Renovae: Scam Warning, Reviews and Recovery Guide

Issued by: Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) Quebec / CSA · Date: 2026-08-21 · Region: Quebec

Also known as: Renovae, renovae.app, Renovae Invest

Overview — Is Renovae Legit?

Renovae, operating at renovae.app, was flagged by Quebec's Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) on August 21, 2026. The AMF states that Renovae is not registered with it and is not authorized to solicit investors in Quebec.

What is unusual about this alert is how little else exists. The CSA record lists no other trading names, no claimed country of operation, no corporate registration and no supporting documents beyond the AMF's own notice. Searching the name returns no company filings, no regulator listing anywhere in the world, and no independent coverage. There is a brand, a single web address, and a regulator's finding.

That emptiness is not a gap in the warning. It is the substance of it. A firm lawfully selling investments to Quebec residents has a registration number, an identifiable legal entity, named individuals who are themselves registered, and a regulator with authority over it. Renovae has a domain.

The domain itself is worth a moment, because it is the one concrete technical fact available and most investors have never had reason to think about it. Renovae operates on a `.app` address, not `.com`, `.ca` or any financial-sector domain. `.app` is a top-level domain operated by Google Registry and marketed at software applications and developer products. Its defining technical feature is that the entire TLD sits on the HSTS preload list, meaning every `.app` site must be served over HTTPS. Browsers will not load one over plain HTTP at all.

That has a consequence worth stating plainly, because it is regularly misread: the padlock in your browser on renovae.app proves nothing about the company. It is enforced by the domain registry for every site on the TLD. It confirms the connection is encrypted, not that the business is real, licensed, or holding anyone's money.

An investment firm choosing a developer-oriented TLD over the conventional ones, while holding no registration anywhere, is presenting itself as a software product rather than a financial institution. Report to RecoverFunds.ca if you have deposited with Renovae.

If you are still deciding, two checks take under two minutes between them. Search the AMF register at lautorite.qc.ca, and run a WHOIS lookup on renovae.app to see when the domain was actually registered. Neither requires any expertise, and both are worth doing before a first deposit rather than after a blocked withdrawal.

How Renovae Operates

The padlock has stopped meaning anything: Consumer guidance has told people to look for HTTPS and a padlock for twenty years, and on this domain that advice actively misleads. Certificates are free and issued in seconds. On `.app` they are not even optional: the registry placed the entire TLD on the HSTS preload list, so browsers refuse plain HTTP for every site on it. A `.app` address is therefore encrypted because of a decision Google made about the TLD, not because of anything the operator did or any standard they met. Renovae's padlock is inherited, not earned.

A domain that frames the pitch before you read a word: TLD choice does quiet work on expectations. `.ca` implies a Canadian business subject to Canadian law. `.com` is the default for a company. `.app` says software, and software is something you try casually, poke at, and close if you lose interest. That is an entirely different posture from the one people bring to handing money to a financial institution, and it is exactly the posture in which a small exploratory deposit feels reasonable.

What can still be checked, and what it returns: Very little exists about Renovae, but the checks that do exist are quick and worth running yourself. A WHOIS lookup on renovae.app returns the registration date, which for operations like this is usually recent and rarely matches any claimed history. The AMF register at lautorite.qc.ca and the national database at aretheyregistered.ca both return nothing. There is no FCA, FINMA, SEC or ASIC listing. Screenshot those empty results, because a documented absence is useful evidence to attach to a complaint.

Why the AMF is the regulator that acted: Quebec's Autorité des marchés financiers publishes when solicitation reaches Quebec residents, which means real people in the province were approached. The AMF's remit covers the act of soliciting, not merely the taking of money, so the alert exists whether or not anyone in Quebec deposited. French-language marketing aimed at Quebec is a recognised channel for these operations, and an investor who encountered Renovae in French should not read that as evidence of a local or European presence.

What the Fonds d'indemnisation would have covered: Quebec is unusual in maintaining a compensation fund, the Fonds d'indemnisation des services financiers, for victims of fraud committed by representatives who are properly registered. That protection attaches to registration. Because Renovae holds none, a Quebec investor who deposits sits outside the fund entirely. This is one of the most concrete costs of dealing with an unregistered entity, and one of the least known.

The screen is the product: With no auditor, custodian or regulator behind it, every figure Renovae displays is a value in its own database. Balances, open positions and profit lines can be set to whatever sustains engagement. There is no way from inside the platform to distinguish a real execution from a drawn one, which is why a rising balance is not evidence of anything and why withdrawal is the only test that means anything.

A short-lived shell leaves quickly: An operation with no registered entity and no stated jurisdiction has nothing to wind down. There is no office to close, no licence to surrender, no filings to make. It simply stops answering, the domain lapses or is parked, and the same infrastructure reappears elsewhere. That is why evidence gathered today is worth far more than evidence attempted next month, and why a pending withdrawal is not worth waiting on before reporting.

Red Flags — Renovae Reviews

What the Regulator Said

Renovae is not registered with the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) and is not authorized to solicit investors in Québec.

Official regulator source

What to Do if You Were Targeted by Renovae

  1. Start with a free case review at RecoverFunds.ca, at recoverfunds.ca/report-crypto-fraud-canada. With no company record and no jurisdiction on file, the realistic options narrow quickly to your payment route and how recently you paid, so those are the first things worth establishing. A card deposit has a chargeback window running now. A bank wire may still be recallable if your branch acts within days. A cryptocurrency transfer is final once confirmed, which shifts the priority to flagging the receiving wallet and filing properly. The review is free and there is no upfront fee, and we will tell you plainly when little is recoverable rather than sell you hope. Anyone who asks you to pay in advance to recover money is running a second scam.
  1. Retrieve the exact payee name from your bank statement. Where no corporate entity is on record anywhere, that payee name may be the single most concrete identifier connected to the operators. Record it exactly as written and bring it with you.
  1. Contact the AMF Quebec at 1-877-525-0337 or lautorite.qc.ca. The AMF issued this alert and takes reports whether or not money changed hands.
  1. Contact your own regulator if you are outside Quebec. OSC Ontario 1-877-785-1555, BCSC British Columbia 1-800-373-6393, ASC Alberta 1-877-355-4488, MSC Manitoba 1-855-FRAUD-MB, FCAA Saskatchewan 306-787-5645.
  1. Report to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at antifraudcentre.ca or 1-888-495-8501. With no foreign jurisdiction established, the Canadian chain is the most useful route available to you.
  1. Contact your bank or card issuer today. Chargeback windows run from the transaction date, so delay directly reduces what can be recovered. Ask for the fraud department by name rather than general customer service.
  1. If you paid in cryptocurrency, report the destination wallet address to the exchange you sent from and include it in your Anti-Fraud Centre report. The address stays traceable on-chain even when the operators are not.
  1. Refuse every further payment. No prepaid tax, unlock fee, compliance charge or conversion cost is ever required to release funds a platform genuinely holds for you.
  1. Preserve everything now. Screenshot the platform, your balance history and every withdrawal attempt with its response, export all correspondence, and keep every transfer record. An operation with no corporate presence can become unreachable overnight and without warning.

Renovae: Frequently Asked Questions

Is Renovae a scam?

Quebec's Autorité des marchés financiers issued an investor alert on August 21, 2026 stating that Renovae is not registered with the AMF and is not authorized to solicit investors in Quebec. Soliciting Quebec residents without registration is unlawful, and dealing with an unregistered entity means no segregated client money and no regulatory recourse.

Can RecoverFunds.ca help me get my money back from Renovae?

We offer a free case review with no upfront fee. Be aware this one is harder than most, because no corporate entity or jurisdiction appears anywhere on record, which removes the usual cross-border routes. Bring the exact payee name from your statement. We will be straight with you about what is realistically recoverable, and we never guarantee recovery.

The Renovae site has a padlock and HTTPS. Doesn't that mean it is safe?

No, and on this domain it means even less than usual. The .app top-level domain sits on the HSTS preload list, so HTTPS is mandatory for every site on it, enforced by the registry rather than chosen by the operator. The padlock confirms your connection is encrypted. It says nothing about who is on the other end of it.

Why does Renovae use a .app address instead of .com?

.app is operated by Google Registry and marketed at software applications and developer products, not financial services. Choosing it frames the offering as a piece of software, something you try casually rather than scrutinise like a financial institution. That framing lowers the guard of exactly the audience most likely to make a small first deposit.

Where is Renovae based?

Nobody knows, and the AMF alert records no country of operation, no corporate registration and no named individuals. Most fraudulent platforms at least claim a jurisdiction because it is reassuring even when fictional, so an operation that does not bother is generally not built to withstand scrutiny.

My Renovae account shows a profit. Doesn't that mean the money is there?

No. On an unregistered platform the balance is a value the operator controls and can display at any figure. There is no custodian, no auditor and no regulator verifying it. A balance that keeps rising while withdrawals keep failing is the clearest sign that the number and the money have nothing to do with each other.

They let me withdraw a small amount before. Why is the larger one blocked?

Permitting one small early withdrawal is a recognised tactic. It costs the operator very little and buys substantial credibility, which is then used to justify a much larger deposit. The successful small payment is evidence of the strategy working rather than evidence the platform is genuine.

How do I check whether a firm can legally sell investments in Quebec?

Search the AMF register at lautorite.qc.ca and the national CSA database at aretheyregistered.ca, which covers every province. Check both the firm and the individual contacting you, since both must be registered. Also check the CSA investor alerts list, and search the website domain as well as the company name.