Sophisticated crims scamming over-50s

Sophisticated crims stealing millions from over-50s
ANDREW MAIN, GLENDA KORPORAAL From: The Australian February 16, 2013 12:00AM

ORGANISED crime syndicates are using offshore-based Australian employees to fleece otherwise savvy investors as they hit retirement age, according to David Lacey of the Australian Crime Commission.

After warning that they had so far managed to extract more than $100 million from about 2500 imminent retirees, Dr Lacey said the typical victim was a well-educated, financially aware man over 50, with ready access to savings.

He was addressing the Self-Managed Superannuation Fund Professionals Association of Australia conference in Melbourne. Self-managed super is estimated to represent about $400 billion of Australia's $1.5 trillion super pie.

He said the callers, many of them former drug traffickers, used sophisticated databases to target the investors and persuade them to invest money in overseas investment schemes - money they would not see again.

The callers manipulated search engines, "so if you jump on a search engine to check out the person, they have manipulated the engine so they come up looking great", Dr Lacey said.

"There are very low levels of victim reporting," he said, indicating that the $100m that the commission knew about "may only be the tip of the iceberg".

He said as many as 10 people a week might still be falling prey to these syndicates, which used marketing lists they had bought, plus information from other databases that provided an accurate picture of the target's finances.

"It is not an opportunistic crime: it is calculated and sophisticated," Dr Lacey said. When the ACC contacted some victims, they could not believe they had been fleeced.

"It has devastated lives," he said. Between 50 per cent and 60 per cent of the victims had been fleeced more than once.

"The criminals traditionally nurture their potential victim over a period of weeks, months and years," he said.

The syndicates set up false websites and online accounts to allow their victims to check their imaginary balances and encourage them to send more money.

Online search engines were manipulated to show the syndicates' imaginary investment vehicles in a positive light, Dr Lacey said. "Recovery rooms" were set to target suspicious victims, pretending they were law enforcement officials ringing to help them when they were in fact trying to defraud them again.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...ns-from-over-50s/story-e6frgac6-1226579064772

 

^^^^^^^^^ This article like many before them is a plant by the retail and industry fund scammers and their mates the financial planners who are all controlled by the big banks and the insurance industry.

The ultimate scammers of course is our Federal (hard) labour criminals who are determined to neuter SMSF's.

This beat up about fraud is to convey the idea that we need to be protected by big brother ....our gubermint,ya know the one I'm alluding to wears a trench coat and hangs around toilet blocks looking for likely candidates. :lol:

Kind Regards
non recourse

 

Either that or its just a general warning not to be stupid with your retirement savings.

The more money you have access to, the more people there are out there who'll try to take it off you.

The ones selling shares in new hotel developments in Thailand are just another lot you have to look out for and steer clear of.

 

No doubt Big A.D. greed is the main reason that people are taken down. We all have clay feet that is a given. I have made many dumb mistakes in my investment life. I call those mistakes my education fund. I have poured at least half a million dollars into my education fund in the last thirty years. I have also made 20x ++ that.

We are all big boys and girls we don't need the gubermint holding our hands. Unfortunately too many so called sophisticated investors like to run to mummy to kiss it better. The bigger you are it seems the more this occurs case in point our banksters.

Kind Regards
non recourse