“We provide sure-shot stock market investment tips. Enjoy the free trial for 6 months. If you are satisfied, you can enrol for the premium investment tips package anytime”
Have you received an Email or SMS similar to the above? Also have you wonder, how could anyone provide sure-shot tips? If they know a sure-shot investment tip, why do they reveal it, instead of investing and making money for themselves?
Let me reveal you today their trade secret. The secret behind the scam: “Sure-shot Investment Tips” and why you should not fall prey for this.
The Scamsters Strategy!!!
Scamsters, usually, pose as online stock market advisers. They somehow collect 1 lac contact details to start with. Once these scamsters have 100000 retail investors’ email id or phone number, their scam activities will start.
And how it works!!!
The modus operandi is simple. They give tips. Say in a particular month they will predict the market will go up or go down. Accordingly, their 100000 clients will react and invest according to the tips. It so happens that there is a 50:50 probability that the market will behave according to the tip. Either it will go down or go up.
Hence these scamsters will inform half of their clients (say 50000 clients) that the market will go up and the remaining half (another 50000 clients) will be informed that the market will go down.
Developing satisfied clients!!!
As the market will either go up or down, one group of 50000 clients are going to be benefitted. The scamsters then will focus on the 50000 benefitted and satisfied clients and will give a tip for the next month. They will divide the remaining 50000 clients in two groups and to one group they will inform that the market is going up and to the remaining 25000 clients the market will go down. Again one group of 25000 clients will be benefitted from the tip.
Developing very satisfied clients!!!
The scamsters will then ignore the group who did not benefit but will now focus on the group 25000 clients who had benefitted. They will repeat the strategy by dividing them in two groups of 12500 each and give them two opposite tips for the next month. One group 12500 clients will be benefitted and the other 12500 will not. The scamsters will now focus on the benefitted group 12500.
They will further divide this group of 12500 satisfied clients in two groups of 6250 each and offer them two opposite tips. One group of 6250 will be further benefitted to which the scamsters will concentrate ignoring the other group.
Developing Devoted Clients!!!
They will again divide this group of very satisfied clients of 6250 in to two groups of 3125 each and repeat their strategy of giving two opposite tips for the next month. Again one group of 3125 will further benefit and become very satisfied clients.
The scamsters will divide these very satisfied 3125 clients in two groups and give them opposite tips. Out of the 3125 very satisfied clients, 1562 clients will be benefitted from this tip and will become devoted clients of the scamster.
Making Merry out of these Devoted Clients!!!
What has happened in this process is that there are now 1562 clients who have got 6 consecutive right tips from the scamsters and have made money in the process. They will be now greedier to earn more money. The scamsters are actually waiting for this opportunity. They will introduce the paid version of the so called “Sure-shot Investment Tips Package” to these 1562 devoted clients and sell the paid version to all of them for a lumpsum amount. These devoted clients will continue to stick with the scamster till they have lost considerable amount of money.
The scamsters will collect another 1 lac contacts and repeat the same scam again with the new contacts. Once their contact database is exhausted, they will create another investment tip website with a different brand name and start giving the trail package to the same database.
This is how the Sure-shot investment tips scams are devised and scamsters take advantage of the greed of the clients, who they have engineered to become devoted so that they can part with their money and these scamsters make hay!!!
Greediness and the desire to make quick money are actually the weakness on which these scams are built. Don’t fall prey for these traps. Remove those weaknesses and become stronger financially forever.
If you want to avoid these kind of financial and investment traps and be on the right financial tracks, then preparing an elaborate financial plan will be of great help. If you are serious about creating a financial plan for yourself, then you may want to check our financial planning process.
The author is Ramalingam K, an MBA (Finance) and Certified Financial Planner. He is the Director and Chief Financial Planner of Holistic Investment Planners (www.holisticinvestment.in) a firm that offers Financial Planning and Wealth Management. He can be reached at ramalingam@holisticinvestment.in