Scam alerts for Luno customers

Cryptocurrency is attractive to scammers for the same reasons it appeals to many other people: it allows for fast, irreversible payments. At the same time, this is a relatively new technology, so scammers can exploit gaps in your knowledge of crypto.

We want you to be safe, and knowledge is power, so we’ve put together a few examples of scams we’ve seen:

Luno impersonators

We’re a cryptocurrency platform trusted by millions of customers worldwide. To leverage this trust for themselves, scammers might claim to work for Luno as traders, agents or account managers to get you to send them money or grant them control of your account.

How to spot an impersonator

People pretending to work for Luno will:

• Message you directly on WhatsApp, Telegram or LinkedIn, or DM you on social media pretending to be a Luno employee or trader

• Contact you from a non-Luno email address, such as Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo

• Ask for access to your Luno account or bank account

• Offer to trade on your behalf or manage your Luno account

• Promise guaranteed profits

Luno does NOT:

• Employ traders or account managers who trade on our customers’ behalf

• Offer financial or trading advice

• Guarantee profits

• Contact you directly on WhatsApp or Telegram or from a personal social media profile

• Ask you to grant us access to your account or to authorise transactions for us

Luno will only ever contact you via:

• Your Luno app

• Official Luno email addresses

• Official Luno social media accounts

Phishing SMSs

How they work

• You receive an SMS that you weren’t expecting telling you to update, verify or validate your Luno account

• The SMS often threatens to block, suspend or deactivate your account if you don’t perform an action by clicking on the link in the SMS

• The link will direct you to a fake Luno website. When you try to sign in to this fake site, you’ll get an error message - but the scammer has just collected your sign-in credentials

• You'll then receive a call from someone claiming to be from Luno who’ll offer to help you update, verify or validate your account

• They’ll trick you into giving them your OTP or 2FA code, or trusting their device

• Later, the scammer will sign in to your account and steal your money

Frequently asked questions

Social media "traders"

How they work

• A scammer will contact you on social media offering to trade cryptocurrency, binary options or Foreign Currencies (FX) on your behalf

• They may pose as a Luno representative

• They’ll promise you amazing returns in a short timeframe (Earn R15,000 in 7 days by investing only R1,000, or doubling your investment in 48 hours)

• After a few days, they’ll share screenshots (or even link you to a website) showing you the “profits” you’ve made

How you’ll know it’s a scam

There’s always a catch. Don’t believe any promises that you can make a lot of money very quickly. Traditional investments return between 1% and 10% per year - anything more than that is too good to be true.

• They’ll tell you that you need to pay a fee before they can release your “profits” to you. Here’s a list of fees that scammers might require you to pay

• To pay these fees, they’ll ask you to send crypto to a non-Luno wallet address, which usually means that Luno can’t recover the funds

• They’ll say you need to “top up” your wallet to increase your investment and upgrade your account

• Once you’ve made the payment, they’ll inform you of even more hidden costs you need to pay, or they’ll simply block you and disappear

Crypto receive scams

How they work

You receive an email or message that you weren’t expecting, stating that you’ve “received” or “won” crypto. However, you need to complete one of the following actions to receive the funds:

• Clicking a link that might look just like Luno (but it takes you to a fake website)

• Downloading an attachment (which will install a virus on your device)

• Paying a fee to receive the funds