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Crimes of Persuasion

Investment Scams

This section publishes articles, submissions and opinions about investment scams, including HYIP scams, forex, stocks and shares,etc. This is a new section for the 2009.

Stock-tip Ringleader Sentenced to 8-years in prison

Kenneth Marsh

NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) - The ringleader of a $20 million phony stock-tip scam was sentenced to eight years in prison on Tuesday in the latest, and most severe, punishment to come out of what prosecutors called a classic "boiler-room" fraud.

Kenneth Marsh, 44, pleaded guilty in April to one count of securities fraud. He was the owner and CEO of Gryphon Holdings, which operated as Gryphon Financial from 2005 to 2010, an investment-advisory services company based in a strip mall on Staten Island.

 

CNBC: Slideshow on Famous Celebrity Scams and Hoaxes

Some slideshow while taking a lunchbreak watching the sliding stock market. The slides include: 1) Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme 2) 3 celebrities scamed by 2 Wall Street brokerages in 1983 3) In 2009, a German trying to extort model Cindy Crawfo...

Investment Scam: Fake Christopher Osborne $2 billion bullshit

This guy is definitely using a fake name, and is not related to the many real Christopher on the web. 

I am Christopher Osborne, a financial consultant attached to fidelity investments international, a fund management company with over US$2,000,000,000.00 (Two Billion United States Dollars) capital investment fund. I handle all our investor's direct capital funds and extracts 1.2% Excess Maximum Return Capital Profit (EMRCP) per annum on each of the Investor's Marginal Capital Fund.

Actor Kiefer Sutherland Lost $900k to Ponzi Scheme Scams

Following Madoff'case last year, this is the next Ponzi scheme scam where celebrities are ripped off. Most anti-scam sites would simply say "Oh its easy, just don't believe in deals that are too good to be true". Scammers aren't stupid either, esp...

Investment Scam: LiteForex.Org

We received a question about this website, which we would like to seek opinions.

"LiteForex offers revolutionary trading technology for beginner traders, and lets you start trading in the Forex market depositing just ONE DOLLAR! Your deposit appears in US cents on the Lite group accounts, so you feel like you are trading the same amount in US Dollars. This new technology allows Forex beginners to learn Forex in a REAL life situation with minimal investment!"

Investment Scam: Fake Ziff Brothers Investments

If you received an email from "Daniel Ziff" offering to invest 2 - 20million dollars of funds into your "project", it is a scam.

We have checked and confirmed that the real Daniel Ziff does not send out unsolicited emails to the public for such investment offer.

Investment Scam: Or is this a 419 Scam?

Many investment scams are in fact, another type of 419 scams in disguise.

Take this for example:

"Your advice and recommendations in this respect will be welcomed enabling us to handle diligently all aspect of our investment operations in your country. We have substantial amount of money of about $US 7,000,000.00 (Seven Million US Dollars) for this project which will be made available to you after all negotiations are completed and agreement signed."

Saudi Investment Scam - Adamu Abubakar

Another stupid Nigerian scammer wrote:

"I'm a nationality of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and had been practising here as an international Lawyer for the past 18 years ,however ,due to my proffession,i'm very close to the government of this country as i handled most of their legal mechanism in the court of law both local and international.
 
...Futhermore, My Client is a retired Army General and who is incharge of all military contracts in Nigeria and based on his position ,he prefer to invest overseas with an assistance of a foreigner to protect his interest .
 
...He wants to invest into any lucrative investment in Australia which you and your broker will advise and handle of his behalf and this investment should be long term investment of about 10 - 15 years long term investment and the profit should be between 15 -20% interest per annual . But in this regards ,you and your broker will be in better position to advise on the best investment that will yield good interest in the future ."

Hot Scams Warning: www.financialhope.info

We received a tip-off about websites promises hope of high returns through "High Yield Investment Program". As usual, scammers will make use of your weakness, e.g. need cash to pay off mortgage, etc, to lure potential victims to invest 30 - 40k of money in an investment scheme that promises high returns within a short period of time. This is in fact a Ponzi system.

What happens in a Ponzi system is that the scammer will take the money from new investors to pay the earlier investors. By doing so, it makes the earlier investors think that the high yield investment program is real, and hence the investors would help to spread the news around (virial marketing). This will bring in new investors who would then contribute money to those just before him.

Madoff Investment Scam

The Madoff Investment Scam is the largest investment scam to be attributed to a single person. The scam involved $50 billion and affected parties include banks and charity organisations, most of which do not expect to recover their investment.

Madoff was arrested in Dec 08.

FX Trading - Is it All a Scam?

Why wouldn’t you ask this question? With so much literature all over the internet and on the offline world urging you to put your money in the currency trade, you are caught asking yourself if this a scam to just let you part with your money and just contribute to the coffers of brokers and their accompanying firms. You are right to have such a suspicion, which means you are thinking about your actions. Thinking is prudent and prudency is the tool of the smart investor in any situation. FX trading; is it all a scam is a question answered best in the terms of investment and the market characteristics of currency exchange.

Year Profit and HYIP

Has anyone heard of Year Profit and other HYIP that offers you 25% or even 300% returns within a very short term?

If you have $10,000 in your bank account, you can earn 300% after 30 days. Oh, that also means that you can stop working now. Why do you have to work when these guys can perform magic (better than the well known smartest people on earth) and let you earn more than what you get from your day job? The best thing is that you don't have to do a thing. Does this make sense?

Considering all the smartest people working in government and banking sectors, all we get are guaranteed interest rates very small percentages.

High Yield Investment Program Scams

As you read the next email in your box about how the widow of the former leader of Mubai needs your help getting her deceased hubby's millions out of the corrupt grasp of that nation's banks, rest assured, internet crime has already moved well past those clumsy attempts to use your money for the personal gain of some anonymous internet scammer.

One of the most prevalent scams today is the HYIP, or High Yield Investment Program.

Ponzi, HYIP, E-gold, Pyramids, and "Get Rich Quick" Scams

Mark Herpel wrote an article regarding the various criminal activities using the E-gold system (E-Gold.com), and he refers to the government indictment against E-gold.