Few months ago my friend was referred to this broker through another friend. The broker is working through a firm from the UK. Me and my friend are in Australia.
She sent him $5,000 3 months ago and he helped set her up a Binance account, which he manages. She also has access to this Binance account. Today she has hit $15,000 on that account. I was stumped at this 300% return so on questioning her further she says that almost everybody who is investing through this broker, which is a majority of her friend group, is making massive returns.
For example, one of her close friends took a loan of $40,000 at the start of this year, and is now regularly withdrawing $20,000 every month since past 3 months.
Another close friend of hers in the same friend group is profiting more than $100,000 a year through this broker.
She said I should invest too, so I started doing my due research online. I found out they are not registered with the FCA UK.
Using my web development background, I found there are 2 other exactly similar websites to their website, with same design and menu items, just different branding. Which makes me think they are the same people using different websites.
Trustpilot reviews are really bad for one of their websites.
Red flags I can identify:
- The TrustPilot reviews
- My friend sent me the UK phone number of the investment broker - his profile picture is just a stock bitcoin image.
- I cannot find much on the internet if i google for his name, or his phone number or about His firm
- They are now calling her almost twice every week asking to invest more money.
- On some posts on the internet I can see that they claim they have 20 years of experience in the investment sector, but their website was only active since March 2020 (using Way Back Machine).
- 300% return in 3 months !
I have discussed this with my friend and she has discussed with her other friends, and they think that as these are very high risk investments, they have very high returns, and also very high chances of losing the investment. So people who lose their investments end up posting bad reviews online. My friend and her friend group are not really convinced this is a scam and want to keep investing.
I am not into the world of investing much myself. I do have a "safe" VGS ETF, so my friend obviously think I know nothing about these "high return" investments.
Looking for the advice of people wiser than me.
Also, does this kind of scam have a name/category?
Thanks!
Submitted August 17, 2021 at 01:46AM by the_ITman https://ift.tt/3g5vAdy
