Why scam investment platforms change their name every few days

Updated on November 7, 2026 · 4 min read

In short: if you search for the name of a platform you saw in an ad featuring a celebrity and find almost nothing, the most likely explanation is that the name was invented a few days ago. Of the 201 platforms we have recorded, 94 appeared in ads on a single day only. Scammers change names constantly so that no negative reviews or regulator warnings are ever attached to the name you are looking at.

Names that sound like money in your language

The names are not random. They almost always combine a financial root from the country’s language with a made-up ending, so they sound like a serious, local firm:

Another variant is the generic “tech” name (Quantum AI, Immediate Edge, Trade X), reused for months in dozens of countries with small variations.

Name families

Many platforms share one word and swap the other, as if they were products of the same brand: Candor Bondimary and Candor Dividholden; Meer Dividbrook and Meer Equityaris; Stake Lispro 0.7 and Stake Manerix 0.6; Sereno Medrencia, Sereno Plazadura and Próvida Medrencia; Swaptairis and Swaptivence. As soon as one name starts getting a bad reputation, its “sibling” shows up.

One website, three names in a week

The clearest case we saw was in Switzerland. The same landing page, on a domain imitating Swiss public broadcaster RTS (rtsneews[.]pro), was used for Gageolance, advertised from 27 October to 2 November; for Anteilwart Group, from 2 November; and for Scellérance, on 3 November. Same fake news story, same form: only the name changes. In total, 9 landing pages in our database were used for two or three different platforms.

Something similar happens with celebrities: two platforms using the same two celebrities are usually the same campaign. That is why we group connected platforms into networks.

Everything is ready before the ad runs

The name change is not improvised. By the time we see the first ad, everything needed is already in place:

• Positive reviews. In the 77 cases where we could date the first “review” published on serial review sites, it came before the first ad: a median of 22 days earlier, and up to 95 days. So anyone searching the name finds favourable opinions from day one. We explain how this works in Fake reviews of investment platforms.
• Hundreds of domains. We have identified almost 800 domains that imitate or use the names of these platforms, up to 16 for a single one.
• YouTube videos. “Analysis” videos under the new name, sending viewers to the sign-up form through the same redirect domains. We cover this in our YouTube investigation.
• Names on standby. We have found around 2,500 names that already have “reviews” on those sites but that we have not yet seen advertised. We monitor whether new domains appear with those names.

How to spot them even when the name changes

1. Finding nothing about the name is not a good sign. A real firm has years of history, a registered company and a licence you can check.
2. Be wary of names that “sound” financial in your language but mean nothing. No regulated firm is called that.
3. Check the company, not the brand, in the regulator’s register (the FCA in the UK, the SEC in the US, or your country’s financial regulator). Here is how to check whether a broker is regulated. If it is not listed, do not invest.
4. If the ad uses a celebrity, it is a scam, whatever the platform is called. See our ranking of the most impersonated celebrities.
5. Search for the platform on this site. If we have already seen it, you will find its page with the associated domains and fake reviews.

If you have already signed up or paid, follow these steps as soon as possible.

Methodology

We analysed the 201 platforms our team recorded in ads between 26 October and 3 November 2026, the domains found through searches and certificate monitoring, and the publication dates of the reviews according to the sitemaps of the sites that publish them. All figures are a minimum.