It was less than a year ago when a news story appeared regarding websites that were offering low-risk investments with high returns. The story identified those websites that offered little to no proof to back their lucrative claims.
The websites covered in the news story offered seemingly harmless investment opportunities that actually seemed too good to be true.
Published in March 2018, the news story mentioned how one of the sites offered annual returns of up to 14 percent.
The offer was a significant increase from the best return rate of actual savings bonds, which could only offer 2.5 percent as their highest annual interest rate.
Such Offers are Always Too Good to be True
Needless to say, the offer was compelling enough to intrigue those who were looking for alternative savings options. However, when the newspaper dug deeper and asked financial experts about the possibility of such high returns, it was told that managing these returns was “simply not possible” for anyone.
The comments that the newspaper received from the parent company of one of these websites did little to clarify the company’s claims of offering high returns.
The Offers Come with a Risk of Losing All the Investors’ Money
What made the already shady situation even murkier was a slew of emails that the newspaper team received during its investigation, all of which solicited the recipient to invest in further unregulated products.
While these emails initially claimed that the investments were secure, one unregulated email went as far as to say that that they came with “significant risk of losing all their money.”
That coupled with the investment website’s unregulated status was enough to deem these websites as unreliable entities. One of the main websites then disappeared off the face of the Internet, only to resurrect from its virtual death before going offline again.
Investments Made with these Websites Remain Unprotected
Some of the investors that made investments with such websites came forward with the claim that they did not receive any returns or their money back. However, since these websites often operate under gray areas, these investors were unable to have financial authorities settle any claims for them.
Websites are never registered under the protection of financial authorities. Along with this, the language used in the agreements that the investor has to sign is often confusing. As a result, the investments made are not protected by financial regulations, and any money that is lost remains irrecoverable.
Shady Websites Keep Reappearing
That behavior is not unusual for these shady entities. When brought to light as running possible scams, these websites go offline for a while before getting back in business again. Their obfuscated operations let them keep working with investments. If financial authorities clamp down on them, they surface again with another name after a little while.
Another thing to note is that these scams target people of all ages. Regardless of their specific age group, it does not matter if they are in their late 60s, or early 30s; anyone who is trying to earn a significant profit through their investments could fall prey to them.
How to Stay Safe from Financial Scams
To steer clear of such scams, investors need to ensure that they are dealing with credible entities. Stick with hard assets like gold, silver, equipment investing of all sorts, and cannibas.
You can keep yourself and your loved ones safe by making sure that your investments are tangible and understandable, easily defined and that the company has a history of good returns with credible reviews online to back up their claims
In the meantime, remember, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
If it’s too good to be true… you know.