A scammer will contact you via email or social media — or promote their fake investment opportunity online via a search engine. They might use images of celebrities and fake testimonials to gain your trust. The scammer could even have a professional-looking website showing hefty investment returns.

After they’ve lured you into handing over your hard-earned money with promises of ‘huge gains’ or ‘zero risk’, they might initially make it seem like you’ve gained some money. They’ll use this to persuade you to invest more or invite your friends and family to invest too. Once they’ve gotten as much from you as they think they can, they’ll close your account and disappear with your money.

Investing with borrowed money

Not only are people falling victim to investment and crypto scams and handing over their life savings, but we’re also seeing a rise in the number of people taking out loans to fund these ‘investments’ — often claiming the money’s needed for things like home improvements.

After parting ways with your cash, you’ll never hear from these so-called investors again and can be left paying off the loan for years to come. What’s worse, since you’ve been tricked into willingly taking out a loan under false pretences, it’s much harder to retrieve any stolen money.