Read the title again. Interesting thought, right? By the way, I trust a few of my close friends a lot. I know that when I am in trouble, they will help. At least that’s what I believe. Relatives? Well, depends on how close they are to me but I think if help needed, it’s going to come from them too. So, would our best friends and our relatives cheat us when it comes to money? Perhaps better to ask, would they deliberately try to cheat us.
A friend just told me that one whole group of friends were cheated by a common friend few months back. One lost so much money that she had to sell all her shares just to pay for the losses. Upon understanding the facts of the case, please do understand that your best friend and relatives may still cause you to lose money due to scams, even if they sincerely did not want to cheat you.
They were ALSO cheated. After some time, when the attractive scheme has been exposed as an elaborate scam, the best friends will try to find their best friend. Their best friend will try his best to find the one who introduced the scam to him many months ago. Usual circumstances? The one at the top is nowhere to be found and everyone else who were not part of the initial group will lose all their money. The top few people for such a scam would have already escaped with all the money.
They also did not CHECK. How do we check? Well, here’s the Bank Negara Malaysia’s website for reference on all the identified companies and websites which unauthorised to take money from the public. Secondly and actually much more important is this. What is the business about? If we do not understand, it is best to ask more questions.
They refused to see the signs and the science. Returns are unbelieveable. What are the returns like? Monthly? 2% per month? That’s 24% per annum! If there are such businesses providing such returns, what are the chances it will be SHARED with you? Assuming you own a business which gives you 24% returns on your investment every year, why are you sharing it away? By the way, property developers’ margins are lower than even this 24% which is just 2% per month…(here’s an earlier article)
They also DID not know. A fool and his money soon parted? Truth is, fools banded together may still be cheated. A close friend may have started to “invest” into some schemes and has started to get monthly returns. Of course he will be very happy with this quick returns and he would want more of his friends to benefit. He will start to tell his best friends first, followed by his friends and then acquaintances.
Conclusion? Simple. Your best friend or your relatives MAY choose to cheat you. Or they may choose not to. Then again, they may not be serious in cheating you. They were also sucked into the sad circumstances and just like you, they may now be needing money for meals too. Stop blaming them or even the authorities for being so slow in identifying all these schemes which later are exposed to be scams.
Remember, when it was still a scheme, NO ONE reports this to the authorities because they got returns every month… They were using those returns for vacations, for new hand bags and more. Who would want the exceptional returns to stop? Well, when the money stops, the happiness are gone too. Once everyone knows that it has become a scam, it’s already too late for everyone. INVESTMENT? It’s usually a slow and steady process over many years and many reading and understanding. Jumping into anything at all is not called investing. It’s called gambling. Happy understanding.
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Next suggested article: Too lucky is unlikely. Cheated is more likely.
