Hi
@PsyrusMC
I'm also not Brad, but I just might be Spartacus!
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.
