Financial Scams to upload

This article is intended to provide a useful guide to financial investors
and potential investors in order to help them avoid financial frauds, scams
and boiler rooms.

The content of such article is based upon real cases investigated by ISOG.

Country of Incorporation
Many of the companies involved in cold calling, boiler rooms, internet
scams, financial scams and frauds are incorporated in the BVI (British
Virgin Islands), Philippines, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
These countries offer the possibilities to incorporate anonymous offshore
companies. This means that if you want to know the names of the people you
are dealing with, you cannot. The real beneficiaries of the company are
protected by anonymity and therefore, even in case of fraud, it will be
very difficult to get a court order to disclose their names.

License
To be able to offer financial services and operate as a broker, a company
has to hold a license in each country where it promotes its services. These
licenses are issued by the Financial Supervisory Commission of each and
single country. Usually, the people operating the company tell you they
have a license in their country of incorporation. This is most of the time
a lie. In fact, an offshore company cannot operate in the country of
incorporation and therefore they cannot hold a license in that country.
Moreover, as already outlined, if the broker does not have a license in the
country of residence of the prospect, this broker is operating illegally
and you should report it to the Financial Supervisory Authority of your
country.

Website and Contact Information
Check the broker's website to see if they provide a physical address and a
telephone number.
If they provide a PO Box, then you know something is wrong. If they provide
a physical address, then check on the web to see whether other companies
are registered at the same address. For example, companies incorporated in
the BVI always give the same address which is the address of the resident
agent, meaning the law firm that incorporated the company. The broker
itself is not at that address.
The address is a very good indication because a company that pretend to
offer financial services in your country must have a local office and
address since they need a license from your local Financial Supervisory
Authority.
Very often these alleged brokers use internet (IP) telephone numbers in
this way you cannot trace them easily and without a court order in the
country where they have the IP telephony contract.

Personal Meeting
Selling financial services requires providing the client with a lot of
information about the investment and this is done in a personal meeting
between the broker and the client.
The companies involved in scams and financial frauds will never give you a
chance to meet them in person. Sometimes they claim this opportunity is
offered only to top clients.

Payment
These fraudulent companies usually never require you to transfer your money
to them directly. They provide you with a payment instruction where you are
requested to transfer money to a third company whose bank account is in a
country which is neither your country of residence nor their country of
incorporation.
Check the country where you are supposed to transfer your money and you
will see that it is likely to be Malaysia, Seychelles, Hong Kong, Taiwan,
Indonesia, Panama among others.

Taxes
Many of such fraudulent brokers, after having taken your money, tell you
that in order for you to disinvest and get your money back, you need to pay
a 30% tax to IRS (the US Tax Office) or give this in deposit until IRS
itself allows you to get it back.

This is just another way to get more money from you, be aware!