Some People Just Never Ever Learn

I just had to find time to post this, and inform the public.

You'd think that people would wise up already with the recent uncovering of various "investments" (sic). Browsing through the news yesterday on the Inquirer, I found out that various people were again duped into an investment sham. Big names topped the list, read this article and see how much they invested, and most probably lost as a result of the fallout.

After Performance Investment Products Corp (PIPC), the latest addition to the ever growing list of Ponzi scams now include Royal Manchester Five Trading Corp. (RMF). Its product is the same, foreign currency exchange. Its USP, or unique selling proposition, (more like usual scamming proposition), is this - a promised return and the issuance of PDC's.

I researched more about it over the Internet, and came across two forums discussing said company. In both forums, there were two forum members (bearing different names) which sought to give unsolicited advice for forum readers to go ahead with this "investment".

They may have been honest comments, but any uninformed reader enticed with the lustful glitter of money, i.e. greed, will probably invest his hard earned money for something that will give them a quick return. Greed and laziness are such strange bedfellows.

In this forum, go to post #19 by a person named shainen27, I have also posted parts of it here for you to read,

"Yes, this company is legit. My husband and I have an investment from this company since last year. We have renewed our contract last November and actually increased our investment. The first time, we're actually receiving our interest monthly and decided to get it every six months kasi po mas malaki ang kikitain ng pera."

I understand that this person and her husband have an investment FROM this company. So does this mean that Royal Manchester United (hehe) invested in the husband and wife team? Seriously though, I know this is just semantics.

You're lucky if you were able to recover your investment. But is that how you want to make money? Make money out of nothing (or almost nothing) at all? Hard earned money is always more fulfilling and more real than making money "the easy way". Even stock market traders don't make easy money, they have to study charts.

There is a saying, Money easily earned will be money easily lost.

On the other forum, there is this person named lowscore, down the bottom of the page, and he had this to say (parts only),

"I have been investor of this corporation for almost 2 years and so far so good.
Before we invested on this corporation, we (my friends conducted research and investigation ) and the result gave us GO signal that it’s legitimate and safe especially from SEC registration, business permits from the municipality of PASIG and MANDALUYONG. BIR registered.
Type ROYAL MANCHESTER FIVE TRADING CORP and ABBA-DEO PRIME EXPRESS CORPORATION on the search bar. Don’t forget to click the “start with the given phrase”

Go to this link in SEC and true enough, Royal Manchester is indeed registered, I typed ABBA DEO and yes, they are registered, but so what? What's this? A new deodorant? It's probably another scam.

If you believe what this person said about his research then read this from the SEC itself. Before you are directed to their online corporation name search facility, you are brought to a screen with the following text:

"The name(s) generated using this facility, however, is not an indication that the identified corporation is authorized to sell to the public, securities or other investment instruments."

The SEC site does not have multiple pages. If you want to search for the corporation name, just go to "Online Transactions" on their menu bar, then click on Search Registered Companies.

If this person indeed researched well, then that warning alone from the SEC should have already made him think twice. Unless during the time of his search, the SEC had not yet had that line written on their page. The SEC has an investment scam checklist as well and YOU SHOULD READ IT.

Here are my pointers for you (corrected sentence, not "myths") -
1. An office does not make an "investment company" legitimate
2. Being licensed as a corporation does not make it a legitimate investment house. An investment house needs to secure a different form of license, not just a corporate license.
3. Just because you have a friend that has made money on it makes it real. This scam needs new recruits to survive.
4. When this so called investment company promises you a return, it is a scam. The only thing that has a guaranteed return are renewable time deposits, government securities and corporate bonds.

And always remember they have their USP - usual scamming proposition - foreign currency trading and the returns are GUARANTEED and PDCs to be given to you. Investments generally do not have promised returns, even mutual funds and unit investment trust funds do not guarantee you anything.

Moreover, as of my last check, currency trading is still disallowed in the country, therefore a corporation that wants to sell you this sort of investment will ask that you open an account with them. They will certainly ask for a minimum deposit, but not as big as these scams. Moreover, they will not guarantee you any return. Their service will likely have an online trading platform where you can trade on your own. This is the only way I can say that it is legit.