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Avoid Fraud, Rip Deals, Investment Frauds: Protect Your Money

Types of Investment Fraud, Who is a typical target for an investment fraud

Investment fraud and also rip deals appear in many forms. Investment frauds refer to a wide range of practices that fraudster use to convince investors to make investing decisions.

From our experience it is very interesting that fraudsters in regard to investment fraud tend to go after people who are very well educated, wealthy, optimistic and self-reliant. They always try to target those with higher incomes and financial knowledge. Therefore in many cases also very experienced CEO or CFO of companies are the target of these frauds.

The practices of the fraudster can include untrue or misleading information of special schemes. Please find more information as follows:

Cold Calling and Investment Fraud

In recent years, the Federal Criminal Investigation Offices have become aware of a significant increase in investment fraud. The perpetrators flood Europe with cold calling calls.

So-called "Cold Calling" as a fraudulent practice is conducted all over the world. Typical for such "Cold-calling" activities is that you get called by some sort of investment adviser who is acting as a brokerage firm or an asset management firm. This investment adviser approaches potential investors via phone, fax, and emails, in order to solicit investment in securities or financial products. Typically for these "cold callers" is the proposal of a very reliable, very profitable and secret investment opportunity.

The callers try to win the trust of the future "customers" in the talks and to move them to an investment. These companies usually have attractively designed homepages (including retrievable online accounts, etc.) and actually existing telephone and fax numbers. The investment companies are mostly located abroad (including Hong Kong, Taiwan) contact their clients via calls and call centers from all over Europe. The information or stocks presented by these companies are easily searchable on the Internet. This fact is used by the perpetrators as additional evidence of trustworthiness. The transfers expected by the "customers" usually go to bank accounts in the near or far abroad and typical offshore destinations. (such as: Cyprus, Hong Kong, etc.)

Please find more information as follows: https://www.fsa.go.jp/en/refer/cold/index.html

Investment Fraud & Scams: How can you check it & What can be done after an "investment"

Fraudsters typical use the knowledge of educated people that there is a clear connection between risk and possible investment. In their fraudulent practice they try to convince the possible investor that in this special case there are some sort of secret investment opportunities which have to be addressed as soon as possible. If you are cold called by such so-called investment adviser you can evaluate the risk of further possible investment fraud and spot the signs as follows:

  • Always be careful when receiving unsolicited phone calls, emails or letters offering one-off investment opportunities.
  • Be careful if you receive an investment opportunity that sounds too good to be true.
  • Always be careful if they are trying to build up pressure and if they are speaking about secret opportunities to invest.
  • Don’t be pressured into an investment. Give yourself time to do due diligence so you can make an informed decision.
  • Don’t judge a person or company by their website; websites can be set up very quickly.
  • Don’t invest in anything you are not absolutely sure about. Check the concept of the possible investment.
  • Simple Google this investment company or/and get advice from a government body, such as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), or an independent professional financial adviser or a specialist law firm you trust.
  • If you have already transferred money: Get into connection with a specialist law firm ASAP to check whether there are possibilities for a refund, criminal proceedings or freezing of bank accounts; for example check https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/unauthorised-firms-individuals.

Specialist law firms can bundle different claims of different victims of investment fraud cases and can therefore focus their activities on e.g. freezing bank accounts. Moreover in most of the cases it is possible to accelerate actions taken by the authority by filing applications with the authority and with the court. Even when companies have been set up with fake information, there are still possibilities to freeze bank accounts or assets in order to recover funds on behalf of the victims.

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