How a man lost $20000?

A man received an unexpected call about an investment opportunity. The cold-callers sounded very professional and seemed to have excellent knowledge of investment matters. They answered all of his questions and their initial contact was followed up with calls from ‘senior advisors’.

As his funds weren’t doing so well, so he decided to explore this new investment opportunity. He did not think about discussing the investment opportunities with anyone else.

Over the next 12 months, he made a number of transfers to the ‘investment professionals’, initially starting with $10 000. He was referred to a very professional looking website and set up a login account, which showed his money increasing in value as the market ‘went up’. Confident the system was working, he invested more money, to a total of $200 000.

He only realised that the investment scheme was a scam when the website went down and he could no longer access his account or contact the offshore group by phone.

He then did some research and discovered the company was fake and not registered with the Australian Securities Investment Commission (ASIC).

Since learning of the scam, he was again contacted by criminals, with offers to help him get his money back from the original investment. This time he contacted police, who explained this was a ‘follow up scam’ and warned him to expect more calls like this as his name was most likely passed on to other criminals.