Online Investment Scams
Table of Contents
This post was inspired by a recent BBC documentary entitled – ‘The Billion Dollar Scam’.
Available on iBBC for the next nine months and I think it is worth a watch.
It would be pointless for me to reproduce the contents in a post – when, if you are interested, you can watch the whole programme.
But I do have some informed warnings of my own.
So why a post?
Because about two years ago, I got involved in one of the fastest growing online scams – investing in crypto currencies.
I was/am not an expert on the subject, but we have all seen stories of individuals making fortunes by trading these digital internet based ‘currencies’ – Bitcoins being one the most prominent.
Clarkson
Sparked off by news coverage of Jeremy Clarkson, on one of the TV breakfast shows, actually promoting the investment and claiming he was making up to £10,000 per month profit.
the fact is – there is nothing he could say that I would accept as true and follow up on – but the wider coverage went on all day with very mixed opinions – from – “ I made £10,000 in a week’ to – ‘I lost all my life savings in two weeks.’
I took an interest – I was curious and did some research.
There are dozens of websites, – I counted up to fifty and apparently still growing. Gave up – the list just went on and on – all with different titles. But essentially offering the same service – Invest a minimum amount of money – the lowest I could find was $30 – and the company’s ‘state of the art’ programme, manages the investment for you – buying and selling to maximise returns. You don’t have to understand how or do anything, except collect you profits.
The documentary clarified a lot of the facts and introduced some horror stories.
One of many interesting facts was, that a large number of these companies, could be traced back to the same management company –known as the Milton Group and, in fact the same five directors – originating in Ukraine (pre-war) – with a global network of call centres. As I soon found out in June 2022, when I –
picked one at random – let’s call it ‘Bitcoin’. minimum buy in – £250 –as an amount of money I thought would generate realistic results, but that, worst option – I could manage to lose.
Complete an application online – identification and contact details – no credit card or bank details at this stage.
Then the calls begin
Maybe half an hour later – I get a call on my landline – ‘hello James, how is your day going?’
Me – ‘Whose calling?’ – nobody who knows me calls me James.
I get a name – I couldn’t understand – he had quite a thick foreign accent – I guessed southern Med somewhere.
He was my ‘Personal Advisor’. Then an obviously well-rehearsed sales pitch – including the ‘fact’ that they are controlling the numbers of new candidates because of demand – but if I signed up in the next twenty-four hours and made an investment – I would be enrolled.
I am already thinking, that this is a downmarket set up.
He says that I will receive an email with their bank details for an online transfer. Received by the time I got back to my computer.
I did have another think before I did a transfer – but by then I was regarding it as like a losing bet on the horses – any profit was a bonus.
I also have to admit, – it did cross my mind that there might be an interesting blog post in it – however it went – and here it is. (The things I do for my art).
I did the transfer – got confirmation of my account number and access to statements to check my progress. Had a quick look and packed in for the day.
The calls continue
Two days later at 08.00 I get a landline call – have to get out of bed to answer – I don’t do earlies.
“Hello James – how are you today?’ – same or similar accent – obviously same source.
Me – ‘Why are you ringing me at this time of the morning?’
Him – I am your advisor and I note that you haven’t logged into your account yet – is there a problem?’
Me – ‘The only problem is you waking me up – I’ll log in when I am ready – no problem’. and hung up. My first thought – nip it in the bud straight away.
About 14.00 that afternoon – I get a call on my mobile –
‘Hello James – how are you?’ But this time a woman’s voice and, I thought, an Eastern European accent. (over the years I have worked in Bulgaria, Romania and The Czech Republic – I guess it was one of them.
I was more polite with a woman – I am a gentleman of course.
Established she was ringing about my Bitcoin account – I say, politely, ‘Why are you ringing when I have already spoken to an advisor earlier today?’
She says – ‘We are a different call centre and have your number on our list ‘.
Me – ‘Can you please remove it – If I need any help I will ring or message Bitcoins.’
She just hung up – didn’t have a prepared reply for that one.
and – so it went on ….
In the next few weeks I received an average of 4 calls per day.
Mostly the same intro – ‘’Hello James – are you having a good day?”
and a non- English-speaking accent and never naming their company.
I investigated blocking them with BT – needed their numbers, of course – when I could access the sender’s numbers – most being withheld – they were all mobile numbers and -as far as I could tell over a sample of about twenty – all different.
I tried just hanging up – but no effect on frequency – then tried saying ‘wrong number’ and hung up. Even got to the stage – ‘I’m sorry – James has passed away and I am his brother managing his estate – can you please remove this number from your records’ – no response, just hung up – and the calls continued.
At some point, one female caller – with good English – actually told me that there were hundreds of call centres – as confirmed in the BBC documentary, which also confirmed that most are in Eastern European countries where there are no regulatory controls. The centres just circulated contact lists after trying them for a time and got a small fee for that – her removing my number now might make no difference at all.
Over time, they did decrease – they must realise that I am a waste of their time – but I was still getting a couple per day – when I decided to just get my money back out – experiment over.
Money back?
Checked my current trading statement online –– and found that my £250 was now about £85.00.
Tried to withdraw that online – just to find out. – response – ‘request rejected – no funding received’ – despite the fact that I had printed one of their early statements showing £250 funds.
The documentary also confirmed that a withdrawal was either just refused -or – if a profit had been made, more funds had to be deposited to access them – and then nothing was repaid!
Either way – getting your money back was unlikely/impossible.
The documentary also confirmed that most companies were complete scams, and nobody got any money back ever.
One young man had, over time, thrown in, all he had, – a sum of £11,000 which he was told – he would never see again.
I assume, in that event, the calls do stop!
My £250?
I went back to my bank statements to check the details of the original transfer – I knew the rough dates.
No trace of it – I checked carefully – at no point, had my balance dropped by £250. For some reason that transfer was not made.
I didn’t follow it up with my bank – let sleeping dogs lie.
So -– a free informative experiment – just hours of my time – it goes with the job!
The calls?
Even now –at the end of April 2023 following an original contact in June 2022 – I still receive the calls – maybe one a week – I just hang up.
One of these days – I will hang up on somebody telling me that I have won the Postcode Lottery.
The Epilogue
Maybe a month ago – breaking news – Elon Musk is to use cryptocurrency – notably Bitcoins – as a trading currency within his companies – which will include an investment service for the public.
The value of a Bitcoin increases overnight, by five times – he did buy 1.5 billion of them.
Surely this is ‘above board’. He has billions and doesn’t need a scam to make more – and there are reputational issues. My investigative journalist kicked in again.
Browser pop up provides a contact web address.
I didn’t waste much time on this one – gave minimal personal information and only an email address (which I can easily block) and a mobile number (which was an old one – now defunct).
Half an hour later – I get an email – basically saying – ‘Stay by your phone you will get an important call soon’.
I might be a bit paranoid now, but I can immediately smell – the ‘call centre curse’ lurking – and will be going no further.
Needless to say – I didn’t get a call to ignore – and am now retiring from investigative journalism.