Do This If Your Investment Were Scammed Online

Investment scams are the most common kind that cause people to lose money. It might be difficult to identify these frauds.

Avoid investing your hard earned money in a business opportunity that seems too good to be true.

Scammers make their investments too good to be true by employing clever advertising and modern technology.

Consider the scenario where someone asks you to invest $1,000 and promises to return $10,000 in return in just a couple of weeks or months. You will think that this is the perfect chance for you. But Scammers use this method to deceive people and promise profits with no risk. 

They frequently apply pressure to get you to take quick action so they can take your money.

According to my research, from 2021 to 2022, there were 106,201 recorded investment-related scams (up from 91,762 in 2021), and the total money lost reached 121 percent ($2.89 billion in 2021 to over $6.38 billion in 2022).

Consumers lost more money in 2022 due to investment fraud than any other category, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The IC3 has reached a similar conclusion, claiming that investment scams were the most expensive scheme last year, with “unprecedented” rises in victims and financial losses. 

Today, let’s discuss how to deal with online investment scams and what to do if your investment is scammed.

What should you do if you have lost investments in a scam?

Here are some steps you might take if you believe you are a victim of investment fraud:

Report it to the authorities:

Make sure to report a scam if you believe you are the victim of one. By doing this, you not only might receive assistance, but you also might stop others from becoming victims of the same scam.

Organizations like the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) complaint website, your local FBI office, your state’s attorney general, and your state’s securities authorities might be able to help, depending on the specifics of your complaint.  

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a webpage where you can file a complaint about fraud.

 Make sure to write down all you can to support your claim, including any details that could help identify the fraudster, such as the caller’s identity, the time and date of the call or email, the information they requested from you, and any other details.

The Investor Complaint Center of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is another place where you can report an investment scam. 

There is an online form that you can use to register complaints about brokers and brokerage firms, and you must fill it out completely.

Also, particularly if your loss was significant, you might wish to speak with a private attorney. 

It is essential to alert law enforcement to the investment scam in order to begin the recovery process, ensure that the offenders are investigated, and prevent further harm to others.

Create a fraud file: 

Keep a record of everything, including the name of the company, the names of the people you spoke with, and their contact details, such as phone numbers or website addresses. This can assist you in compiling the data you need to describe what happened in detail. 

Your file should also contain any reports you made to law enforcement, a police report, if you filed one, and notes or pertinent documents about the fraud. Your most recent credit report from all three credit reporting bureaus should be added as an additional crucial piece of information.

Never feel forced to make an immediate investment. It can be alluring to join the herd and do what everyone else on social media seems to be doing. But occasionally, going along with the crowd can get you duped into making a bad investment. 

You might be a target once more: Scammers occasionally get in touch with former victims again, telling them that they can assist them in recovering lost money. This is really a side hustle. Any callers who offer to get your money back should be ignored.

Hire crypto recovery expert:

It’s true that reporting to hire authorities may not help you recover you lost funds. For instance, if you are scammed on Coinbase, or cash app, you should surely contact them at priority, but they have their limitations.

They can only freeze accounts if the scammer has money on their exchanges.

But if they have moved their coins to any other wallet, they are helpless.

Similarly, FBI may also not help you recover you scammed money.

In such cases, when you are helpless and no one else is helping you, you should seek professional hep.

Crypto recovery services know that crypto scammers can be traced so they go above and beyond to recover your lost funds.

Online Investment Scams (OIS) is one of the legit crypto recovery agencies who has a proven track record. If you are scammed and you have lost your investments, no matter it’s USDT, BNB, Bitcoin, Ethereum or any other crypto, you must contact OIS recovery experts here on this email:

recover@onlineinvestmentscams.com

Put an end to self-blame.

You may have overlooked what now seem to be clear red signs, but you are not the first and, regrettably, you won’t be the last person to do so. Be gentle with yourself, then. Be mindful that you are not a criminal. The criminal is the one who took something from you.

Speak with close friends or family members you can trust about important financial decisions you need to make, or seek independent expert assistance.  Always do your research before making an investment since not everything you read on social media is true, and people who act as professionals on websites are often not genuine. 

How to protect yourself when investing

Here are must to check things while investing anywhere:

1. Before making a choice, conduct thorough research on the opportunity using reliable sources.
2. Watch out for unsolicited investment opportunities
3. Make sure you know the risks before investing 
4. Guarantees that an investment will consistently generate a large profit; generally, anything that sounds too good to be true is.
5. Before making a choice, confirm that the investment firms are registered
6. Take care when doing business with foreign-based companies. They could be located there to avoid important regulatory requirements.

Top investment scams to avoid:

There are many offers out there that promise easy money quickly; the general rule of thumb is that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

 So I have made a list of the top investment scams to avoid if you are looking to make some extra cash. 

1. Ponzi or pyramid schemes:

The most notorious get-rich-quick scheme Ponzi scam companies attempt to recruit more and more people for a small fee. The promise is that the more people join, the more money there is for those who have already been recruited. Eventually, people stop joining or the product that the company sells ends up costing new recruits more than they could ever make, and either the promoters vanish or recruits drop off when they are unable to keep paying. 

2. Pump and dump

This is an illegal practice where a small group of people buy stock before they sell it to thousands of investors because the new sales trigger spikes in the stock price. The perpetrators quickly sold off their shares for a sizable profit, leaving thousands of investors broke as their stock value fell. 

3. Prime bank investments:

Prime bank programs claim high quality and and low risk instruments such as world paper, international monetary fund bonds, and federal reserve notes. Scams promise that funds will be used to purchase and trade prime bank financial instruments for large profits; unfortunately, these prime bank instruments generally never exist, and investors lose everything. 

4. Social media and online fraud:

Cybercriminals target specific audiences with their investment fraud schemes by utilizing social media features on the internet. Victims are persuaded to invest in financial scams through websites, newsletters, and phishing emails that include false information. 

5. Affinity fraud:

Scammers try to trick people who belong to a group that has come together because of a shared characteristic, like age, race, or religion. To gain the trust of the group leader and its members, scammers pose as members of the group. The con artists think that if the group leader makes an investment, the other participants will do the same.

6. Cryptocurrency scam:

Digital currencies based on blockchains are unregulated, which makes it easy for scammers to steal money from victims covertly. Common cryptocurrency scams, such as pig butchering scam, celebrity crypto investment scam, other investment offers, fake coins, and counterfeiting, are widespread on social media platforms like Telegram.

Investment fraud is on the rise as a result of people’s strong desire to make money and their mistaken belief that everyone is sincere. I advise anyone who wants to make money to do their research, consult experts, and be aware of investments because it is a risky business to be in. 

There are undoubtedly ways to get your money back if you are the victim of fraud as long as you report the scam right away and are patient. You have a good chance of getting your money back if you use the advice I provided in this article.