“Scams flourish as rates hit rock bottom”

A timely reminder in the form of an article in the Sunday Times yesterday; one of the fastest growing “businesses” in the UK seems to be fraud!

The article by journalist Ben Marlow warns of the risk of such things as Boiler Room Scams where you are contacted by a caller with an opportunity that literally is too good to be true.

The “investment” might be a piece of land that has “planning permission” and whose value is going to go up rapidly in the short term (so called Land Banking).

If you think about it, why would someone who has land with planning consent want to sell parcels of it to small investors?!

Or perhaps the investment might be in shares in a business which you have probably not heard of (if they exist at all) which are going to sky rocket in value because of some event only the seller seems to know about.

These are no more than scams. Warning – if you invest in them you are going to lose your money.

The old adage that something that sounds too good to be true is too good to be true, is spot on here.

Sadly people are taken in by the charming and smooth talking salesman or perhaps are bullied into investing by the persistent and aggressive caller.

The FSA suggests that on average such victims lose about £20,000; usually money they cannot afford to lose.

There is the real difference between investing in something that goes down in value and investing in something that was not real in the first place.

If you get such a direct call please, please just say no and hang up the phone.

Photo credit: Flickr/sickmouthy