Have you ever made a bad financial investment, one which you were conned into? It's ok if you don't want to say, it can be embarrassing I suppose, you know, admitting we were duped into parting with hard-earned money. I'll admit that it's happened to me, when I was a much younger man, and sure, I felt like an idiot, but I learned a valuable lesson.
I knew the guy through my work, he was a customer, and over time we became more friendly. About two months after I met him he told me about a system he was developing for the automotive trade, a system that would retro-fit to a car and do some things. It sounded like a decent product so I was open to learn some more which I did over the next couple of weeks. It was then he brought me an investor pack which seemed very official looking and professionally presented. I accepted his invite to the upcoming investors evening and along I went with my wife to hear them out.
A few days later I decided to buy some shares and handed over a thousand dollars and received my share certificate. I felt good about it as I'd done my due diligence, understood the product, their plans for marketing and promotion, production, where they would stock the product, projected sales and profits and so on; there were other elements but you get the idea.
Not long after that, about six weeks, he came to see me and suggested there might be an opportunity to pick up some more shares prior to the price rising and he showed me the revised product the engineering team had been working on. I ended up investing another one thousand dollars.
Here's the thing...About six months later I was contacted by a lawyer who was acting on behalf of a group of my fellow-investors. Apparently there was a meeting taking place in which the owner of the company would address the investors in respect of some issues that were raised; namely, the misappropriation of funds which means, the illegal use of another person's money. And that's when I started to understand what was happening.
It didn't go well; the meeting. There was much ranting and raving by other investors and the company Director, a lot of accusations and some pretty weak excuses too. As it turns out the funds he was gathering were being used by the fellow and his family to provide a life of luxury comfort and...it was all gone with no product to show for it.
There were many in the room who had invested a few hundred thousand dollars each and many, like me, who only invested a few thousand, but all were feeling pretty angry and whilst my two thousand dollars wasn't going to affect my life too badly I was pretty cut by the fact I'd been duped.
I never got my money back. I could have pursued it through legal channels although the cost of doing so would have negated the gain. I let it go and moved on. I guess I looked at it as a two thousand dollar learning experience and, since that time, I've not been pulled into something similar so it was a good lesson.
Sometimes financial investments can seem so attractive on the surface; they show great potential returns and can seem infallible. It's not always the way though. Just because it looks like gold it doesn't mean it is gold.
It's sometimes difficult to know if an investment opportunity is legitimate or not and no matter how cautiously we approach it we can still get stung, like I did. Research is the key though, performing due diligence and speaking with trusted advisers in an attempt to learn as much as possible prior to jumping in. I did that, prior to investing back then...but still got stung unfortunately.
We can't mitigate every risk when it comes to investments however we can learn from mistakes which, hopefully, don't break us financially in the process. Have you ever been involved in a dodgy investment that caused financial loss? Feel free to tell me about it below.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised so be humble and kind
Any images in this post are my own
Hello Mr @galenkp. Thank you very much again for sharing valuable lessons here.
I also experienced the same thing when I just finished college. It was my savings during college that I planned for business capital. At first I saw the man as a successful person with his parlente appearance and the luxury sedan he drove during our first 3 meetings.
But I'm a bit luckier than you. If you have to lose two thousand dollars, then I managed to get back 50% of my investment value from it
It's true as you said that what looks like gold, it's not necessarily gold.
The main lesson I took from my incident is never to take shortcuts to get an advantage without working hard and you are not directly involved in it.
Have a nice day
Short cuts don't often turn out so well; there's many here on Hive taking them and many understanding that get right quick schemes don't often pay off.
Having said that, my investment wasn't a short cut, just something I thought could pay dividends down the track, I guess like you thought also. In the end, lessons were learned so it wasn't a total loss. We're a bit wiser right?
Have a nice do yourself.
Thank you for your reinforcement.
Hopefully this will be useful for all of us and we can apply it here.
Just Last year i fell victim to one. It hurts a lot because I invested a huge amount of money into it, the scam was well orchestrated and smooth, so many people in the country fell for it, it was only after they carted away with people's money did the warning signs we never saw started revealing itself. Till today i still suffer from the effect.
If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is, is a saying that resounds around the world, but still people get caught out with scams. We have a lot here that originate in Nigeria and so many older people get stung. My own aunt lost several thousand dollars to a Nigerian Prince who scammed her. She was naïve of course, but I'd still like to get hold of the chap and beat him to within an inch of his life. I think you understand as you're also still suffering.
Sadly i can't deny that. We have a lot of young men here involve in cyber crimes, so many foreigners and even citizens fall victims to them everyday. This has tarnished the country's name and the painful part is things aren't changing, instead it's increasing daily.
It's a terrible shame because, as you say, it reflects on the entire country and not everyone in the country is doing the wrong thing. Here in Australia, if the country of Nigeria is mentioned it's almost always in relation to a scam avoided or fallen for and it's getting worse and worse. My aunt was very badly affected as she didn't really have the money to lose, she's now in a very bad situation because of it and it makes me very angry.
Still, all each individual can do is be their best version and refuse to lower themselves to those standards. If more people did that maybe things would improve.
Yes, I have been scammed.
Yes, I felt stupid, helpless, and angry!
It was €750 for student accommodation that never existed.
Police could not track the crook, so I had to console myself by equating that money to all the things that I love and probably would have squandered it on.
It was a lessen, and it would be hard for me to fall victim to cyber scams again...😏
It always feels bad being duped like this but I don't think it's a reflection of the person being duped, it happens to the best of us and many people who should know better. €750 is about $1500AUD and that's a large enough chunk to hurt the hip pocket, especially if it was years ago. Cyber scams are difficult to avoid I guess, we just have to be vigilant and as careful as possible these days.
Yes, it was 2007; a huge chunk of money indeed!... but a vital lesson and realisation that I was street smart but stupid and naive about crimes of that nature.
For a long time, I kept wondering how, why, and what happened.
Then the penny dropped that maybe the crook was not the best in his field, but I was the best candidate to pry on in his mind. He was right!
It was a great eye-opener for me.
The most important thing when funds are lost like this is to learn from it, as with me and my $2000 lesson. Not only does it help mitigate future occurrences, it also helps with the feeling of dumbnidity one feels. Yes, I made that word up.
I wanted to say dumblidlyness...But that would have been dumb.
I felt twice dumbnidity because it was my best friend who helped with that aspect of my plans. However, my friend had a great 'relationship with a fictitious friend' called Jesus, and my friend said that she had put all her trust in Jesus, that it would all work out well, and she didn't take note of all the red alerts.
I'm not sure which part of the dumbnidity was harder for me to swallow.
Dumbnidity is an easy thing to catch.
That's an alarm bell right there. Strike one.
Strike two.
Strike three.
I think your friend is a little dumbnistic but that's how it goes sometimes. The good thing is you lost money and nothing else, sometimes these things go very badly.
#SeveralLessonsLearned 🤣
It hurts when you see the pretty sides of things and when you go into them they dont look same... been a victim of so many, just have to be more careful so many scammers out there pretending to be real.. great topic and write up
It's such a difficult thing to navigate as scammers are often very clever people and their schemes are well set up. Cyber crime is rife at the moment and the authorities struggle to keep up as things are so fluid. It's a frightening situation for those who are not savvy and switched on with the digital world; elderly people for instance. Having said that, it's not just the elderly who get scammed.
I've seen so many people fall for such scams, my parents too. It really is sad.
We are so emotionally driven by our "trust" and relationships; that we don't really put in the effort and time for research before we invest.
Then there's the people who take advantage of our trust, no remorse no nothing, just looking to make some quick cash.
One of the saddest things I've seen is when people scam their own families; it's such a betrayal of trust as people don't expect it. In these cases often, no research is done as people simply trust the family member; it must be devastating to those it happens to.
Families scamming each other is probably the most common around these parts of the world. You see and hear it almost in every corner, 8 out of 10 families go through such betrayal.
I guess I'm one of the lucky ones, my family and relatives have never been through such disputes.
Oh really? I didn't know that. So sad that money becomes more important than family and self-respect. I'm glad you've not had to go through such things.
Yep, not even exaggerating it. It's quite a common issue in our country and our neighboring countries too. Things are changing though, but it will take quite a lot of time to see a proper decline of such incidents.
Well said,
and there are so many
investment opportunities out there, sometimes it is hard to decrypt the real agenda until you go fully in.
I have been a victim, learnt several lessons the hash and hard way but became more informed thereafter.
I have invested in some offline and online opportunities introduced by close friend that looked real but turned out to be crappy. So my only advice is always invest a little and watch, never be tempted, influenced or compelled to throw in more until your are completely convinced. And the real enemy of investment is greed. Almost all the investors I know have this enemy living in them without notice. So firstly, we need to try as much as possible to bring our greed level to at least 0.1% 😅 This simply means cultivate extreme discipline when it comes to investment and spend just what you can afford to lose, something that won't give you sleepless nights.
You make a good point about greed. People tend to see a gain as as a reason to jump all in. It happens to the smartest of us too, not just the idiots. Have you heard about what happened to Isaac Newton? It's worth the read. You can google: Isaac Newton South Sea Bubble if you're keen.
I know the man who defined and enlightened humans on the law of gravity, the man who invented calculus, a world renowned mathematician and physician who later allowed greed destroy his life fortune
Ah ok, you know it all then. Nice work.
Yeah, I learnt of him from the most authoritative figure in network marketing: Eric Worre
In life, academics and intellect is very profitable, but to be self-disciplined, you don't need education alone, you have to be contented with what you have now while working in patience, longsuffering and diligence to acquire what you don't have. That way you reduce the inner enemy (greed and then pride) to 0.1% lol
Yes I actually have. Quite a couple I think.
One was an IPO that went "bankrupt" within a year. The shares are still suspended at the moment as the legal process takes its course. Apparently there seems to be a lot of fishy stuff (unconfirmed rumours of course) leading up to the IPO, and I think it all fell apart when Covid hit and dealt the final blow to the business.
I guess the key is diversification - I don't think anyone can get things right all the time, as long as the winners outnumber the losers, it should be ok.
Diversification, along with a qlotqnof research and discussion with trusted advisors is a good way to go. It won't remove risk, but will mitigate it somewhat. There's not much else to do I guess, investment is a risk no matter what.
You know the story of my Dodge truck now. And I have been thru several bad financial deals in my 55 years on this giant rock. Most have been motor vehicle related.
I am just to the point where I do not want to buy/sell anything. I just do not want to deal with any other human beings (strangers)
But now sittin' round the campfire swappin'
LIESstories with friends.That never gets old.
I agree, I'm retreating from people too, even more than I normally would. This is for the same, or similar, reasons as yourself. Self-sufficiency is a good way to go.
Not as highly technical as this. Financial lessons are all over as long as one is pursuing growth they are bound to come across this humps on there road to growth. It hurts and the feeling lasts longer than words can express.
There are lessons ,in general, all over the place if people are savvy enough to see and take them.
Valuable lesson to learn.... One question an investor will want to know is the Track record of your product.
how successful has it been with the little resources you had...
Then it will be determined if it's more money you need...
It's unfortunate some people forge financial report
Yes indeed, it can be a complicated process and one that needs some research and deliberation.
Cuando algo da tan buena rentabilidad hay que dudar, especialmente ahora con las criptomonedas pero tu caso fue muy diferente,investigaste y entendiste el proyecto lo bueno es que invertiste dinero que no iba a afectarte en el dia a dia llegado el caso de que lo perdieras. Me alegra que lo puedas ver como una enseñanza, bastante cara pero una enseñanza al fin y al cabo.
Sorry, I only speak English.
Ya que estamos compartiendo desgracias yo compre una silla ergonomica a una cuenta de instagram que parecia un local muy profecional, la pague, pasaronlos dias y la cuenta desaparecio hice la denuncia pero todo quedo en nada
Wow... That's is indeed a $2,000 worth of experience. It came at a huge cost. That's a lot and I can't begin to imagine my head being wrapped around that. I understand that to you, it's not so much as the money but knowing how smart you are, you would feel down that someone actually played a fast one on you.
You are right, going through legal channel would cost you a lot more than what you stand to gain. No doubt, you grew wiser with age and that's why you have a wealth of knowledge to be tapped into. I know you, you can NEVER fall for such again, never 🤣🤣😂🤣. Just like that popular song by Gaslight Anthem: "We Did It When We Were Young". It can only happen in your younger years.
Some people still fall for it here though. At least this person presented you sir with an open plan, so many would fall for plans they can't see here in Nigeria especially when it promises the juicy perk of double returns. They would ask a lot of people to double their investment in a month and I don't know how lucrative a business can be, they can't give 100% return yet most people fall for it here.
I think this situation was a legitimate one, but the guy was using the funds inappropriately rather than in developing the product. It's a slippery slope, and as he gained momentum things just got worse.
I said some things about the scammers in Nigeria in another comment; it must be terrible for those who get duped, losing money is bad at the best of times but when one doesn't have very much it's much worse. People in Australia, and other countries, lose money to Nigerian scammers on a daily basis.
That's so sad. I don't know how these guys pull it off, really. It's something I cannot wrap my head around. I can't begin to imagine what they say and how they say things to get off so easily. It's scary to think of. I hope they get caught and karma catch up with them. They have no excuse... Everyone is feeling it too but it's never an excuse to rob others of their hard earned cash. It's disheartening.