5 ms·

Forex Investors May Face $1B Loss as Trade Site Vanishes

60 points by conistonwater 12y ago

rwmj 12y ago
All you need to know is the website claimed: "It made trading decisions for investors and guaranteed their principal."
- abat 12y ago
  And averaged 1% return a day!
  - robryan 12y ago
    It is essentially the same as payday loans. No one would pay thousands of percent interest but when framed different people take them up.
    - rahimnathwani 12y ago
      It's actually the opposite of payday loans. For example, if someone were to take a 1 month loan for $200, at 15% monthly interest, then they would pay $230 at the end of the month. In the UK at least, loans must quote an Annualised Percentage Rate (APR), which is the IRR (Internal Rate of Return) over a year. So, any adverts or contracts for this 1 month loan would have to show prominently '435% APR'. The loan is framed as '435% APR', when in fact you're paying $30 for a $200 1-month loan.
- lis 12y ago
  Absolutely. Combine this with "The site said investors had averaged net gains of 1 percent each trading day during the past five years" and you have a giant stop sign. I am always surprised when I read stories like this. They've lost 2000 pounds and the next thing they do is invest 60.000$? This is a good example why we need more financial education in school.
  - conistonwater 12y ago
    I'm not sure what financial education would do here. The people in the article, some of whom were medical doctors, surely knew how percentages work, how probabilities work. What else exactly did they need to be taught, in school, university, and medical school? I'd say they needed more (at least some) common sense.
    - lis 12y ago
      Sometimes common sense has to be taught. Of course they do know how percentages, probabilities and so on work. But they fail to do so when it comes to money. I actually doubt that this is (in most cases) due to greed. Many people just don't have a feeling for the relation between risk and promised reward.
      - justincormack 12y ago
        Not sure, I think it is greed related. People assume that money creates more money just like that. One person in the article didn't trust banks post crisis. I guess people do assume that the financial services business makes vast amounts of money out of money, rather than largely just taking proportions of said money away.
    - fasteo 12y ago
      surely knew how percentages work Not even close. A 1% daily return is science-fiction.
      - cesarb 12y ago
        > Not even close. A 1% daily return is science-fiction. Not really. In 1990, the most common kind of "savings account" used here (caderneta de poupança) had one month with over 80% returns. That's a bit more than 1% daily return, for an investment almost everyone could (and did) have. Of course, that year the inflation was over 1000%/year...
        12y ago
- cesarb 12y ago
  Legitimate funds like that do exist. I took a look at one of the biggest banks on my country, and found five "protected principal funds" (if you can read Portuguese, it's at http://www.bb.com.br/portalbb/page3,116,2198,1,1,1,1.bb?codigoNoticia=12249&codigoMenu=1092&codigoRet=9848&bread=1_13 http://www.bb.com.br/portalbb/page3,116,2198,1,1,1,1.bb?codi...). There are several caveats. According to what I read on that page, these funds use a combination of derivatives and fixed income to protect the principal. On the "risk factors" part, it says the principal cannot be guaranteed if you get out of the fund early; even if you wait until the end and get back the principal, it won't be adjusted for the inflation (6.5%/year and growing); and you always have to pay for the fund administration (1.5%/year for the fund I'm looking at). Of course, the average return for these kinds of funds will be less than the return for funds which do not guarantee the principal. A quick search found an article (http://www.valor.com.br/valor-investe/o-consultor-financeiro/1040598/capital-protegido-e-bom-para-voce http://www.valor.com.br/valor-investe/o-consultor-financeiro...) with a comparison between one of these protected capital funds and a balanced stock/fixed income fund (last graph in the article). Most of the time, the balanced fund won. So, guaranteeing the principal is not a red flag. What should have been a red flag is the return rate: 1%/month is too high, even more it they are guaranteeing the principal (which should decrease the expected return). High return rates tend to be correlated with higher risk.
  - conistonwater 12y ago
    Well, it also matters that this was a black-box "trading strategy" in foreign exchange markets. Investing money into stocks and bonds, and then buying protection on the principal (the fund administration fee is what compensates the bank for guaranteeing the principal, after all) from a bank with low default risk is quite a different thing altogether. Good point, though.
  - oldspiceman 12y ago
    High returns with no loss is a massive red flag. Principal protected notes do exist but they are financially engineered to provide you with the smallest return possible while charging a hefty fee for the bank which creates them.
  - heelhook 12y ago
bruceboughton 12y ago
CEO of forex trading site: Michael Sterling Nominative determinism hits again.
- notastartup 12y ago
  white beard clearly showing experience from weathering the storms of forex market. fat stature implies he has been fed nothing but high quality dinners at premium restaurants, a sign of success.
vinhboy 12y ago
And I thought MtGox was bad. I don't want to victim blame, and I certainly feel terrible for these people, as I have been a victim of scams myself. But jeebus, I do more research into buying an iPhone case than these people did for wiring money to a foreign country.
- pmorici 12y ago
  "I thought MtGox was bad." For context this is roughly 2 - 3x bigger than the Mt Gox loss of 850k Bitcoins. At the same time it isn't as bad as the MF Global fraud that cost investors 1.6 billion.
- Cthulhu_ 12y ago
  TBH MtGox, I believe, started out with good intentions but eventually failed due to poor software and automated buy orders to drive up the price to attract new investors. This sounds like it was an intentional scam from day 1.
Roonerelli 12y ago
if something seems too good to be true....it probably is Feel sorry for those who lost money, but, I can't imagine transferring money to someone making such promises
- mjklin 12y ago
  To a shady bank in Latvia, no less. This goes to show that if you dress something up the right way you can sell it to anyone. In Spanish we say "even though the monkey dresses up in silk, it's still a monkey." But people are blinded by their own greed and can't see through the sham.
  - conistonwater 12y ago
    > To a shady bank in Latvia, no less. I kind of understand what you mean, but this is a little unfair to Latvia. It's a member of the EU and the eurozone, its banks are (don't laugh please) supervised, and the bank itself was very likely not shady at all. Rather, the bank's customer, which opened an account with the bank, was a shady fraudulent business. The issue with transferring money like that is that it makes investigations harder and slower, as there are more jurisdictions in play. But I think the bank that processed the transactions was basically quite all right, unless there is specific evidence to the contrary.
    - mootothemax 12y ago
      I kind of understand what you mean, but this is a little unfair to Latvia. Completely agree, it'd be just as possible to perform such a scam with bank accounts in e.g. the UK or the US. It doesn't take much. Here's a 16-year-old complaining about his bank's conduct after he was basically caught processing fraudulent payments via his bank account: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/jul/07/strange-bank-account-money-mule http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/jul/07/strange-bank-ac...
    - kbart 12y ago
      Most of the banks in Latvia (same as in all Baltic states) are the branches of bigger Scandinavian banks, that as the last crisis has shown, are among the most trustworthy and respected banks. So no, it's not "some shaddy bank".
simlevesque 12y ago
Let me introduce the "business presentation" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkBjbnvnrBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkBjbnvnrBk
- kubiiii 12y ago
  Brillant. What's not to like? Even the CEO looks 3d rendered.
- mkhpalm 12y ago
  Dear god... somebody threw 60k at them after seeing that?
- bcantrill 12y ago
  Wow, that's mesmerizingly bad! That uploader has "business presentations" from many similarly obvious scams, including Empire Finance[1], Royal Fund[2], Sixa.biz[3] and Avan Fund[4]. (Note to self: don't invest in funds advertised with synthetic speech!) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQZMtMLrykM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQZMtMLrykM [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOb9y7cUH2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOb9y7cUH2Q [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xRnLFdPT8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xRnLFdPT8s [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VryexnFw13M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VryexnFw13M
  - conistonwater 12y ago
    Relevant quote from [1]: dynamic [boom] daily [boom] profit [boom]
mpclark 12y ago
So these folks have been duped, and the publication is exposing it as the scam that it is. And then, under the article, "UK public snaps up bargains using bizarre online trick - madbid.com" and "How new iPads are selling for under £30". I'm getting mixed messages here.
atlantic 12y ago
>Because Secure had no real headquarters and existed on the Internet only, an investigation would be challenging. This is where they lost me. How can a company involved in billions of dollars' worth of transfers be hard to trace? It's not like they can make a cash withdrawal and close down their account. Ordinarily, there is an enormous amount of official scrutiny around large international capital movements. This lack of enthusiasm in following the paper trail suggests governments are involved at some level.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Governments hav limited funds to investigate and prosecute fraud. Lack of government action doesn't mean that governments are complicit! It might just mean that they don't have the reseources to track criminals across several different jurisdictions. See "carousel fraud" for an example of a fraud that used to be difficult to tackle. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2009/08/20/uk-carousel-fraud-britain-factbox-sb-idUKTRE57J43U20090820 http://uk.reuters.com/article/2009/08/20/uk-carousel-fraud-b...
- lucozade 12y ago
  That's one possible explanation. I'd like to offer another...there weren't billions of dollars. That "fact" came from their website. Along with the P&L from their trading and the endorsements. What makes you think that the rest is fake and that bit isn't? They probably had a few million across a dozen accounts in half a dozen countries. Well worth setting up a scam but hardly Bernie Madoff. And even if it was more serious money, they weren't actually investing it so they only needed to keep enough around to Ponzi returns until the scrutiny got too much.
netcan 12y ago
This was obviously a ponzi-esque scam. That's just old fashioned financial crime. There was something that umped out at my though, now that we're in a time where we've thought about long tail or black swan risk quite a lot. "Secure Investment said it offered something safer: It made trading decisions for investors and guaranteed their principal." Ultimately the long tail perverse incentive (I don't know if there's a name for it, but it's the same perverse incentive that performance bonuses create) is a tricky one and I think it permeates a lot of things. Say, these guys came out with a more credible claim. They guarantee 80% of your principle and target 10%-20% returns. There probably are trading strategies that produce nice results in the -20% - 20% range with a long tail risk of 100% loss. Over twenty years, they might average over 10% returns with nice fees or bonuses (regardless of how this is set up) with an occasional cost to honoring the guarantee. One year out of twenty, they wipe out all investors and the game is up. The company takes home whatever it's made up until that point and investors lose their entire principle. This kind of risk is difficult for us to understand. Regulation chokes on it. Investors choke on it. A 43 year old fund manager looking at his competitors' successful 17 year run is very likely to choke on it.
- heelhook 12y ago
  That likely wouldn't work though. IMO the reason these people were so successful in deceiving so many "investors" is selection bias, much like Nigerian-scams using Nigeria as the country of origin to only engage very gullible people. If they were to "only" guarantee 80% of the principal most victims would have gone away.
  - netcan 12y ago
    That's true. This is not that kind of scam. This sounds closer to plain theft by fraud. I just think the made-up story they are telling, these lies, are usually variations and exaggerations of the stories told by "legitimate" players. It's interesting. Laws, standards and people's brains need black and white. A line after which things are fraud, crime and such. But I think from the perspective of the scammers, they probably saw themselves as part of a spectrum. They probably pay more attention, compete with and emulate their neighbors on that spectrum. Little dodgy funds copy little legitimate funds. Little illegal scams copy little dingy funds. In the wild, the line between this and that doesn't exist. It's like the line between pirate, privateer, wrecker and merchant.
vesinisa 12y ago
This is such common type of scam that it even has a Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_fraud Why do people keep falling for the same scam over and over again?
us0r 12y ago
A screen of their website: http://www.domaintools.com/research/screenshot-history/secureinvestment.com/#0 http://www.domaintools.com/research/screenshot-history/secur...
- GFischer 12y ago
  It hits all of the right buttons: - International phone numbers prominently displayed - Security certificate at the bottom - Success Stories with names - Social buttons with thousands of "likes" - People photos prominently displayed and, while screenshots do not show them, there were addresses for offices in several countries It was an extremely well-designed scam, it hits all of the points other articles on HN mention to gain trust for startups :)
funkyy 12y ago
This have HYIP all over its face. The website is typical HYIP scheme. People lost the money because of greed. Investing in some shady business for good returns is just wrong. Anyone with at least a bit of sense in business would avoid this... Anyone else would lost their money anyways, in either this or other get rich fast scheme. It looks like very expensive lesson to many...
- GFischer 12y ago
  I had to look up the HYIP acronym, and yes, it looked like a ponzi-like scheme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-yield_investment_program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-yield_investment_program
PMan74 12y ago
>The site said investors had averaged net gains of 1 percent each trading day during the past five years. How seemingly intelligent people (the guy was a doctor) read this and don't think "too good to be true" is beyond me.
bedane 12y ago
"1% per day average, no risk of deposit loss. " I already thought forex trading individuals weren't the sharpest, but COME ON PEOPLE.

60 points by conistonwater 12y ago

rwmj 12y ago

All you need to know is the website claimed: "It made trading decisions for investors and guaranteed their principal."

abat 12y ago
And averaged 1% return a day!
- robryan 12y ago
  It is essentially the same as payday loans. No one would pay thousands of percent interest but when framed different people take them up.
  - rahimnathwani 12y ago
    It's actually the opposite of payday loans. For example, if someone were to take a 1 month loan for $200, at 15% monthly interest, then they would pay $230 at the end of the month. In the UK at least, loans must quote an Annualised Percentage Rate (APR), which is the IRR (Internal Rate of Return) over a year. So, any adverts or contracts for this 1 month loan would have to show prominently '435% APR'. The loan is framed as '435% APR', when in fact you're paying $30 for a $200 1-month loan.
lis 12y ago
Absolutely. Combine this with "The site said investors had averaged net gains of 1 percent each trading day during the past five years" and you have a giant stop sign. I am always surprised when I read stories like this. They've lost 2000 pounds and the next thing they do is invest 60.000$? This is a good example why we need more financial education in school.
- conistonwater 12y ago
  I'm not sure what financial education would do here. The people in the article, some of whom were medical doctors, surely knew how percentages work, how probabilities work. What else exactly did they need to be taught, in school, university, and medical school? I'd say they needed more (at least some) common sense.
  - lis 12y ago
    Sometimes common sense has to be taught. Of course they do know how percentages, probabilities and so on work. But they fail to do so when it comes to money. I actually doubt that this is (in most cases) due to greed. Many people just don't have a feeling for the relation between risk and promised reward.
    - justincormack 12y ago
      Not sure, I think it is greed related. People assume that money creates more money just like that. One person in the article didn't trust banks post crisis. I guess people do assume that the financial services business makes vast amounts of money out of money, rather than largely just taking proportions of said money away.
  - fasteo 12y ago
    surely knew how percentages work Not even close. A 1% daily return is science-fiction.
    - cesarb 12y ago
      > Not even close. A 1% daily return is science-fiction. Not really. In 1990, the most common kind of "savings account" used here (caderneta de poupança) had one month with over 80% returns. That's a bit more than 1% daily return, for an investment almost everyone could (and did) have. Of course, that year the inflation was over 1000%/year...
      - 12y ago
cesarb 12y ago
Legitimate funds like that do exist. I took a look at one of the biggest banks on my country, and found five "protected principal funds" (if you can read Portuguese, it's at http://www.bb.com.br/portalbb/page3,116,2198,1,1,1,1.bb?codigoNoticia=12249&codigoMenu=1092&codigoRet=9848&bread=1_13 http://www.bb.com.br/portalbb/page3,116,2198,1,1,1,1.bb?codi...). There are several caveats. According to what I read on that page, these funds use a combination of derivatives and fixed income to protect the principal. On the "risk factors" part, it says the principal cannot be guaranteed if you get out of the fund early; even if you wait until the end and get back the principal, it won't be adjusted for the inflation (6.5%/year and growing); and you always have to pay for the fund administration (1.5%/year for the fund I'm looking at). Of course, the average return for these kinds of funds will be less than the return for funds which do not guarantee the principal. A quick search found an article (http://www.valor.com.br/valor-investe/o-consultor-financeiro/1040598/capital-protegido-e-bom-para-voce http://www.valor.com.br/valor-investe/o-consultor-financeiro...) with a comparison between one of these protected capital funds and a balanced stock/fixed income fund (last graph in the article). Most of the time, the balanced fund won. So, guaranteeing the principal is not a red flag. What should have been a red flag is the return rate: 1%/month is too high, even more it they are guaranteeing the principal (which should decrease the expected return). High return rates tend to be correlated with higher risk.
- conistonwater 12y ago
  Well, it also matters that this was a black-box "trading strategy" in foreign exchange markets. Investing money into stocks and bonds, and then buying protection on the principal (the fund administration fee is what compensates the bank for guaranteeing the principal, after all) from a bank with low default risk is quite a different thing altogether. Good point, though.
- oldspiceman 12y ago
  High returns with no loss is a massive red flag. Principal protected notes do exist but they are financially engineered to provide you with the smallest return possible while charging a hefty fee for the bank which creates them.
- heelhook 12y ago

bruceboughton 12y ago

CEO of forex trading site: Michael Sterling Nominative determinism hits again.

notastartup 12y ago
white beard clearly showing experience from weathering the storms of forex market. fat stature implies he has been fed nothing but high quality dinners at premium restaurants, a sign of success.

vinhboy 12y ago

And I thought MtGox was bad. I don't want to victim blame, and I certainly feel terrible for these people, as I have been a victim of scams myself. But jeebus, I do more research into buying an iPhone case than these people did for wiring money to a foreign country.

pmorici 12y ago
"I thought MtGox was bad." For context this is roughly 2 - 3x bigger than the Mt Gox loss of 850k Bitcoins. At the same time it isn't as bad as the MF Global fraud that cost investors 1.6 billion.
Cthulhu_ 12y ago
TBH MtGox, I believe, started out with good intentions but eventually failed due to poor software and automated buy orders to drive up the price to attract new investors. This sounds like it was an intentional scam from day 1.

Roonerelli 12y ago

if something seems too good to be true....it probably is Feel sorry for those who lost money, but, I can't imagine transferring money to someone making such promises

mjklin 12y ago
To a shady bank in Latvia, no less. This goes to show that if you dress something up the right way you can sell it to anyone. In Spanish we say "even though the monkey dresses up in silk, it's still a monkey." But people are blinded by their own greed and can't see through the sham.
- conistonwater 12y ago
  > To a shady bank in Latvia, no less. I kind of understand what you mean, but this is a little unfair to Latvia. It's a member of the EU and the eurozone, its banks are (don't laugh please) supervised, and the bank itself was very likely not shady at all. Rather, the bank's customer, which opened an account with the bank, was a shady fraudulent business. The issue with transferring money like that is that it makes investigations harder and slower, as there are more jurisdictions in play. But I think the bank that processed the transactions was basically quite all right, unless there is specific evidence to the contrary.
  - mootothemax 12y ago
    I kind of understand what you mean, but this is a little unfair to Latvia. Completely agree, it'd be just as possible to perform such a scam with bank accounts in e.g. the UK or the US. It doesn't take much. Here's a 16-year-old complaining about his bank's conduct after he was basically caught processing fraudulent payments via his bank account: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/jul/07/strange-bank-account-money-mule http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/jul/07/strange-bank-ac...
  - kbart 12y ago
    Most of the banks in Latvia (same as in all Baltic states) are the branches of bigger Scandinavian banks, that as the last crisis has shown, are among the most trustworthy and respected banks. So no, it's not "some shaddy bank".

simlevesque 12y ago

Let me introduce the "business presentation" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkBjbnvnrBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkBjbnvnrBk

kubiiii 12y ago
Brillant. What's not to like? Even the CEO looks 3d rendered.
mkhpalm 12y ago
Dear god... somebody threw 60k at them after seeing that?
bcantrill 12y ago
Wow, that's mesmerizingly bad! That uploader has "business presentations" from many similarly obvious scams, including Empire Finance[1], Royal Fund[2], Sixa.biz[3] and Avan Fund[4]. (Note to self: don't invest in funds advertised with synthetic speech!) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQZMtMLrykM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQZMtMLrykM [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOb9y7cUH2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOb9y7cUH2Q [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xRnLFdPT8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xRnLFdPT8s [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VryexnFw13M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VryexnFw13M
- conistonwater 12y ago
  Relevant quote from [1]: dynamic [boom] daily [boom] profit [boom]

mpclark 12y ago

So these folks have been duped, and the publication is exposing it as the scam that it is. And then, under the article, "UK public snaps up bargains using bizarre online trick - madbid.com" and "How new iPads are selling for under £30". I'm getting mixed messages here.

atlantic 12y ago

>Because Secure had no real headquarters and existed on the Internet only, an investigation would be challenging. This is where they lost me. How can a company involved in billions of dollars' worth of transfers be hard to trace? It's not like they can make a cash withdrawal and close down their account. Ordinarily, there is an enormous amount of official scrutiny around large international capital movements. This lack of enthusiasm in following the paper trail suggests governments are involved at some level.

DanBC 12y ago
Governments hav limited funds to investigate and prosecute fraud. Lack of government action doesn't mean that governments are complicit! It might just mean that they don't have the reseources to track criminals across several different jurisdictions. See "carousel fraud" for an example of a fraud that used to be difficult to tackle. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2009/08/20/uk-carousel-fraud-britain-factbox-sb-idUKTRE57J43U20090820 http://uk.reuters.com/article/2009/08/20/uk-carousel-fraud-b...
lucozade 12y ago
That's one possible explanation. I'd like to offer another...there weren't billions of dollars. That "fact" came from their website. Along with the P&L from their trading and the endorsements. What makes you think that the rest is fake and that bit isn't? They probably had a few million across a dozen accounts in half a dozen countries. Well worth setting up a scam but hardly Bernie Madoff. And even if it was more serious money, they weren't actually investing it so they only needed to keep enough around to Ponzi returns until the scrutiny got too much.

netcan 12y ago

This was obviously a ponzi-esque scam. That's just old fashioned financial crime. There was something that umped out at my though, now that we're in a time where we've thought about long tail or black swan risk quite a lot. "Secure Investment said it offered something safer: It made trading decisions for investors and guaranteed their principal." Ultimately the long tail perverse incentive (I don't know if there's a name for it, but it's the same perverse incentive that performance bonuses create) is a tricky one and I think it permeates a lot of things. Say, these guys came out with a more credible claim. They guarantee 80% of your principle and target 10%-20% returns. There probably are trading strategies that produce nice results in the -20% - 20% range with a long tail risk of 100% loss. Over twenty years, they might average over 10% returns with nice fees or bonuses (regardless of how this is set up) with an occasional cost to honoring the guarantee. One year out of twenty, they wipe out all investors and the game is up. The company takes home whatever it's made up until that point and investors lose their entire principle. This kind of risk is difficult for us to understand. Regulation chokes on it. Investors choke on it. A 43 year old fund manager looking at his competitors' successful 17 year run is very likely to choke on it.

heelhook 12y ago
That likely wouldn't work though. IMO the reason these people were so successful in deceiving so many "investors" is selection bias, much like Nigerian-scams using Nigeria as the country of origin to only engage very gullible people. If they were to "only" guarantee 80% of the principal most victims would have gone away.
- netcan 12y ago
  That's true. This is not that kind of scam. This sounds closer to plain theft by fraud. I just think the made-up story they are telling, these lies, are usually variations and exaggerations of the stories told by "legitimate" players. It's interesting. Laws, standards and people's brains need black and white. A line after which things are fraud, crime and such. But I think from the perspective of the scammers, they probably saw themselves as part of a spectrum. They probably pay more attention, compete with and emulate their neighbors on that spectrum. Little dodgy funds copy little legitimate funds. Little illegal scams copy little dingy funds. In the wild, the line between this and that doesn't exist. It's like the line between pirate, privateer, wrecker and merchant.

vesinisa 12y ago

This is such common type of scam that it even has a Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_fraud Why do people keep falling for the same scam over and over again?

us0r 12y ago

A screen of their website: http://www.domaintools.com/research/screenshot-history/secureinvestment.com/#0 http://www.domaintools.com/research/screenshot-history/secur...

GFischer 12y ago
It hits all of the right buttons: - International phone numbers prominently displayed - Security certificate at the bottom - Success Stories with names - Social buttons with thousands of "likes" - People photos prominently displayed and, while screenshots do not show them, there were addresses for offices in several countries It was an extremely well-designed scam, it hits all of the points other articles on HN mention to gain trust for startups :)

funkyy 12y ago

This have HYIP all over its face. The website is typical HYIP scheme. People lost the money because of greed. Investing in some shady business for good returns is just wrong. Anyone with at least a bit of sense in business would avoid this... Anyone else would lost their money anyways, in either this or other get rich fast scheme. It looks like very expensive lesson to many...

GFischer 12y ago
I had to look up the HYIP acronym, and yes, it looked like a ponzi-like scheme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-yield_investment_program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-yield_investment_program

PMan74 12y ago

>The site said investors had averaged net gains of 1 percent each trading day during the past five years. How seemingly intelligent people (the guy was a doctor) read this and don't think "too good to be true" is beyond me.

bedane 12y ago

"1% per day average, no risk of deposit loss. " I already thought forex trading individuals weren't the sharpest, but COME ON PEOPLE.