Forex Peace Army Members Forums>

[pagasa30]

in the event someone can help and had read my story, please feel free to contact me. =(

[tingtong]

a sad story.
sounds like the "nigerian scams", only in a different context.

and as a note: how ppl can indeed send 140.000$ to someone??!!

oh, my bad, i have never had that much, nor my house woth even half that ...

[faith44]

hi there

i just read your post, and wish i had done so sooner, as i too fell victim to this scam, i am sorry to hear that u lost so much money, i sent $1000 of my savings thinking that i too would reiceve a prize of 100,000, and i know that might not seem like much to some people but i am a stay at home mother with 3 children and every cent counts to someone like me

I guess thats why i fell for it, because just the hope that this could be true made me think that i was doing the right thing for my family, i hope that others read this and learn what i have had to learn the hard way

if there is anyone who may help me in getting my money back it would be much appreciated

[Terence shak]

Hi treadstarter,
I've not read about your story, as i do not have the source.
I am located in Singapore, and a malaysia travel company called me up to attend a function, but i could not attend( as they just change location from Singapore to Malaysia, and i cannot leave singapore on that day). What's unexpected is that I've won a prize of USD 150k. As I am not present at the event, I've got to lias with the sponsor of the prize. (Which is the company, HK Foreign Financial Fund Company). I called them and they told me to remit USD2.5k as some legal procedures fees. I have not done that yet,as I'm afraid it's a scam.

They told me another way is to go to their Hong Kong Office and do the procedures with them, if I am unsure. Their company is, 2 internatonal finance centre, 52nd Floor.

Please advise.
Thanks in advance.

[Pharaoh]

It's very simple. If you "win a prize" and need to pay something up front, you didn't win anything. If you pay that fee, then there will be another fee, and another, and another. You can pay until the fees add up to twice your prize and you still won't get one cent of prize money.

[jatin1990]

hi friends as i am from india here is also number of such scams happening and they were start some 1 and half year ago and also number of resident here got scammed and i know one of my friend got such email that u have won a prize money of some multi $100k and then they told to send some 0.5% fee which made near about $1000 and my friend was reached the office of western union to send the money but by goodluck he found his one of old friend doing job at western union transfer local office and my friend told about such thing to worker of western transfer and then worker tell that these are scammer and also tolds how number of local people got scammed by them. So with the help of worker which was friend of my friend, he didnt put last step of losing his $1000.

[clem699]

Hi Terence Shak,
I think the simplest way to deal with the issue is to tell them to deduct the so called legal fees of 2.5k from the prize money then send the balance to ur account.

[Terence shak]

Thank you people for the advices.
I did not commit any money to the cause as I do believe there's nothing so good in this world. I've checked and cannot find any sources to the company and I believe the address they gave does not exist. I think I'll just ignore these people if they ring me again.

[artyshoe]

I would like to relate my true experience hoping to warn people of this financial scam. I myself almost got tricked into it. I am a housewife with four children.

It all started when I received a handwritten envelope with a Malaysia Paradise Travelling Group brochure and two Lottery tickets. I scratched one out and found that I had received the 2nd Prize of USD 150,000. I had never won anything in my life so this was too good to be true. My husband urged me to call in so I did. I called in to the numbers stated on the card and was served by a man from Claims dept named Byran Kong.

He was very friendly and eloquent with a slight UK accent (worked in UK before). He asked if I was a client/investor of their company and I replied I was not. That puzzled him and he said he would check it out as there were many people calling in to claim the prize. It seemed that only clients or investors of the company/sponsors had a chance of winning the 1st to 4th prize and the rest of the non cash prizes were for guests to win. It was a random mistake that one of the top prize tickets landed in my envelope.

I was asked to sign my name on the lottery ticket and scan it in to them at an GMAIL acc to verify my genuine ticket. After much deliberation with the top management, the company still decided to honour their word and give me prize even though I wasn't an investor simple bec it was their mistake and they didn't want to ruin their company image.

I was suspicious but a little hopeful that this was real. They verified my genuine ticket and then asked me to send in a copy of my IC along with the acc number which I wanted the money transferred to. I sent all in to the Msia GMAIL acc as well as the HK gmail acc.

The next day, a phone appointment with the HK sponsor was set up to verify my identity after which the money would be send to me within a few hours. When the sponsors (Hong Kong Foreign Financial Fund Company) Mr Maxim Chin called me he said that bec I wasn't an investor, I had to pay 3% of the winnings (USD4.5K a big sum for a housewife like myself) for an authorisation letter for the HK govt to release the winnings to me. That's when I got suspicious. He claimed that usually the investors would have that fee deducted from their investing acc but mine was a special case so I had pay first. The HK company would bear the other 3%. BTW Mr Maxim Chin sounded like a young chap instead of a older man of high position.

I hesitated and they referred me back to Bryan Kong (M'sia). Bryan apologized for not informing me prior to the HK call and tried to convince me that it was safe. I decided to check his company up. I found no link on yahoo or google on their company names. I called the closest link i could find on Yahoo which was http://www.paradisegroup.com.my/travel/]Paradise Group of Companies || Home || Travel & Tours. They told me lots of ppl have called up but they had nothing to do with Malaysia Paradise Travelling Group (note the scammers used 2Ls when it should be only 1L). The boss warned me of scams and only that's when I started to be even more suspicious. I asked Byran for their websites and he gave me these... http://www.paradise-my.com and Ïã¸ÛÍâ…R»ù½ð¹«Ë¾ Don't they just look to similar?
BTW, as a website designer, I could easily tell the site had no real content....it was all just text and pictures to dress it up. But no real links or bookings. <Smacks forehead> I was being tricked.

No proof of genuinity

I asked if they could deduct the fee from my winnings and give me the balance. They said they couldn't do that but the fee was refundable.
I asked if the company was listed and he said he had to check....shouldn't he already know all this if HK was their main sponsor?
I asked for any documents that could assure me of their genuinity, he said he would ask HK for a letter of guarantee with seal. The next phone call was that HK was not happy that I doubted them but they will still give me the letter. I had to do this fast as all the prize winners had claimed their prizes and they would be closing the draw very soon. Yesterday he told me i still had time to think about it. I think he suspected I found out about the scam. I said no thanks I would not be claiming my prize.

Their technique is that he targets naive housewives and chit chat with you quite personally and even invite you to look him up if you ever visit KL. Telling you he has a family with young kids and can bring u around KL. Those were his last words still. I might just do that to see if he is real.

As i write this now it all seems to good to be true but at that time it really sounded real bec I was ignorant.

Be informed about such scams.
Lottery]Error scam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Regards,
Artyshoe
True Victim of Scam

[Pharaoh]

Congrats on realizing the problem before being ripped off. Had you paid that "fee", there would have been another and another.

Note that someone was upset that you doubted them. Any real company of any sort will realize that competent people will have doubts and need proper assurances. Any real company will be very happy to provide proof of their existence and licenses before requiring money from you.

The con in con men is short for confidence.

People like this are professional liars. They make all their money by making victims confident in their honesty (even though they have none). They always have plenty of excuses, but seldom have any verifiable facts.