Boiler Room Scams

We have all made mistakes, the trick is to learn from them. Hopefully you only lost X, whereas later in life some other scammers might try to get you for XXXXX, but that now won't happen because you've learnt.

You are right of course Anley, but its no consolation:(
 
MPA. Very sorry to hear that about your friend.

You must let him know exactly what has happened and how his money has bascially been stolen. Make him think back to the name of the company that called him and then the name of the bank account he sent the money to. Chances are they'll be different names and NO legit financial company operates that way.

Many in this situation refuse to believe they've been scammed, the scammers of course love this because they can try to milk them for even more. Involve the Police if neccessary, chances are they won;t be able to get any of the cash back but they can talk to him, let him know what has happened. Good luck.

Thanks Anley. I spoke with my friend about an hour ago and he has actually had a call from 'Fisher Capital' and his 'broker' said everything is going according to plan HOWEVER they have a few kinks to work out so can't pay the money just yet. Should be about another week. For what it's worth the company is supposed to list on the Frankfurt index under AVN. (Amazon Gold Ventures Limited.) Cheers. MPA.:?::clover:
 
You should warn your friend that the next phonecall might ask him for money in order to complete the transaction.

Under no circumstances should he pay. This is just a ruse to get more money out of him.

Unfortunately, academic cleverness does not mean you're financially savvy.
 
Sorry to hear...this is a sad story which exposes the human suffering that these criminals cause.
One fellow victim of the Dai ichi securities scam lost all of his pension capital this way!
 
You should warn your friend that the next phonecall might ask him for money in order to complete the transaction.

Under no circumstances should he pay. This is just a ruse to get more money out of him.

Unfortunately, academic cleverness does not mean you're financially savvy.

Exactly. See, you can read what's going to happen like a book. The excuses havejust started as predicted. Everything is fine they say, just a small delay but as Hogg says they're going to try to tap him for more cash, dangle the carrot in front of his nose, the big money is so near he'll almost be able to smell it.

They might be a way out for him, depends on when he sent the money. Get him to call the bank straight away (head office) and talk with someone senior in the fraud dept. Banks have an obligation to their clients. Some people have used this strategy in the past and got a result, but timing is of the essence, ie today, not tomorrow. Good luck.
 
Also tell him they're going to (sort of) blackmail him over the potential profit, ie if he doesn't pay anymore money (for lawyers fees or some crap) then he won't actually get any shares (or a reduced amount) and hence won't make the big payday.

Like I said, you can read these scum like a book.

Tell him that, tell him what's going to happen BEFORE it happens, hopefully that will make him fully understand he's been scammed, and talking to a bunch of professional thieves and conmen.
 
Also tell him they're going to (sort of) blackmail him over the potential profit, ie if he doesn't pay anymore money (for lawyers fees or some crap) then he won't actually get any shares (or a reduced amount) and hence won't make the big payday.

Like I said, you can read these scum like a book.

Tell him that, tell him what's going to happen BEFORE it happens, hopefully that will make him fully understand he's been scammed, and talking to a bunch of professional thieves and conmen.

Anley you need to write a book of short horror stories. You guys are right, university smarts are no challenge for street smarts. My friend, lets call him James, went to uni with me in the UK. He got top marks every year. He and his wife have been good friends with my wife and I since then. About 30 years.Even though we live on different continents.So he's at that time of his life where he was looking at retirement. We're not talking about dropping 10 or 20K, we're looking at roughly 400K. Fisher have played him exactly as you've outlined. He has invested more and more for OVER A YEAR in various great deals. He has never actually recieved any money back, on any of these great investments. JUST RE-INVESTED. Yeah, we did go to a real university. Cheers. mpa.
 
Anley you need to write a book of short horror stories. You guys are right, university smarts are no challenge for street smarts. My friend, lets call him James, went to uni with me in the UK. He got top marks every year. He and his wife have been good friends with my wife and I since then. About 30 years.Even though we live on different continents.So he's at that time of his life where he was looking at retirement. We're not talking about dropping 10 or 20K, we're looking at roughly 400K. Fisher have played him exactly as you've outlined. He has invested more and more for OVER A YEAR in various great deals. He has never actually recieved any money back, on any of these great investments. JUST RE-INVESTED. Yeah, we did go to a real university. Cheers. mpa.

Let this be a lesson to EVERYONE.

Give the Boiler Room scum half a chance and they WILL TAKE YOU FOR EVERYTHING YOU HAVE. And in some cases that has meant the mark has re-mortgaged his property to keep 'investing' with them.

Once again I'm sorry about your friend but he MUST STOP NOW!
 
It would be interesting if anyone else here has been in touch with HSBC with regards boilerroom bank a/c. I will use this to pressurise them to tighten up their procedeurs. If we could achieve this then we would have some hope of saving peoples money. We also need them to freeze any a/c where proof of fraudelent dealings are taking place.All they need to do is run a company check. Most of these a/cs are set up n ficticious company names and the addresses are virtual offices.

Hi,

This has happened to me recently with the same boiler room (god, they are convincing) and I can't get my money back obviously.:mad:
I have contacted HSBC by e-mail (and also got them over the phone) but could never talk to a compliance officer. They basically don't care and can't disclose further details (bound by confidentiality)

Don't know what to do next.
 
Fix

Don't take no for an answer, keep trying, that's the key to getting a result with a bank. Write to the CEO, write to the Finance Director, talk to someone in the fraud dept etc. Head office is what you need, not some crappy call centre.

Also, spend some time on this thread (it's a long one). Sometime in 2011 there were a few posts about how to use your bank to return the money. Find those posts and try to do it today, time is very important here. Good luck.
 
So sorry to hear of peoples losses these people really are scum.

Think I have been contacted by that Fisher lot and they are very convincing.

I was lucky enough to have had a career in (honest) sales so I know how convincing a good salesman can sound and adopt the principle as has been highlighted on here of not believing anything they say and never sending them money.

Even I was a little curious when they said they could name a listed share and I could watch it go up in order to build confidence with me (apparently they do this by manipulating a lightley traded share)
I would also never let them send stuff to me I guess some allow this to get them of the phone but problem is then they have even more details about you not to mention the follow up calls.

Keep up the good work on the thread.
 
Here's a good way to spot a scam company, Boiler Room operation or even Land Banking.

The scammers know the internet is a weak link, ie people talk and Google publishes links to those sites, such as this. So what they're doing is trying to flood the search engines with 'good' links about their sites.

let's use Fisher Capital Management as a good example of how a scammers online strategy works.

Here's their website - Home

Now, go to Google and type in FISCHER CAPITAL MANAGEMENT and look at the DOMAIN names of the top 10-30 links.

Here's the link to save you time - Fisher Capital Management - Google Search

Can you see all the dodgy domains that mention the company, including ones that say 'Scam'. Look closely at those pages and see they offer you nothing of any value, ie just copy/paste of some recent news article (not relaying to the company).

Combating this is easy, just use common sense. Think about the online strategy of any LEGIT company, do they do this or do they let their main domain name speak for itself, or to put it another way a legit investment firm doesn't need to do DMAGE LIMITATION on the internet.

BE CAREFUL EVERYONE THESE SCAMMERS ARE GOOD but they're real scum, liars and basically professional thieves.

ASK HERE FOR ANY GUIDANCE, we'll help keep your money safe.
 
Just a warning for everyone -

BEWARE OF 'INVESTMENT FIRMS' trying to get you to invest in Coconut plantations in Brazil or similar type investmetns, timber in the Far East or Bio Fuels.

INVEST IN THESE AND YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR MONEY.

I'll write a post sometime this week explaining how they're all running PONZI schemes on their poor naive clients.

Plus, why not use some common sense - what are YOU the average man-in-the-street investing in things you HAVEN'T GOT A CLUE ABOUT nor have the faintest idea of how to research the company you're doing business with or what you're actually investing in. Think about this question very hard, just how for example are you going to research Coconnut farming, the ins out, advantages and disadvanges etc.

Also realise this - if you ever invest in something and you get ALL your research from the company selling you the investent then even if you do business with a legit firm you're probably going to end up with nothing like what you were promised. But invest with a scam company and you're going to lose it all, plus as soon as you put the phone down on them (after investing) they're going to say 'what a mug'. Is that how you want to live your life, or do you want to do something about it??????

If you want to do something about then start to realise it's a bad bad world out there in investment land and few people or companies can be trusted. Then, start to realise that the internet is the BEST ANTI-SCAM TOOL EVER INVENTED - so start to use it. if you're not good on the internet or unsure about anything then this is why I beg people to ASK QUESTIONS HERE before you do anything. We can help, we might sometimes be hard on you (for your own good) but we'll make sure you keep your cash. Contrast that to the 'charming salesmen' who tells you what you want to hear but then steals all your money...........
 
A couple of good Land Banking scam warnings -

Landbanking scams still conning investors - Farming UK news

Land Banking Scam | Tan Kin Lian's Blog

Take special note of the last link if you're in SINGAPORE and looking to invest in plots of (worthless) UK Land.

ASK QUESTIONS HERE IF IN ANY DOUBT.

99.99% of people who invest in (worthless) plots of land don't know what they're doing because if they did they'd LAUGH at the claims of the scam firms selling the land.

DON'T INVEST IN THINGS YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND unless you like to be stuffed up like a Turkey.
 
Glossy land banking adverts almost promising investors a 250% return in UK land over 3 years. Advert filmed in 2008.

So 3 years later what's happened? Simple, the land bankers have gone with their vast profits and the poor investors realise they've been stuffed up and sadly there's nothing they can do because they actually own the land. The con was they paid say £10,000 for a plot that is worth £100.

How could they be so easily fooled? Simple, they relied on the advice and research from the companies salemen. The company by the way owned the land which of course it bought for a pittance.

Read the comments below the Youtube video -

Profitable Group Advert Singapore TV - YouTube

More on this link

TMF: Lose your money on Land Banking / International - Expat Investors

Folks, the scams are ALL THE SAME, repeat ALL THE SAME. The only thing that's different is the location of the (worthless) plots of land.

BEWARE - BUY LAND THAT YOU'RE BEING TOLD WILL 'SOON' GET PLANNING PERMISSION AND BE READY TO LOSE 100% OF YOUR MONEY.

if you read this and then buy then sorry please look in the mirror for the real person to blame. But if this post (and others on this thread, take your time to read much of it, plenty of land banking talk and warnings in 2011) then glad to have helped you realise the error of your ways.........

ASK HERE IF YOU'RE UNSURE especially if you're Asian or South African, the scammers are working those regions hard because the Police and regulator has run them out of the UK.
 
A new year and more boiler-room activity....
Bought some shares in Geoandina Mining and had forgotten about them - had a call a late in 2011 from Donald Scott of Westton Worldwide M&A Inc offering to buy the shares to sell to Mobil Exon @ £12 ps - he sounded American, firms address is in Bangkok and teh bank a/c to send the "performance bond" to is in Kuala Lumpur.
When he next calls, will ask him about his FSA registration and have given the FSA all his blurb to see if the fraud team can track him down.
 
Here's a good way to spot a scam company, Boiler Room operation or even Land Banking.

The scammers know the internet is a weak link, ie people talk and Google publishes links to those sites, such as this. So what they're doing is trying to flood the search engines with 'good' links about their sites.

let's use Fisher Capital Management as a good example of how a scammers online strategy works.

Here's their website - Home

Now, go to Google and type in FISCHER CAPITAL MANAGEMENT and look at the DOMAIN names of the top 10-30 links.

Here's the link to save you time - Fisher Capital Management - Google Search

Can you see all the dodgy domains that mention the company, including ones that say 'Scam'. Look closely at those pages and see they offer you nothing of any value, ie just copy/paste of some recent news article (not relaying to the company).

Combating this is easy, just use common sense. Think about the online strategy of any LEGIT company, do they do this or do they let their main domain name speak for itself, or to put it another way a legit investment firm doesn't need to do DMAGE LIMITATION on the internet.

BE CAREFUL EVERYONE THESE SCAMMERS ARE GOOD but they're real scum, liars and basically professional thieves.

ASK HERE FOR ANY GUIDANCE, we'll help keep your money safe.

This is interesting. If you type "Fisher Capital Management Scam" the first few results are all their own domain name about safety and reviews but this thread does appear in the middle of the page.

Peter
 
This is interesting. If you type "Fisher Capital Management Scam" the first few results are all their own domain name about safety and reviews but this thread does appear in the middle of the page.

Peter

Yes it's a known method for online reputation management. There are companies that specialise in this. Basically they use a variety of free or cheap 'press wire' services to distribute hundreds of positive articles to various sites. They will often post something like 'Mike Baglady a scam?' which the search engines pick up, of course the articles will go on to say he's not a scam. It's all about flooding the first page of google and pushing the negative stuff onto page 2 or 3.

Of course it doesn't always work 100% and it costs money. Google also seems to rate those crappy free sites quite lowly whilst T2W always searches very well.
 
Hi Guys,
I too have lost a sum of money through SKW. I bought some shares in HGSI and OK, so the shares lost value, but now I try to sell the shares and SKW has closed up and disappeared. Is there any chance of reclaiming some of the money invested? Any suggestions welcome.

vielle568
 
Sorry to hear...this is a sad story which exposes the human suffering that these criminals cause.
One fellow victim of the Dai ichi securities scam lost all of his pension capital this way!

Hey Wil, thanks for the 'we can help' site. I'll keep you in the loop.
Cheers. MPA.
 
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