Submitted by nsscadmin on
One of the Nova Scotia Securities Commission’s (NSSC) mandates is to protect investors. One of the ways we do that is by issuing investor alerts and cautions. This could be an alert that an individual, company, or website is illegally soliciting Nova Scotia investors without being registered, or that a Nova Scotia resident has lost money to a fraudulent investment.
You can find all of the NSSC’s alerts and cautions on our website in the Investor Alert Database and the Investor Caution List. If you invest with any person, company, or website on this list, you risk losing some or all of your investment.
One of the goals of these lists is for the caution or alert to show up should an investor do an online search for one of these companies or websites. However, we can only deliver the warning. It’s up to you to use it. Our alerts have saved Nova Scotians’ money and avoided losses. Here’s how:
John's Story:
John was nearing retirement and anxious to increase the size of his retirement nest egg. He received an unsolicited email from a company that appeared on the investor alert database. They were offering a high-return, low risk investment opportunity. John was intrigued and contacted a company representative looking for more information. The representative explained to John that by trading in foreign exchange (Forex) with guidance from their professional investors he could double his money extremely quickly.
The chance to double his money and provide a more comfortable life in retirement for his family got John hooked. The representative told him to wire his investment to the company’s offshore account where it would be managed and invested in Forex leading to huge profits for John.
After receiving the transfer instructions and information, John quickly ventured to his bank where he planned to wire $25,000 to the offshore account. Holding the account information on a scrap of paper John got in line see a bank teller. When the teller called him up to her window John explained that he wanted to wire transfer $25,000 from his savings account to the account listed on his scrap of paper.
The teller examined the scrap of paper inquisitively, questioning the offshore financial institution listed before asking John what the money being transferred was for. John explained that he had been contacted by a company offering guaranteed returns through Forex investing. The bank teller knew this sounded questionable and asked for the company’s name. She quickly Googled the company and the first result that popped up was the investor alert issued by NSSC. She then broke the bad news to John that his investment may be fraud.
John called the number for NSSC at the bottom of the alert looking for more information. An NSSC employee informed John that the investor alert had been issued after several Nova Scotia residents invested with the company and ended up losing all their money.
John was stunned by the news, and immediately ripped up the scrap of paper with the account number where his money could have ended up, never to be seen again. The Investor Alert Database saved John from a substantial loss, but only because he chose to use it.
Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Kevin was looking for a new investment opportunity and after some brief internet research found a company offering guaranteed returns and low risk while investing in their state-of-art crypto platform. During his research Kevin also found an investor alert issued by the NSSC that said the company was not registered in Nova Scotia and it was highly risky and dangerous to invest. A few Nova Scotia residents had even lost money investing with them.
Kevin's Story:
Kevin decided to invest anyway and deposited $50,000 on the platform that he expected to easily turn into hundreds of thousands of dollars in short order. Instead, a few weeks later Kevin called the NSSC office and explained that despite reading our investor alert he invested anyway and had lost his $50,000 investment and he wanted to know what he should do. Kevin chose to ignore the investor alert and invest his money with known fraudsters. In the end, there was nothing that NSSC could do to track or locate Kevin’s stolen money.
John and Kevin’s story are both true. We changed their name to protect their privacy, but both were real calls made to NSSC. If you see an investor alert or fraud warning issued by a regulator, law enforcement agency, or other government department, take them seriously. The warnings are not simply recommendations or suggestions. They are real warnings that are not issued lightly. We can’t issue an alert stating that a company is stealing investors money without having concrete proof it is happening. Even though we’re issuing the warnings, you are still the first line of defence against investment fraud.