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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
about
investment scams
Questions below have been derived from letters received from fraud victims, their friends or family, and those who are contemplating an investment offer.
Introduction - Questions menu
Investment scams are among the most ruinous scams in
existence.
In high end investment schemes, psychological control
over the victim is fierce, using strategically planned emotional
highs and lows. When the scammer is getting ready to flee, the constant fear and
anxiety he or she uses to control victims to prevent them from
contacting law enforcement, along
with the ultimate realization that all is lost, can lead to strokes,
heart attacks, even suicide.
There are many different investment scams.
There are the fly-by-night scams, such as hyip, cyber coins, forex,
and boiler room scams, and the more sophisticated and complex scams
such as High-Yield Investment Programs (HYIP) that involve
international intrigue to sweeten the pot.
Regardless of the scheme, funds are never invested in
anything. The money is stolen the moment it is transferred to
the fraudster's control.
If any funds are returned at all, it's in the form of
Ponzi scheme interest in which Investor A's funds are returned to
him as interest earned so A will run to tell B about the terrific
offer.
This is repeated over and over, with funds from
Investor C used to pay a small bit of return to Investor B and so
forth until the fraudster has personally spent all the investor
funds. That's when the excuses begin.
The questions below are about HYIP scams. The
normal amount the fraudster asks for is $100,000, but he or she will
take $5,000 or $10,000 saying that the smaller amount will be pooled
with other small investor amounts to make up the $100,000.
Some HYIP fraudsters will claim the minimum amount is anywhere from
$2 to $5 Million, again claiming that funds can be pooled.
* hyip, all lower case, is a volume-of-investors scam
relying on a large number of small investments and is loosely based
on the original
High-Yield Investment Program (HYIP)
scams.
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