Ponzi Scheme investing4you.co.uk scam forex investment

Guaranteed profits become guaranteed losses.
Hi @PsyrusMC

I'm also not Brad, but I just might be Spartacus! :D

If you haven't followed the advice the Forums Team gave, I've been in the FPA since 2007. If I had started a thread about Investing4you.co.uk, I'd gave gone straight to labeling it as a Ponzi scheme. If you've read my article or checked enough of my forum posts , you would know I'm really good at sniffing out Ponzis. Unless Brad has a time machine plus felt like making over 20,000 posts as well as writing some articles for the FPA, your guess is even more ridiculous than a return of 4% per day.

Oh deary me! I didn't take the 20% commission into account. Someone please call in a half dozen (or more!!!) leather-clad vixens to punish me. Before they arrive and administer the spanking I richly deserve for not accounting for the 20% commission, let's see how long it takes to hit impossible profits at only 2% per day.

Once again, let's assume 48 trading weeks per year. So, one year of 48 weeks would be 240 trading days. If we make 2% per day and compound it, a $1 investment would turn into $115.88 profit for the first year instead of the $12,246.20 you could get at 4%. Oh my, have I made a terrible mistake, or will this steamroller just take a little longer to get rolling? Let's find out.

BEHOLD, THE POWER OF COMPOUND INTEREST!

2 years (480 trading days) would return $13,430.19. I'm not rich yet, but that's still pretty damned good for letting someone borrow my dollar for 2 years.

3 years (720 trading days) would return $1,556,408.76 Woohoo! One whole dollar became a million and a half dollars.

4 years (960 trading days) would return $180,370,243.44 180 million. Not bad, not bad at all.

5 years (1200 trading days) would return $20,902,879,371.84 Over 20 billion. Jeff Bezos will be jealous.

6 years (1440 trading days)would return $2,422,408,251,457.57 Well over 2 Trillion dollars. Is there anyone out there who still believes you can actually safely and steadily average 2% per trading day?

(Even though I'm right, I am a gentleman. I would never disappoint leather-clad vixens who were called in to administer punishment. So, deserving or not, they can spank me for as long as they like. ;))

I have some very bad news for your karma. A lot of people won't settle for a 1k investment. Instead they will bet their entire financial life (mortgage, retirement, savings for the kids' college funds) on a scheme like this. When they realize it's all over, they are not only financially devastated, but also emotionally devastated. Some end up divorcing. Some end up committing suicide. So, yes, the unlicensed airliner pilot is not really much of a stretch.

Still, since you obviously lack the ability to follow a comparison, how's this?

Imagine your employer coming to you and said he was going to take a loan out against all the company's assets so he could put the money with someone who has no legally required regulatory license and offers rates of return that are not only far beyond the greatest traders in the world to sustain, but are absolutely impossible based on simple calculations of what happens if these returns are compounded. If he bets and wins, he's going to give you a fat bonus. If he loses, the company will be gone and you'll be out of a job. So you think you should congratulate him for finding such a great opportunity, or do you think you should warn him that it's nearly certain to be a huge scam?

My oh my, closing the investment to new members is the exact opposite of a Ponzi, so I must be wrong, or perhaps I'm still right. This isn't exactly my first rodeo in Ponzi land, so let's see if I can figure out how a Ponzi schemer could easily use this closed investment stunt to trick people gullible enough into believing 4% per day while still raking in plenty of cash to maintain the illusion (and to move to hidden accounts offshore).

One option. Criminal or legit, clients can be a pain to deal with. If existing clients are actively adding to their investments with the scam, a temporary halt to new clients could be a simple public relations move to calm a few worried investors who might try to pull out too much money otherwise. Assuming you aren't Declan Nowell or one of his employees, why don't you ask "Hey Declan! Can I drop another 20k into my account now?" and see what he says?

Another option: Again, clients can be a pain to deal with. Now that Investing4You has an existing fan base, "Closed" can come with a waiting list allowing the person running a Ponzi scheme to select the right kind of clients - those who will invest a lot and be willing to let the money site in the account without demanding a lot of attention. A smart Ponzi operator could contact everyone on the list and ask 2 simple questions:

1. How much are you ready to invest now?
2. To maximize your profits, how long are you willing to hold off on making any withdrawals?

Then, each person on the list who gives answers that meet some big enough deposit and long enough time standard is told "Don't tell anyone. I'm going to make a special exception just for you. Here's where to send the money."

Or, even more simply, a short pause while still paying investors (really just handing back some of their own money, since the odds are that no money is being traded) can be used to generate demand from those who will have a fear of missing out. They would allow the 1k minimum to be greatly increased, and would likely include warnings of "Invest Now! Because this opportunity is only available for a limited time." I see BS like that on all sorts of investment products. It's all just a way to create false urgency in potential investors (or potential victims in an obvious Ponzi scheme like this one).

Of course, Declan Nowell doesn't have to prove anything to me. On the other hand, turning the person at the FPA with the most experience exposing Ponzis into a supporter would certainly get him a lot of business when this closed opportunity decides to reopen. Not one person offering incredible rates of returns ever was brave enough to even try to meet one of my challenges, because every one of them knew they couldn't do it. So, if Declan doesn't pop up in this thread under his own name (I'm betting he's here already), everyone will have to wonder why he couldn't meet an open challenge that should have been very easy for him.


The best option now is for everyone who is invested to try to get their initial investment back as soon as possible. If Declan Nowell and Investing4you.co.uk are real, everyone who's been in for more than5 weeks already should have over 100% profit that can be left in the account to make more money. If not, once enough people pull out cash, the excuses over delayed withdrawals will be very interesting to watch.

Invested or not, I urge everyone who has been in contact with this organization to keep asking the FCA, ActionFraud, and the fraud department at your local police station. Make sure to include information you have about exactly how money was supposed to be deposited or withdrawn. If by some magical miracle this turns out to be real, it's still unlicensed and needs to be supervised by the FCA.
This is alot of assumptions you are making. If sombody is going to put their mortgage into somthing like this they need help.

Anyway. I had money spare, and I did put it in (no not my house, I still have that) but over the last 7 months I have withdrawn over 90k out of my account, no delays, no questions.

You seam to be very negative.
 
Crikey that was a lot of my day wasted!
I’ll set you one challenge. Seen as you’re happy to throw shade to the poor guys business on a public forum.

Your challenge is to find one of his customers, that are unhappy with the service. Find one of his customers that are down, financially from his service.

Because right now you seem very presumptuous.

I’ll tell you my own personal experience as a customer. I’m a business owner too so your scenario of my employer doesn’t work for me.

I have personally withdrawn way beyond my investment. I initially invested after recommendation from a friend, I didn’t actually believe he was able to hit the %’s they were claiming, so I dropped £1k in to see.

I began withdrawing a small % of the daily profits, until my initial investment was back in my account. I then played with house money and let it grow. Since then I’ve made even larger withdrawals, no delays, no excuses, nothing.

Everyone that I know in my circle who’s using I4U has done the same. We’ve used and continue to use various traders (eggs and baskets and all that) so we understand the risk/reward.

I can appreciate people have this impression that it’s “too good to be true”. But I don’t know what else to say to you, other than it’s worked for me.

If this is a scam, like you believe.. then me and the people in my circle must have got to the top of the scam even when joining months apart.

I challenge you to find a customer of theirs, who is unhappy or financially down.
 
Amazing
You seem to know your stuff on this. I live close to this guy / company .
It just doesn't add up but the more people I speak to the worse it gets decent business people and lots of them all seem blinded by greed ,
All over scunthorpe all you hear about is dec the millionaire maker
By Christmas scunthorpe should be a financial hub,
With Dec in charge who knows where we could end up.

I bet Asda supermarkets are kicking themselves now hes gone from delivering shopping to delivering dreams.



A
 
Amazing
You seem to know your stuff on this. I live close to this guy / company .
It just doesn't add up but the more people I speak to the worse it gets decent business people and lots of them all seem blinded by greed ,
All over scunthorpe all you hear about is dec the millionaire maker
By Christmas scunthorpe should be a financial hub,
With Dec in charge who knows where we could end up.

I bet Asda supermarkets are kicking themselves now hes gone from delivering shopping to delivering dreams.



A
You sound bitter
 
This is alot of assumptions you are making. If sombody is going to put their mortgage into somthing like this they need help.

Anyway. I had money spare, and I did put it in (no not my house, I still have that) but over the last 7 months I have withdrawn over 90k out of my account, no delays, no questions.

You seam to be very negative.

Please allow me to pour some more cold water on your dreams of a never-ending money train.

There once was a man named Bernie Madoff who ran an investment service that paid 10% per year. It paid like clockwork, each and every month for many years. A lot of investors ended up withdrawing significantly more than they put in. Everyone knew Bernie was an investment genius. The few people who dared to question this great Wall Street guru were told things like "You seem to be very negative." (attacking the person instead of doing the math) or "Show me anyone who didn't get paid on time." as if any well run Ponzi doesn't pay, at least until the bitter end.

Then, the flow of new money coming in began to dwindle and more clients needed to make withdrawals. Suddenly, Bernie went from withdraw as much as you like, whenever you like to delays, excuses, and even threats against his former clients.

Turns out that either from the very beginning, or maybe shortly after the beginning, Bernie wasn't really trading. None of the claimed profits were real. Every withdrawal was just returning some of the investor/victim's deposit or came from the deposits of other victims.

The regulators stepped in and seized the remaining assets. Bernie got a long sentence and died in jail.

But what about those lucky people who ended up with large profits? Did they keep all their gains and end up benefiting from Bernie's criminal enterprise? Some of the really thought they would, but there's this option called a clawback, which is used by more and more regulators around the globe. Those who profited were forced to pay back profits (and even some of the initial investment) that they got so that the losses were fairly distributed across all the victims.

So, if instead of mortgaging your house (4-10% annual interest vs 4% per trading day -20% sounds like a GREAT idea, if the daily profit was real), you use your Ponzi profits to pay off your house, buy a sports car, and take a luxury vacation, you may well find yourself in a world of economic pain when the Investing4You.co.uk Ponzi implodes.

Crikey that was a lot of my day wasted!

Wow, the last person I saw who liked to say Crikey got killed after annoying a floppy fish. :p

Judging by the illogic of the rest of your post, you didn't actually look at the math I laid out for you or even read my article about Ponzi Schemes. I suppose ignorance might provide temporary bliss before cold cruel reality sets in.

I’ll set you one challenge. Seen as you’re happy to throw shade to the poor guys business on a public forum.
Your challenge is to find one of his customers, that are unhappy with the service. Find one of his customers that are down, financially from his service.
Because right now you seem very presumptuous.
I’ll tell you my own personal experience as a customer. I’m a business owner too so your scenario of my employer doesn’t work for me.
I have personally withdrawn way beyond my investment. I initially invested after recommendation from a friend, I didn’t actually believe he was able to hit the %’s they were claiming, so I dropped £1k in to see.
I began withdrawing a small % of the daily profits, until my initial investment was back in my account. I then played with house money and let it grow. Since then I’ve made even larger withdrawals, no delays, no excuses, nothing.
Everyone that I know in my circle who’s using I4U has done the same. We’ve used and continue to use various traders (eggs and baskets and all that) so we understand the risk/reward.
I can appreciate people have this impression that it’s “too good to be true”. But I don’t know what else to say to you, other than it’s worked for me.
If this is a scam, like you believe.. then me and the people in my circle must have got to the top of the scam even when joining months apart.
I challenge you to find a customer of theirs, who is unhappy or financially down.

LMFAO!!!! :D:D:D At least you weren't silly enough to claim I was Brad again.

Really, seriously, just look up how a Ponzi scheme operates. A well run Ponzi scheme can pay for weeks, months, years, or (in a few rare cases) over a decade. Until the person or group running it gets in a pinch (like what happened to Bernie Madoff or even Charles Ponzi himself), people who don't understand risk/reward in investing or how to use the X^Y key on a calculator to see how a promised rate of return is completely ludicrous, will be lining up to throw more money in, so the smartest thing any Ponzi schemer can do is to pay any and all withdrawals.

Ponzi schemes end in several ways.

1. The authorities spot it and shut it down.

2. The money runs tight and the payments stop being regular. This leads to the scammer disappearing with all remaining cash or the authorities getting enough complaints to step in.

3. The smartest scammers gather enough cash to disappear with no warning, change their identity (if it was ever revealed), and live a life of luxury. This is rare because, just like their clients, Ponzi schemers typically allow greed to overcome logic. Even in a case like this, the authorities may be able to gather enough information to clawback money from those who withdrew so that it can be equitably distributed.

If you really believe on time regular payments mean it's not a scam, check out a few of the other threads where people made the same claims before the scheme collapsed:

Bitcoin super robot guaranteed to make money, except it didn't.

Paid well for awhile. One of the cheerleaders promoting the company tried to claim than the rules of investing are different in Australia, so my comments should be disregarded, despite the fact that ASIC's warnings about signs of a Ponzi scheme are nearly identical to those from US regulators. Then ASIC stepped in and froze their assets.

A broker offering up to 21% per month returns.

A well established broker offered 60% per year. Promised to provide audits to prove it, but was "too busy" gaining new business to do so. Took a couple of years to crash and burn. The fun starts in posts 6 and 7.

One of the longest running ones, partly due to very generous incentives to those who referred new clients.

This one sounded very secure, but it wasn't. :D

Took in 25 million from people who didn't know or didn't want to know the obvious warning signs.

When this one got taken down, lots of "we're the true holders of the TIRN investment secrets" scams popped up. Some of the initial victims got wiped out again (a few several times).


Any sensible investor will be much more concerned with the return OF the initial investment than in the return ON the initial investment.

What we have with Declan Nowell's Investing4You is an unlicensed investing firm with zero proof that any actual trading is going on. As if that wasn't bad enough, the rate of return is far above a traditional Ponzi scheme and is well inside HYIP scam territory. That will make it very vulnerable to any cash flow issues.



I'll now stand back so the cheerleaders for Investing4You can try some more excuses about the lack of license and far too big to be real rate of return. Naturally, they will ignore facts and go after me as a person, just like happened in most of those threads I linked above.

Before I go, I again urge all clients of Investing4You to get their initial deposits out and not to put any more money in. If I'm right, you'll have limited your losses. If I'm wrong (and I've been proven right in thread after thread about things like this), you'll still end up with a big pile of cash.

Contact the FCA. If you are invested, share the account info about where you sent the money. If you've been approached about joining, ask the FCA what they think about the company's claim to have applied for an FCA license. If Investing4You is legit, no harm is done. If it's not, you'll be helping to stop a crime in progress.
 
What I don't understand about this (if it is a scam) is why the owner is so visible..

Scunthorpe is a pretty small place. The amount of money being kicked around in such a short space of time is astronomical (I've heard of about half a million from different sources). Then you have the house he's buying and the MacLaren that he's bought... His address is on the website, the company is on Companies House...

So if this is a scam, what's he thinking?? What's his exit strategy? Does he think this can go on forever? Don't most Ponzi people just disappear?

So when i weigh that up, I think this former Tesco delivery driver must just be a genius, an unregulated genius!
 
The smartest investors in the world can't match him. If he's some sort of super-genius capable of creating impossible profits, why would he need anyone's money? He could open a small account and just quietly rack up profits for a few years and then buy the UK.

One thing I've noticed. Some scammers actually crave attention as much (or more) than they crave money. The fact that people think "Wow, this guy is a genius!" is more important to these types than the concept of an exit strategy. Similarly, consider a certain former US president who went through multiple bankruptcies, politicized a medical issue, and won't admit that he lost an election. Having followers who believe he's an economic and political genius is far more important to him than doing the right thing for his country.

Or, maybe our current genius has an exit plan - if a few people on that waiting list are gullible enough to place large sums of money with him, he may have a "make this much and disappear" strategy.
 
Some rumours flying around that he has been suspended, but I'm not sure how that is possible if you were never regulated in the first place!
 
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