Investing your money is always sensible, but it’s also risky. Naturally, there are risks involved with any investment and there is a chance that you will lose your money if you make poor decisions, but those aren’t the risks that we’re talking about here. A lot of new investors don’t realize it but there are a lot of scams out there designed to target people just like them. Scammers take advantage of people that are hoping to grow their savings but don’t really know what they’re doing, and many people have lost their life savings as a result. So, if you want to invest some money for your family, make sure that you are aware of these common scams.

 

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Boiler Room Scams

This is a general term for scams that involve convincing a new investor that they can make a huge amount of money in a very short space of time. Often, they prey on people that are worried about money by telling them that they can double or triple their investment overnight. This usually happens when they cold call you and ask if you are interested in investments. The catch is, you need to commit right away or you’ll miss the chance to make big money. People that are in a bad situation or just people that don’t really have much experience in the investing world think that this sounds great and they transfer their money right away. As you’d expect, this big windfall never materializes and the money is lost.

 

The general rule of thumb is that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Investing is about patience and it’s very rare that you’re going to double your money overnight. Before you invest money in anything, always do your research and know exactly what you’re putting your hard earned cash into.

Cryptocurrency Scams

Cryptocurrency is a very popular investment choice and it’s great for beginners because you can put as much or as little as you want into it. If you want to start out with £20 to get the hang of how it all works, that’s fine. You can add more money later on when you become more confident. However, you have to be very careful because there are a lot of scam sites out there. To start investing, you need to find an exchange that facilitates buying cryptocurrency with GBP, but it’s important that you do your research first. While there are plenty of legitimate exchanges, there are also a lot of fake ones that will just take your money and run. The same goes for the digital wallets where you store your cryptocurrencies. A quick search online will help you work out if a site is legitimate or not and if you can’t find anything about it, it’s probably a scam site that’s only recently gone online.

Pension Scheme Scams

We all want a healthy pension, and scammers are taking advantage of that by offering to invest it for you. They’ll call you up and tell you that if you transfer them your pension money, they’ll make investments on your behalf and you’ll reap the rewards. If anybody offers you a free pension review and tells you that it’s time limited, don’t listen to them. Instead, go to a financial advisor and they will be able to tell you what to do.

 

If you are ever concerned about your money, the best thing to do is hold onto it and do some more research. Never let anyone convince you that an investment is safe if you don’t have a good feeling about it.

 

*collaborative post