Steve es un hombre de 65 años que vive solo en la jubilación.

Not long after his wife’s death, he received an unexpected call about an investment opportunity. The cold callers sounded very professional and seemed to have excellent knowledge of investment matters. They answered all of Steve’s questions and their initial contact was followed up with calls from 'senior advisors'.

No hay atajos para la riqueza. Si recibes llamadas o correos electrónicos no solicitados, cuelga o bórralos inmediatamente.

Como los fondos de jubilación de Steve no iban muy bien, decidió explorar esta nueva oportunidad de inversión. No se le ocurrió hablar de las oportunidades de inversión con nadie más.

Over the next 12 months, Steve made a number of transfers to the 'investment professionals', initially starting with $10 000. He was referred to a very professional-looking website and set up a login account, which showed his money increasing in value as the market ‘went up’. Confident the system was working, he invested more money, to a total of $200 000.

Busque siempre asesoramiento financiero independiente antes de realizar una inversión.

Sólo se dio cuenta de que el plan de inversión era una estafa cuando el sitio web dejó de funcionar y ya no pudo acceder a su cuenta ni ponerse en contacto con el grupo offshore por teléfono.

He then did some research and discovered the company was fake and not registered with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) but he was too embarrassed to tell anyone or report it to the police. He was contacted by police after they discovered his name on bank transfers made to known fraudsters.

Since learning of the scam, Steve was again contacted by criminals, with offers to help him get his money back from the original investment. This time Steve contacted the police, who explained this was a 'follow-up scam' and warned him to expect more calls like this as his name was most likely passed on to other criminals.