Scammed, Misled, and Unsafe Practices – My Experience with Akto
I contracted Akto to formulate two products, providing very specific and detailed written instructions. What I experienced instead was a catalogue of dishonesty, misrepresentation, and unlawful practices that left me scammed out of a significant sum of money. To this day, I cannot even confirm what their samples actually contained.
In December 2024, I had an online meeting with Konstantin (Kostiantyn) Liubotinskiy, CEO of Akto Export Company (as listed on his LinkedIn
), who was directly involved in my case, and their then–head of sales (who later admitted to me that the whole operation was fraudulent).
During this meeting, Konstantin claimed their lab was in Poland and told me I couldn’t visit because the technologist “didn’t like to meet people.” He promised instead that I could have an online meeting with the technologist (which never happened).
I also raised the fact that their website listed them as being located in Southwark, London. He replied that this was just a sales office, not a lab. Since I am based in London, I went to the location myself I can confirm to me that Akto did not have an office there.
Konstantin also assured me: “If you don’t like the samples, I will refund you in full.”
I signed an NDA and a refund agreement on 8 January and paid on 21 January 2025.
By mid-February, I received an email with the first written formulation. After that, there was absolute silence on progress. The technologist never reached out with questions or updates. By April, after repeatedly chasing, I finally messaged Konstantin about progress. He told me the samples were “ready,” but then claimed there were “issues at the Polish border.” This completely disregarded the fact that I had been reaching out for weeks without response.
When the samples eventually arrived, both were missing key ingredients I had specifically instructed. The front label stated the product name, but the side and back labels listed entirely different products.
Before the second sample was sent, Akto admitted in writing to falsifying labels to get products through customs. This is not a minor issue — it is an admission of fraudulent activity. One of the samples turned out to be a food product in a bottle labelled SPF sunscreen. When I opened it, it smelled and tasted of perfume or chemicals — completely unsafe and unlawful under food and cosmetic regulations.
I later discovered the products were actually shipped from Ukraine, not Poland as promised. Only after I challenged them did Akto admit this. They sent me a Polish registration link, but the record showed the company was only registered on 22 January 2025 — after I had already paid.
When I demanded a refund under the signed agreement, they refused. They blamed the “departed head of sales,” even though my emails clearly showed I had been communicating directly with Konstantin himself after she had already left. Instead, they offered to make another sample or send me the “formulation,” but by then I no longer trusted them after the breaches of safety and misrepresentation.
I contacted the former head of sales, who confirmed to me that Akto was a scam and told me they were issuing fake certificates along with other illegal activities in an email. In response, Viktoriia Kyryk, who identified herself in company correspondence as Deputy CEO of Akto LLC, denied everything I had been put through — despite the fact that I had concrete evidence in the form of recordings, emails, WhatsApp messages, and documents.
After further refusals, I issued a Letter Before Action. Akto then said they would refund me — but only if I signed a “non-use” document. This was coercion: they had already signed an intellectual property agreement assigning all formulations to my company. They were essentially trying to force me to give up rights to my formulation/concept, which I had spent over 10 years developing, in order to get back money they were already legally obliged to refund.
In my experience, Akto ignored instructions, mislabelled products, misrepresented their operations, admitted to customs fraud, issued fake certificates, refused to honour a refund, and tried to coerce me into signing away my own intellectual property — they also attempted to intimidate me into silence by warning me not to post honest reviews.