South Africans are urged to be on the lookout for scammers that are trying to convince you to “invest” in their trading or investment scheme.
“The Modus Operandi seems to target Facebook Groups,” says Jack Edwards, South African Marketing Manager of CAPEX.com. “These scammers will stalk innocuous Facebook groups, often with no connection to investments, and comment about investment opportunities on people’s posts.
“They can come across as quite convincing, often showing off a very flashy lifestyle that looks appealing. One of the things they’ll do is visit a fancy car dealership and get a friend to take photos of them standing next to luxury cars. They’ll then use these photos as a profile pic to tout themselves as being successful investors.
“Promised high returns is usually the big red flag,” continues Edwards. “If people are offering impossibly high returns then stay very far away. This is the first red flag to watch out for.
“The second is that they’ll invest on your behalf. You’ll be asked to pay the money into their ‘business account’ and this will probably be the last time you’ll see your money. They’ll often follow up with a statement showing your growth, all faked, as well as photos of bank statements which have been photoshopped to make you think your money is doing very well. They’ll keep encouraging you to invest more and more. You’ll only realise you’ve been connedwhen you try to make a withdrawal, to find that they come up with a litany of excuses, or they disappear entirely.”
These scam artists are professional con-artists. They have a well-orchestrated playbook and are often run by syndicates.
How can you avoid being scammed?
- Stay away from people who offer to invest on your behalf, in their bank account, offering high returns on your investment. Financial Advisors are strictly regulated in South Africa, and will never offer to invest in brokerage firms for you. You can visit the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) website to do a search on them to see if they are legitimate.
- Never deposit money into someone else’s personal bank account, and never give them access to your bank account.
- Make sure you only use a legitimate brokerage platform. A legal brokerage platform will be registered with South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA). You’ll also find your money is kept in a separate account which is ring-fenced from other investors.
“CAPEX.com encourages active investors to do all due diligence on their investments and their investment platform. We’re registered with the FSCA to give our investors confidence in using our platform and we ringfence their investment from other investors.
CAPEX.com allows interested investors to
open a free account which gives them access to our Trading Academy so that they
can learn for themselves how to invest, and how to read their own buy/sell
signals. We will never tell you what to do, and we’ll never invest on your
behalf,” says Edwards.
Forewarned is forearmed. Be on alert for anyone
who wants access to your money or your bank accounts.