Fake investment offers to mobile users are on the rise

Fake investment offers to mobile users are on the rise

A phone call or email ‘out of the blue’ offering you a not-to-be-missed investment opportunity could be a turning point in your life. If you say ‘yes’ to the deal and the offer is a scam, you could lose thousands of dollars or end up with enormous debts.

Increasing number of cases regarding fake loan or investment offers has now become a real threat to ‘innocent’ internet users who just seek a bright future and deprive themselves of their precious savings that ultimately land in the banks accounts of criminals and scammers.

According to instructions given by anti-cyber wing, investment scams can come to a person via a phone call or email and there are three main types of investment scams including a totally fictitious offer, misuse of money for some other businesses and fake representation of a well-known investment company.

Fraud criminals often use the names of real companies in their junk mail. These companies are victims insofar as their reputations suffer at the hands of the scammers.

Sobia Arif – Local bank employee, said:
[pull_quote_center]The scammers also make fake claims to win confidence of the people like no risk or low risk investment, getting a refund for non-performance, insured or ‘guaranteed’ transactions or swap one investment for another. Investment scammers are skilled at convincing people that the investment is real, the returns are high and the risks to money are low or non-existent. Be suspicious of anyone offering you easy money. There is almost always a catch.[/pull_quote_center]

The scammers are always willing to fund a person without any apparent due diligence. They use generic isps – e.g., yahoo.com, gmail.com, live.com, hotmail.com. They insist on payment of a fee or expense before any is funded or send a person funds and demand that he/she immediately pay the required fee/ expense from the money (i.e. before the forged or stolen check is identified by the bank).