Beware of Get Rich Quick Scams
It’s a nice idea. Increase your wealth with little effort. Who wouldn’t like to get in on an investment opportunity and make a lot of money quickly and easily with little or no risk. Or, if not by investing, win big in a sweepstakes, being set for life. Unfortunately, scammers play on these desires and, in the process, end up leaving a lot of people losing their life savings.
Investment Scams
Investment scammers lure you in through social media posts, infomercials, and other ads. They entice people into investing into financial markets, cryptocurrency, real estate, or precious metals or coins. The scammers may start out offering free training and materials, but then it quickly leads to hefty fees for additional training or seminars to “increase your success”. They may even offer guarantees showing success stories of investors living lavish lifestyles, all to get as much of your money as possible.
Signs of an Investment Scam
- Guaranteed success or profit. A promise to make “big” money: Only scammers will guarantee that you will earn substantial amounts of money.
- Little risk, time, and effort: Any investment takes time and comes with risk.
- Offers few details regarding investment: Ask questions. Get details in writing. If they are not willing to give you details, it is a sign of fraud.
- Secret investment tricks or proven method: Only scammers promise a proven system of making money with little time, effort, and risk.
Signs of a Lottery/Sweepstake Scam
You are notified that you have won a prize or cash, but to receive your prize, you must pay money or give account information. Stop! It’s a scam. Scammers may go as far as to say they are from a well-known company that run real sweepstakes, but no real company asks for account information or will have you pay money to receive a prize.
How scammers trick you
- You may receive a text, email, or message through social media with a link to click on saying you have won a gift card or discount code from a local store. Or it may say you won something more expensive, like a new car. Do not respond or click on the link. It might download malware on your device.
- Scammers may tell you that you are the only lucky winner. Check online to see if anyone else may have received the same message or, if you were notified by mail, check the postmark to see if it was mailed by bulk rate.
- Scammers will send you a check and ask you to send money back. Once you deposit the check, you are responsible for it. You send part of the funds to the scammer; the check comes back as fraudulent or counterfeit and you are left holding the bag.
- Scammers ask you to pay a specific way. They want you to wire the funds, send cryptocurrency, use a payment app, or maybe buy gift cards and send them before you can claim your prize. They use methods that are hard to track who the money went to.
How to Avoid Losing Money to Scammers
- Do your own research.
- Research companies before you deal with them
- Know the Risk
- There are no guaranteed returns
- If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is
- Whether it’s investing or winning a prize, verify the source
- With any scam, if someone is pressuring you to “act now”, it should throw up a red flag. Scammers do not want you to have time to think about your actions.
Think you are a victim?
- Stop all communication with the scammer immediately
- Report investment fraud and scams to
- Report precious metals or commodities fraud to the CFTC at cftc.gov/complaint.
- Report someone for using your personal information in an investment scam and get help with personalized recovery steps at IdentityTheft.gov.
- Submit a fraud complaint to https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/
- Notify the website or social media platform where the scammer made contact with you. This can help to have the scammer’s profile removed, protecting other potential victims.
- If you paid the scammer, ask the bank or company you used to send the money if there is a way to get any money back.
- Tell your friends and family to help them avoid a prize scam.
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