Category: Investment scam

March 10, 2022

Investment Opportunities May Not Be What They Seem

You may get cold calls, spam emails, text messages or see adverts – offering a wonderful investment opportunity.

Perhaps it’s cyber currency or gold bars or a business debuting on the stock market or a new building of rented apartments or artwork or almost anything else.

There is a world of investments available – from the stock market to property to fine gems, but these always carry a risk – that’s why there is a reward possible.

Scammers typically offer an investment that is guaranteed and has very high returns and they have some reason why you have to act quickly or miss the opportunity.

Guarantees and high returns are normally impossible with anything legal.

Never trust cold callers or spam emails or unknown people through any other form of contact that you didn’t initiate and never be pushed into making a decision without all of the facts.

If you do want to consider an investment, then make sure to do your research and if possible get expert advice.

Don’t take unnecessary risks.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

May 3, 2021

The Secret Sister Scam

Gift exchanges are common on Facebook and other social media platforms as a way of connecting and brightening up people’s lives. The idea is that a group of people buy each other small gifts and these gift exchanges are most common in the run-up to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

But, scammers create their own fake Gift Exchanges and ones that target women are generally known as “Secret Sister”.

The scam works by getting people to post the Secret Sister on Facebook and this can be done innocently by women not realising they are part of a scam or can be done directly by scammers using stolen identities.

The proposition is something like ‘Ask your friends to get involved. You send out one gift to the name at the top of the list and in return you will get between 6 and 36 return gifts anonymously”.

You can see this is a simple pyramid scheme.

The person at the top gets free gifts from those below then those below have to recruit more members who will send them gifts and so on.

As is usual with these schemes, a small number win more than they put in and everyone else loses.

It’s a simple proposition that has been used by criminals for hundreds of years in various forms.

The offer is that you join and send one gift to a person at the top of some list then delete that name and add your name at the bottom of the list, then recruit 6 more people to also go on the list.

When your name reaches the top of the list you will be inundated with gifts, in theory!

However, it is very obvious that for each winner there must be a lot of people who get nothing as adding six times as many people to a list constantly means even the entire population of the planet would soon run out. These schemes usually collapse after some dozens of people have won and they typically leave many thousands out of pocket.

There are plenty of legitimate gift exchanges on Facebook and other online communities – ones in which you get tied to particular people who you know, and where you promise to send just one gift to each other – and your time and money is much better spent on those.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

April 19, 2021

The Blessing Loom Money System

This is an old scam that comes up in new forms every so often.

It is generally known as “The Blessing Loom”, but also sometimes as “The Infinity Loom” or “Giving Circle”.

The basic idea is very simple.

The originators recruit new members who pay an entry fee and then recruit further members to pay in. Meanwhile the originators take these entry fees and can back out of the scheme whenever they want to.

It is a form of Ponzi scheme (a.k.a. Pyramid scheme) where new members pay earlier members and the cycle of recruitment continues.

Eventually the scam goes away, only to resurface at some later date.

In 2020, the state of Utah had significant problems with The Blessing Loom as large numbers of people fell for the scam and lost a lot of money. The main version in circulation charged women $100 to join and had the promise of an $800 pay-out.

The picture of an octagon at the top shows 8 names. The idea is that you pay to get one spot and in time your name moves into the middle then all 8 people sent you the money. But, as always with these schemes a few make money and everyone else loses. You cannot make money appear from nowhere except by conning people.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

November 4, 2019

Fake Currency Investment Scam

There are numerous fake investment scams – anything that promises high returns for little or no risk is certain to be a scam in some form.

This latest scam message offers at least $7,398 per month and at least $400 per day added to your account.

It is supposed to be a system that trades crypto currencies for you automatically and is guaranteed to make you money every day.

But it’s all lies of course.

“Discover the technology of the 21^st century and let it fulfil your dreams and allow you to follow you passion”.

Anything that seems to be too good to be true is a scam is a simple rule but it works.

If you want to make an investment then seek professional advice and certainly do not follow the ramblings of a scam email or fake advert or website.

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