Qwoxak is a scam: the fake «Hinge Club» that makes you pay a membership card to meet women

Foreword: we are a law firm that deals exclusively with online scams. We have already handled the case of a person who fell into the Qwoxak trap and we can help anyone who has suffered the same scam: if you want assistance, fill in the request form at the bottom of this article.

Qwoxak is a scam: the website qwoxak.vip, presented as «Hinge Club», a dating club with a membership card, does not offer any dating service but serves to obtain instant bank transfers to private accounts, with the promise of a «refund» increased by 20% that never arrives. We are not writing this on hearsay. We read the Telegram chat history with the so-called hostesses, the transfer receipts and the criminal complaint we drafted, all kept in the case file, and we checked the registration of the domains involved.

The conclusion is clear-cut: Qwoxak is a scam because no real club asks you to pay for a membership card several times with the promise of returning everything with a profit. The mechanism is that of the fake «upgrade» scam with refund, which exploits the person's loneliness and curiosity and then ties them in with small sums returned and the idea that there is no way back.

How Qwoxak works: from the fake dating club to the «VIP2» card

The Qwoxak scheme, as documented, starts from a contact who presents a dating club called «Hinge Club», accessible from the website qwoxak.vip. On Telegram the person is followed by a hostess who introduces herself as «the receptionist», who puts them in touch with other supposed club members and with a «manager», and adds them to dedicated Telegram groups. The name «Hinge» recalls an existing dating app, but our analysis found no link between that company and the website: it is a name used as a lure.

The rule of the game is simple, and for that very reason effective: to meet the women of the club you must obtain a «VIP2» card, and to obtain it you have to go through three successive «membership card upgrades». Each upgrade, the person is assured, is only a «temporary advance payment»: after a «vote» on the website the sum will be refunded with a 20% profit, so that the person will spend nothing. To keep everything under control, the person creates a member account on the site and is guided «in real time», step by step, through the payments.

A real membership club does not refund a fee with interest. And above all it does not make you «vote» points on a web page to decide when to give the money back.

Domain, holder and the absence of any authorisation

On the Qwoxak domain, according to the RDAP registry queried on 10 November 2026, qwoxak.vip was registered on 16 September 2026, expiring on 16 September 2027, through the registrar Dynadot and with Cloudflare name servers. The victim's first payment is dated 28 October 2026: the site was therefore little more than six weeks old, an age incompatible with any established «club». The holder's data is not public. Using Cloudflare and a registrar that allows the holder to be hidden is not unlawful in itself: it becomes an indicator when added to everything else.

What else there is: for Qwoxak there is no company name, VAT number, registered office or reliable contact, and all communication takes place through Telegram. Article 7 of Italian Legislative Decree 70/2003 requires information society service providers to make name, address and VAT number, if any, accessible. An association that collects fees and does not say who it is does not exist: Qwoxak is a scam for this reason too.

The second website that appears in the story, casaartesanaxg.best, presented as «Handmade», was registered on 8 September 2026 through the same registrar and with the same Cloudflare name servers. Two different sites, for two different lures, registered a few days apart on the same infrastructure: the sign of a single directing hand.

The 20% refund and the «vote»: the promise that keeps Qwoxak going

The point on which Qwoxak leverages is a profit promised within a very short time and without risk: each payment is presented as a temporary advance, and after a «vote» on the website a refund with a 20% profit is due. No serious operator can guarantee a return in advance, still less within minutes. In reality, lending a sum to anyone, with guaranteed repayment and interest, is an operation that exists in no lawful intermediation activity.

To lend credibility to the scheme, the person receives a few refunds of modest amount: in the case examined, 144 euro on 29 October 2026. That sum, which appears in the conversation as a «transfer» in favour of the person, serves to turn caution into trust and to induce larger payments. It is the lure: in fake investments and fake «tasks» the first refund is always small and always punctual.

Instant transfers to third-party accounts: the Qwoxak script

The receipts in the Qwoxak case document four instant transfers in two days, for more than 3,100 euro: 30 euro on 28 October 2026, then 120 euro (after two attempts of 80 euro that, it was claimed, had not succeeded), 380 euro and finally 2,586 euro on 29 October. The amounts grow with the typical progression, with these characteristic features:

• each «upgrade» is paid to a different beneficiary, indicated each time in the chat with IBAN and account holder;
• the beneficiaries are individuals holding accounts at different institutions, including a credit institution based in Germany, unconnected with any club activity;
• the person must send a screenshot of the receipt right after every transfer, so that the hostess can check in real time that the operation has been carried out;
• when a transfer «did not succeed», responsibility is attributed to the victim and the request to pay again is presented as a remedy;
• the suggested payment reference is «Club card», wording that has nothing to do with a club's activity;
• requests are presented as urgent and to be executed «in real time», so as to stop the person from pausing to think.

Deadlines and pressure serve a single purpose: to stop the person from pausing to think. When every payment is needed to «unlock» the previous one, the capital already lost becomes the reason to pay more.

The move to cryptocurrency: from the card to the fake «Handmade» platform

For the third phase of the upgrade the person is directed to the «manager», with the promise of a special promotion for those who pay in cryptocurrency. On the scammers' instructions the person opens an account on a cryptocurrency exchange in their own name and is directed to the website casaartesanaxg.best, the so-called «Handmade» platform, where they register with their telephone number.

It is a step that those who deal with these cases recognise at once: after the first lure (the club), a second platform appears, again with the promise of a refund, which starts a new series of payments. In the Qwoxak script the scheme mirrors that of the fake «Amazon Handmade» job, which we described in the analysis of Hanzmade: a platform that shows a balance, assigns «tasks» and asks for money to unlock it. It is no coincidence that the name is the same.

Identity document and facial recognition: the risk of identity theft

An element that aggravates the Qwoxak case, and that must be pointed out to anyone in the same situation, is the handing over of personal documents to the scammers. In the case examined the person provided an identity card, tax code, IBAN, a few utility bills and a facial recognition. Whoever holds this data can try to open accounts, apply for loans or present themselves to third parties in the victim's name.

Anyone who uses another person's document answers, among other things, for identity substitution (Article 494 of the Criminal Code), but in the meantime the risk falls on the person who handed over the data. For this reason, alongside the criminal complaint for the fraud, it is advisable to report the matter to the bank, monitor your own accounts and, where appropriate, activate the alert and verification tools offered by intermediaries. A document that has been handed over cannot be recovered, but its use can be made harder.

Aggravated fraud (Art. 640 Criminal Code), complaint and money laundering: the criminal framework of Qwoxak

The conduct described constitutes the offence of fraud under Article 640 of the Italian Criminal Code: the artifices and deceptions consist of the fake dating club, the promise of a refund with a 20% profit, the simulation of a «vote» on the site, the small initial refunds and the step-by-step assistance of a hostess who indicates third-party accounts each time; the damage is the property paid by the injured party.

When the act is committed remotely through computer or telematic means capable of hindering the identification of the perpetrator, the aggravating circumstance of Article 640(2) no. 2-ter applies, introduced by Law 90/2024 and in force since 17 July 2024. With judgment no. 27907/2026 (hearing of 14 July 2026), the Second Criminal Section of the Court of Cassation clarified that this aggravating circumstance concerns the manner of execution of the conduct, and distinguished it from the diminished defence of Article 61 no. 5, linked instead to the concrete vulnerability of the victim. In the same ruling the Court stated that fraud so aggravated is now prosecutable only on complaint by the injured party, by virtue of the exception in the fourth paragraph of Article 640 as amended by Decree-Law 48/2025, converted by Law 80/2025. Judgment no. 18913/2026 (hearing of 26 March 2026) confirmed it: proceedings are on complaint if no. 2-ter applies, ex officio if Article 61 no. 5 applies.

The practical point, for those defrauded by Qwoxak, is that without a complaint, in many of these cases, the proceedings cannot continue. The complaint is not a formality: it is the act that sets the public prosecutor's office in motion. With judgment no. 5191/2026 (hearing of 13 January 2026), the Court of Cassation also reaffirmed that fraud is «of prolonged consummation» even when the deceptive activity continues in order to create in the victims the reliance needed to obtain further profits: the logic is the same as the «payments to unlock» demanded by Qwoxak, each of which is an act of the same fraudulent design.

The most delicate aspect is that of the beneficiary accounts. When the transfers flow into accounts held by real persons, whoever opened them or allowed their use may be liable, depending on the findings, for complicity in the fraud or for money laundering and self-laundering (Articles 648-bis and 648-ter.1 of the Criminal Code), and the picture, if a stable structure emerged, could extend to criminal association (Article 416 of the Criminal Code). What each holder knew is a matter for the judicial authority to establish: we do not presume it. The fact remains that, since the accounts are identifiable, the case is easier to pursue than people think.

Complaint, seizure and bank acquisitions: the timing that decides recovery

The time limit for filing a complaint is three months from the day on which the injured party learned of the fact (Article 124 of the Criminal Code). It does not pay to play with dates, because every day that passes in the hope of a refund reduces the chances of intercepting the funds, in particular with instant transfers, which leave the beneficiaries' accounts within hours.

In the Qwoxak case, the criminal complaint to the public prosecutor's office that we prepared asks, among other things, for seizure and freezing of the sums, including of equivalent value (Article 640-quater of the Criminal Code), and for acquisition from the banks of the account-opening and identification data (KYC) of the beneficiary accounts, the account statements and subsequent movements, together with the registration data of the domains and of the messaging service providers. Since one of the accounts is with an institution based in Germany, it also asks the prosecutor to consider a European investigation order. In civil proceedings, a conservatory seizure (Article 316 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, when joining as civil party) and, against those who received the sums without entitlement, recovery of undue payment (Article 2033 of the Civil Code) remain available, as we showed in the solved case on recovery of undue payment after an online scam (in Italian). For the confiscation aspect see also our in-depth piece on confiscation of equivalent value and online scams (in Italian).

What to do if you have already paid Qwoxak

The first step is to stop paying, whatever deadline is imposed and whatever «loss» is put to you: the fact that the upgrade has to be completed in real time is pressure, not an obligation. The second is to preserve every element:

• the Telegram chats with the hostesses and the groups, saved in full and with dates;
• the receipts of every transfer, with IBAN, account holder, reference and time;
• screenshots of the website, of the member account and of the second platform;
• the Telegram profiles and usernames of the interlocutors;
• the statements of the account from which the payments were made.

The third, after paying Qwoxak, is to report the matter to the bank within hours and not days, asking for the checks that are possible: the outcome depends on the instrument and the time elapsed and cannot be guaranteed. A criminal complaint follows, drafted so as to enable the prosecutor's office to act on the accounts.

You should also distrust anyone who offers to «recover» the funds for an advance payment. After the victim stops paying, it is common for the same group to reappear under another name: this is the second scam, analysed in our review of fake fund-recovery services (in Italian). On why to entrust the complaint to a professional, we wrote this guide on how to entrust the complaint to a lawyer expert in online scams (in Italian).

How to recognise a fake club or a fake platform before paying

Before paying money to a website that promises dates, cards or refunds, the check takes a few minutes:

• look up the company name, registered office and VAT number of whoever runs the service and compare them with the business register;
• check the age of the domain: an «established» club registered a few weeks ago is a serious warning sign;
• distrust anyone who asks you to pay several times with the promise of returning everything with a profit;
• never pay money into accounts held by individuals other than the one claiming to offer the service;
• never send identity documents, your face or utility bills to someone who contacts you on Telegram.

Qwoxak is a scam: the closing warning

A single missing element could be an oversight. In the case of Qwoxak the association, the VAT number, the registered office and the holder are all missing; the domain is a few weeks old; every payment goes to a different account held by an individual; the 20% refund never arrives; and the person is steered towards a second platform with the same script. The picture is such that, absent proof to the contrary, prudence requires treating Qwoxak as a scam. The operator of Qwoxak is free to reply with public documents, stating company, authorisations and registered office.

If you have paid an «upgrade» to Qwoxak or to Hinge Club, made transfers or been asked to pay money to obtain a refund, contact us by filling in the form at the bottom of this page: we are a law firm that handles only online scam cases, we have already followed this case and we will assess your position, including out of court, indicating the initiatives that are concretely feasible, without promising results that no serious professional can guarantee. If you have suffered the same scam, we can help you.