Are You Safe From Investment SPAM Messages?
As individuals become entwined in a global fraud that the email providers and internet agencies appear tired to stop, the future of investment emails is timed to it’s extinction.
On a rainy Friday afternoon in August 2017, I Uchechukwu Ajuzieogu was enraged by a message I received via my work email address from Reem E. Al-Hashimi, the Emirates Minister of State and Managing Director for the United Arab Emirates (Dubai) World Expo 2020 Committee. Someone I don’t even know in my entire life — A Scam!
Me a young man single and in my late-twenties had decided to scoop through my work email for important messages that would better my life. I have never in my life come across the Emirates Minister of State and Managing Director for the United Arab Emirates (Dubai) World Expo 2020 Committee. As I reiterated, I don’t even know this person in my life.
Now I was looking for sign (In 2Pac’s Voice). Could this be real? I asked myself. I have been fighting cyber-security for some years and even help protect others too from the deadly menace. I had to be sure that I was not being stupid! I have to find the original bio of the said Arabian Minister and make prove to myself that this a scam!
I did head to Google to check her bio out as you must have guessed. Alas and behold! The message sent in to my work mail and the information I was seeking on Google were unanimous, what a Coincidence!
It turned out that the persons behind this were using a Naver email service. So I decided to check out Naver, a South Korean online platform operated by Naver Corporation. It debuted in 1999 as the first web portal in Korea to develop and use its own search engine. As it turned out, I don’t understand Korean, so i tried translating the page to English but to no avail. Then I remembered that most Internet Investment Email Scams were done using a Naver email service. It then reckoned on me that the above scenario was really a big time Fraud!
Why Do People Fall For Investment Spam Emails?
Since the year 2004, there has been a sharp increase in the amount of investment spam we are receiving in our inbox. I personally receive up to 20 emails per day containing offers or lures to invest in various scams. It is estimated that millions of dollars are lost every year by people who have invested money in something they read about in an email.
What are the Most Popular Investment Spam Methods?
For the purposes of this discussion, I will outline each of the bogus investment opportunities that are circulating the internet so that if you encounter one of them, you will not be tricked into investing.
- Pyramid Schemes: These are probably the most popular. Typically, you will be asked to invest a certain amount of money, and then you are promised a return when new investors make an equal contribution. Eventually, the pyramid either collapses or the person who initiated the pyramid is able to make a lot of money, but no one else makes anything.
- Pump and Dump: This is when a small group of investors who hold a large number of shares in a penny stock hype the stock to the general public. The resulting frenzy drives up the price of the stock, at which point the pumpers dump their shares at a high price before the rest of the investors realize that the company is worthless.
- Open Beneficiary Account Gratifications: This is the most effective one they use to lure victims via Investment Email claims on the internet. They appear to always have a top influential position in the government or agency and for one reason or another they would need you (the victim) to stand as their partner to receive their ‘Fake’ share of gratification from a foreign company (ies), whom they (the scammer) helped during a bidding exercise. there is a limit to my personal income and investment level. For this reason, they cannot receive such a huge sum back to their country, so an agreement was reached with the foreign companies to direct the gratifications to an open beneficiary account with a financial institution where it will be possible for them to instruct further transfer of the fund to a third party account for investment purpose which is the reason they contacted you to receive the fund as their partner for investment in your country. The amount they said will be valued at outrageous $47,745,533.00 United States dollars (~ 17,281,495,669.35 Nigerian Naira) with a financial institution waiting for their instruction for further transfer to a destination account as soon as they have your information indicating interest to receive and invest the fund.They claim they will compensate you with 30% of the total amount and you will also get benefit from the investment.
Did I Fall for The Scam?
Ah ha! You must ask if i fell for the scam? Actually, No! I did another digging and found out that the Scammer used a domain based email address system to send me the email. I therefore decided to do a little digging, trying to find out if the domain (website) associated with the email was exactly what it claimed to be. Well, it was all Scam! The dumb scammer wasn’t clever to cover his tracks as it turned out, because the website itself was not even a UAE based website.
You should ignore any emails you receive that promote offshore investing or prime banks. Promises of huge returns from offshore investments are usually totally disingenuous. Prime banks are the top 50 banks in the world. Solicitors for prime banks will ask for your money so that they can invest it in high yield prime bank financial instruments. However, they will likely invest your money in high risk, speculative investment vehicles that have absolutely no connection to prime banks whatsoever.
I hope the information presented here has put you on notice. But, you should not necessarily ignore all of the investment spam in your inbox. You might receive an email containing a stock tip that could turn out to be very remunerative. Just make sure you research the company on your own before you buy the stock so that you can make an informed decision.
