The Expert Podcast

Here's another example of a win for the good guys. This is a scammer who is taking money from victims, representing that there was a good investment. They were going to get some money back. Now, this one has to do with vehicles. It was supposedly a car dealer who told victims, "Look, I'm buying these vehicles at an auction. I'm going to resell them, and I'm going to make a profit. And if you help me finance these vehicles, you're going to share in the profit."

It doesn't matter if the investment is a vehicle like this one, crypto, or any other kind of investment. When a company or person says, "I'm going to give you a big profit" because of this particular type of scheme, you have to be very, very careful that you're not going to lose your money. And this is not an online kind of mysterious business. This is an actual car dealer who had an office, a sign, a location, and everything was legit. But anytime the return on investment is that big, it raises a red flag.

And this is what this guy said. He said, "I'm buying these cargo vans from an auction and I'm going to sell them to Amazon. I have a contract with Amazon to use them for delivery vehicles, but I don't have all the money I need to buy all these vans. So, if you help me finance it, lend me the money, and you'll double your money in a certain period of time, whatever it was." And of course, he never bought the vans. He took $8 million from victims and basically spent most of it, allegedly. And now he's been indicted, and he's going to have to face prosecution.

Anytime there's an investment like that that has a huge upside, think about why it's not likely or probable. If a person needs the money and is willing to pay you that much return, they should just be able to go to a bank. There are many other types of institutional investors. Even if they have bad credit, even if they don't have a balance sheet or finances, there are other places to get money cheaper. And for them to go to the retail public, consumers, and investors, to tell you that you're going to get this big return, it's improbable because there are many other places to get money that are legitimate and cost less. Why would they come to you? Because it costs a lot of time and effort to find all these investors and get money, unless it's a big risk, which means you probably don't want to invest in it anyway.
Where does this money go? A lot of times it's spent by the fraudster, which means now you have to do an investigation to find out where it went, to try to get it back, and to try to do some type of recovery on that money. Many people have lost their life savings to these kinds of scams.

So, whatever the investment that's presented to you is, find out where the money's going and get documentation of all the particulars. And at the same time, even if they give you documents and records that look like they're legitimate, be very cautious. Don't put your entire life savings into it. Put what you can afford to lose, because many times you're going to lose it. And it may take a lot of time, effort, and money to even try to get it back. In this case, the person's been indicted, but who knows how much money has been spent? Maybe there's third parties that can kick in, like the insurance companies or banks, but that's going to be another part of the investigation that's going to be on the shoulders of the victims to get that money back. And I'm sure it was hard earned when you earned it. And to throw it away on a fake investment can be painful.