad, aka the MyQuadair, aka, aka the Air drone, aka the Taticaldrone aka the Nuvom Drone, etc. These companies appear to be a copy of the Eachine 58 drone per this YouTuber who appears to be sponsored by many of these bad actor companies. Advertisements for this drone are linked to Northstar media and Clicarc. (developing)  Per his YouTube Ad, Id he is linked to the USA. These companies appear to have fake reviewers ‘reviewing’ these drones. These fake review companies have links to other fake products, in a scheme more sinister than fake drone knockoffs. I heard about some of these companies in a video I saw here.

The Scam:

    Digitogy.eu did a review of the drone. However, this less-than-scrupulous network has affiliate links to the products they review (this is perfectly fine). What is not fine is the network giving no-name brands perfect reviews, with an awful excuse for a con. 

    For example, they reviewed the GX SmartWatch. They gave the watch an impressive 9.5 out of 10 with the only one being you had to charge the battery. How is this a con? Of course, you have to charge the battery!! I clicked the buy now button, and I found that it linked to Hypers Tech. Hypers Tech uses the affiliate m4trix.network. I attempted to email digitogy.eu, but of course the email bounced. Digitogy.eu, also has fake credentials, claiming to be featured on Fox News and other prestigious news outlets. They are not.

Hypers Tech is a very low-rated company. They have an astonishing 1.2 stars on Trustpilot and a 1% out of a possible 100% scam rating (higher is better) on scamdoc.com Other partners in this scam include Techplanet. They pretend to expose this scam, but they gave the drone a great review and linked to the official website.  

    Check out some of the Sponsored headlines that were seemingly simultaneously published on different news outlets.  Notice the time and date of the publishing, August 26 at 1:30 am.  I have found at least 4 websites that look similar, to this. These websites have plenty of fake review articles, with the purpose is to trick people with their official look for falling for scams like these.

 

    The scam gets worse though when I searched for skyquaddrone.com, I found other scam websites that used the exact same logo as the SkyQuaddrone. 

Other drone companies I found linked to this company (by using the same drone) were Shadowxdrone.com which no longer works (I used Wayback Machine) and the shadowxdrone. These drones use the same design as the drones used by Novum, Shadowdrone, Tactical Drone, and SkyQuad. I did a search on Copyscape and found the Argodrone. This drone uses the same text and layout as all the scams. The Argodrone has been doing this scam since 2015. All the drones are advertised as having an application, but I searched for it in the Play Store, and I got no results. Some of the ShadowX even got its press release in AP news in a now-defunct PR agency called TS Newswire.

This scam appears to be linked to beverlyhillsgadgetshop. The company appears legitimate, but they are selling some things under official names, but other things, such as the smart security camera, is branded as SMART when in reality it is a Xiaomi camera. Their password security is awful, and they are selling these fake scammy drones. The company and the drone company have a litany of negative reviews online, most of them because the company will not refund customers the products they have returned. I also found other fake products that fake reviewers/companies were promoting.  For example. I found this text on a website. 

Purchasing here is buying directly from Bril, the inventors of this innovative solution. Bril has partnered with GiddyUp, a curator of innovative products, to present a special offer that you won’t find anywhere else. To support these inventors, please consider buying your Bril on this site, rather than 3rd-Party retailers. 

Guess what Bril is? It is a toothbrush cleaner. They claim to be featured on prestigious news outlets, but I reversed searched articles about that company and I DID NOT FIND THEM FEATURED ON FOX NEWS OR USA TODAY!! I do not think they were featured on any news outlet!!

I reversed searched the text above and found another company using this same text.

Purchasing here is buying directly from Hootie, the inventors of this innovative solution. Hootie has partnered with GiddyUp, a curator of innovative products, to present a special offer that you won’t find anywhere else. To support these inventors, please consider buying your Hootie on this site, rather than 3rd-Party retailers.

    And guess who did a review of Hootie? That's right, digitogy.eu the allegedly "unbiased" tech review site. This site is a scam. I found a link on this site that linked to mydailydiscovery. It listed the products that are from Giddy Up. I checked the contact information, and got an email address for GiddyUp. I visited the Giddyup.io website and found that they are basically a promotion network where businesses can promote their product through influencers and Publishers. 

    Bril has negative comments in BBB but it has an A+ accreditation. It appears that some of these scammy products are using the Giddyup network to get affiliate links on websites. I saw another product listed on digitogy.eu with awesome reviews, so for this article, I asked the company for a review sample, to see if it is legitimate, or if I have uncovered an even larger scam. I found the main perpetrator behind the domains for the scammy products? It is none other than Giddy Up. According to WHOIS data, Giddy Up was created in January 2017, then the fake sites were created subsequently.   

I reversed searched this text and found other websites advertising peeps glasses cleaner, bedscrunchie, and flexsafe just to name a few. These sites all use the same template, have the same background, have fake five-star reviews from customers, and list stations that they say they were featured on. They also have a fake popup that says "Someone from this state just bought this."  All these sites are linked to Giddyup through Whois Data. 

    But it gets worse, the drone advertisement you see on YouTube says these are based on 5,000-dollar government technology that was released a couple of months ago. The first images of the advertisement show drones putting out fires and having advanced night vision capabilities.


    I came across a YouTube channel with 15 subscribers, but he put an ad video of one of these scam drones, and it had hundreds of thousands of views and the video had comments turned off. It was even embedded on the scam drone website. Other YouTube accounts promoted the drone, often with Text to Speech Software in youtube videos. Some channels were not even focused on drones or tech, and some uploaded so many videos a day that the channel had to have been sponsored by fake medical treatment companies complete with fake FDA ratings. (Update channel did not have too many videos added in one day, but did have fake medical content.) This is far more dangerous than bad clone drones, as it could claim people's lives.

 

How To Avoid This Scam

    These scammy websites use the same drone imagery (some with an X logo and some without), and some use the same layout as some of the other websites. They all have the same elements such as having "limited stock" and offering 40-60 % off. Also, the drones barely have any legitimate reviews online, and they show fake reviews from 'happy customers.' One website has the gall to give a fake quote from Paul Archer, the founder of DronesGator, claiming, "There is no comparable product when it comes to value for money." All these scams use the same pricing scheme with one drone costing 99 dollars, and they tout fake features such as GPS and 60-minute battery life in some of the 'reviews' online. 60-minute battery life has not been attained by some of the best, more expensive drones and honest reviews of this drone are contrary to the 60 min battery life claim.

    Also, the UI elements on some sites are awful. Also if you see any YouTube channels that have lots of videos all published on the same day (making videos takes time) it may be a scam. Also if they are making fake claims such as FDA approval (non-FDA approved supplements). The fake websites link to the affiliate software with links that say example.com/go/(productname). These links then redirect to the parent site. Also, all the reviews the site gives are positive and have lousy cons. Also, all the GiddyUp sites had .io domains and were bought on Namecheap. Avoid the Giddyup sites. 

Conclusion:

    In conclusion, this is one of the largest and most dangerous scams on the internet. By exploiting the power of affiliate marketing and fake reviewers these companies are pushing their fake products. The drone companies have bought plenty of Google and YouTube advertisements. They also show sponsored content on some websites and have advertorials. When I was investigating this scam, I came across scammy YouTube channels that promote bad, never heard of medicine. This is potentially dangerous. I also came across a company that sold the drone, called beverlyhillsgadgetshop which appears to be legitimately selling some products while ripping off products from other companies and selling it under a different name. Some of these drones are linked to Hypers Tech, which created the U  Phone and the X One phone. 

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    I learned about this scam from this video here. Hypers Tech Scam YouTube. After looking at this video, I searched for the Xonee phone and came across nerdknowbetter. This pretends to be a tech review site, but it promotes the garbage that the companies tell them to say. All the reviews start with this template text. "I hear about (company name) all time and finally, I decide to buy it and test it to see if is it a SCAM? Or is …" This was a great find, as it basically gives me a list of all the companies that are scamming you and possibly linked to Hypers Tech and Giddy Up. Cooltech may be involved as well. This now-defunct site is linked to an affiliate company owned by Rafael Zelik. I also found popularhitech.com which is selling lots of scammy devices. I discovered the TACTICPHONEX, the stealthhawk-pro, and much much more. Guess what, nerdknowbetter and digitogy reviewed it the TACTICPHONEX.

    In conclusion with a simple drone advertisement, I found the largest scam on the internet. It ranges from medicine to cellphones and, I believe that it is an affiliate scam where people get payouts if people buy their scammy products. Thus news outlets are incentivized to give great reviews. The real news outlets did not pick up on them though, so they probably got some people to make fake review sites. Stay vigilant and don't fall for any scams.  

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