Oops She's Done It Again: MonaVie Juice Scam Hits Sydney

My mum bought bottles and bottles of the 'miracle' health fruit juice. $960 worth of fruit juice, packaged into 24 small bottles. After attending a packed seminar, she's convinced by the spruiker that this miracle juice is the real deal.

They've done a really good sales job on her by convincing her that it's nutricious and will cure any medical issues that she has.

"The MonaVie premier juice blends contain powerful nutrients that aid your body in the fight against aging and other symptoms of oxidative stress. In fact, just four ounces provide you with the antioxidant capacity of approximately 12-14 servings of common fruits and vegetables." From their site.

Four ounces is equivalent to half a cup. This may mislead people into thinking that half a cup of fruit juice has the health equivalent of 12-14 servings of fruit and vegetables. What about the lack of dietary fibre? What about the nutrients lost in processing? What about the additives and preservatives in the MonaVie fruit juice? If you're simply chasing antioxidants then you'd be better off eating fresh punnets of blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, kidney beans and prunes and they're vastly cheaper by comparison.

They call it 'relationship marketing' but dissect it to the bone and call it for what it is- multi level marketing and pyramid scheme marketing. Where the more people you recruit for selling their products, the more you will make.

Miracle Cures Simply Don't Exist

There are no miracle cures. No miracle anything. No miracle food, no miracle spa, no mirracle mud or food or juice or plant.

After my friend lost two Aunties to cancer in 2011, my faith in 'miracles' is nonexistent. Money was no problem so they have tried everything under the sun: the all-vegetables-and-fruit diet, the raw veggie diet, the EXTREMELY expensive mangosteen juice cure at $70(?) per bottle, the $15k cancer clinics in Germany plus the bottles and bottles of pills and vitamins found on the internet.

There are no miracle cure for any human disease. There are doctors working tirelessly to treat cancer and that's all that I'm left to believe in after witnessing cancer destroying the body while the assortment of 'miracle' juices, food, pills and diet did nothing to stop the inevitable ravaging effects of cancer.

MonaVie Juice Scam And Lack of Healing Evidence

When I first read about the MonaVie juice miracle-cure-all* scam at Budgetsaresexy.com I thought, 'yeah yeah, another scam...what's new?!'.

Until it hit the shores of Australia and makes the round in Sydney.

And then my own mum goes and buys 24 bottles of the stuff at $40 PER BOTTLE! You read it right...$40 for one bottle of fruit juice!

Forget about snake oil salesman, moving right along to the modern day snake juice salesman.
She is adamant that it is an amazing juice with amazing health properties because that is what she has been told at their seminars. That the juice was formulated by a doctor and the doctor who apparently formulated the juice was at the presentation. If it's formulated by a doctor, it's gotta have medicinal benefits right? Unfortunately not.

After all that I've written about scams and attempts to expose scams, it happens right in our own backyard. The irony.

Now I'm more concerned about my own mother ripping off her friends under the disillusion that the miracle juice has amazing health properties and that months later down the track, they'll all be angry, resentful and upset with her. (Like other victims around the world getting upset).

To prevent this from happening, I told her that if she must spruik the product(because she's been convinced at the seminar), don't sell it to them. Just tell them to go directly to the vendor and make up their own mind about whether they wish to try or not. When one makes a conscious decision to buy themselves, then when(there's no question of 'if') the dominos collapse, they made the call.

If you can't avoid the loss, at least try and minimise the loss and the fallout right?! Crikeys.

Maybe companies should be signing up to the MonaVie sales technique course in how to sell products.

With MonaVie's sales skills, they could sell sunshine to those living in the dessert and ice to the eskimos/Inuits.

Further Reading:

1. http://www.lazymanandmoney.com/monavie-scam/
2. *http://www.budgetsaresexy.com/2010/09/is-monavie-juice-a-scam/
3. http://www.juicescam.com/

I Trading Systems: Dodgy Or Not?

I Trading System (ITS)-Sports Betting Software For Horse Races

Got a super glossy brochure in the mail today from 'I Trading Systems' that is spruiking all the magical buzz words of the typical sport betting software. More and more red flags are raised when I skim through the brochure.

ITS claims that you can turn $1,000 of initial investment into profits of $78,934.24 in 18 months.

Sounds nice though doesn't it? I'd like to take my $100k and turn that into $7.8 million in 1.5 years but if that were possible with their extra-ordinary software claims, then why hasn't Gina Rinehart, Andrew Forrest, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet or Mark Zuckerberg invested into this amazing opportunity?! Why be only a billionaire when they could be gazillionaires in only 1.5 years? Why haven't the AFR or the WSJ or the Murdoch publications caught onto this fantastical investment deal?! Maybe I shouldn't write using sarcasm just incase I mislead someone out there. But everyone needs to ask themselves these questions when faced with these 'deals'.

As per the old adage...if it's too good to be true, it usually is.

Read into the fine print and you'll see that their pretty graph and their extra-ordinary claims have a little minor clause: "Each and every result was carefully simulated and recorded...Figures are extrapolations only and represent faithful statistical modeling of simulated results for applicable period." The software is so fantastical that they can't even give you the actual results and can only provide 'simulated' results based on 'extrapolations'.

If those figures are only simulated and extrapolated then why would they even bother throwing in the paragraph, "These figures are accurate and are guaranteed to be certified correct as released by official government endorsed agencies".

Such fancy talk but which 'official government endorsed agencies' bothered to check simulations? Anyone could sit there and churn out piles of simulated materials and pretty little graphs and who the heck from the government would care to check and verify if they've already clearly stated that the results are simulated? The ACCC and ASIC would hopefully pounce on anyone who tries to publish actual results which are false and misleading, but if the publisher or advertiser have clearly stated that the results are simulated, they couldn't care less.

Are they an authentic company? If you're an investor or wannabe investor, here's a checklist that you can follow if you get a tempting brochure or investment offer and wonder if the investment is authentic or a scam.

Scams sicken me. People work so hard to save up for their future. Trying to invest so that they can afford to send their children to school, support themselves in retirement and also support their ageing parents. Let's bankrupt these dodgy sellers and scamsters by stripping them of potential victims.

Investigating I Trading System

* "...passive, tax free income in the vicinity of $50,000-$60,000"
Buzzwords are used. "...passive, tax free" is always enticing and get investors salivating

* Glossy brochures saturated with good looking models on almost every single page indulging in leisure activities. You name it, they've pictured it: models posing on luxury yachts, couples golfing, island getaways, men in business suits, glossy column graphs (full of simulated numbers not indicative of actual trading), pretty women in convertibles, pretty women in bikinis, women holding multiple shopping bags...

* Letter has "Brisbane/New York/London/Paris/Tokyo" printed on the bottom but if they're based in five capital cities then why don't they have a huge internet presence? One simple looking shallow website without much depth. No press releases. No mention in the news. No history. If you're a business with offices in those five capital cities and serious about business then you'd at least have webpages for all offices. In multiple languages such French and Japanese

* While every single registered company operating in Australia has an ABN or ACN number which you can check out business.gov.au, I Trading System has a "BN" number. It was so slick I almost missed that. Never heard of a BN number. Dodgy dodgy dodgy. Ditching the 'ABN' acronym means "BN 221 382 86" is a useless and worthless number

* They mentioned 'The Australian Financial Review', Australia's most prestigious financial publication, out of context. I'd be impressed if the AFR gave them a glowing review and credited 'I Trading System' directly but if the AFR DID give them a positive review or endorsement, then they'd have published that on their website...but surprise surprise...that was nowhere to be found

* Using professional words and graphs without any substance. Graphs and figures were all 'simulated' and no actual performance figures were given. So value of the supplied graphs and figures=meaningless.

* Trying to target the vulnerable and those seeking high returns without any effort: "Self employment...no experience necessary... work from home or anywhere...no bookwork...be your own boss..."

* And the clincher type of urgent, hurry or you'll miss out type of compelling directive: "Please note that I Trading Systems cannot guarantee that you will be able to acquire the program at the time you receive this literature"

Searching the net for information out there, I stumbled across a few interesting sites.

A poor person who has been scammed by ITS which you can read about here to the tune of $4,400.

So to answer my original question that was posed, dodgy or not? Resoundingly YES for DODGY.

Further Reading:

1. Scamwatch.gov.au here
2. SMG related post: United Kingdom Beware of Shipping Container Scams
3. SMG related post: Meet James Lovell: 31 Year Old Ponzi Scamster
4. SMG related post: How To Lose Your Life Savings (on Bernie Madoff and Roger Munro)
5. SMG related post. Original post on shipping container scams and how to identify scams in general

United Kingdom Beware of Shipping Container Scams

Cheap shipping containers for sale in London and the United Kingdom on Ebay and on this website!!

Sorry, I'm not selling anything. I'm just hoping to catch all the Google traffic from would-be- 'cheap shipping container buyers' and warn them that there appears to be a huge shipping container scam happening in the United Kingdom right now as I write.

There's been a truckload of visitors from the UK (daily!!)coming to read about my old post on shipping container scams: http://smartmoneyguide.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/httpaatransnet-is-scam-so-beware.html

Usually people read up on particular scams AFTER they've been scammed so I'm hoping that this post can help prevent people from being scammed. This blog gives me a voice and I want this to be something to help people.

United Kingdom residents trying to buy cheap shipping containers - beware! There must be con men or con women doing the rounds over there because the past two weeks have seen a procession of traffic from folks looking up shipping container scams.

Report it to your local police. A similar con artist victimised one of my friends for $2.5k and I'm determined to help ensure that those shipping container con artists scammers are flouted in their attempt over on your British shores.

If you are looking to buy cheap shipping containers, ensure you check up and validate the seller. Call the phone numbers, visit the premises, check that their business registration number matches their name and that those details matches the government database details. Unfortunately I don't know the government agencies in the UK so I can't give you those details.

I have outlined steps to validate a business but unfortunately it's only for validating Australian businesses- however a few of those steps are valid for you too- particularly the bits that helps to investigate the business and it's online identity, read the steps at:

http://smartmoneyguide.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/httpaatransnet-is-scam-so-beware.html

Do not let yourself be scammed.

Do not pay by direct deposit even if they are begging you or using those magical pyschological words that compels action deep within our human pysche (because we are all bargain hunters deep within):

*Hurry or you'll miss out
*It's the last one so hurry or you'll miss out
*I can sell it to you at a discounted special price but you need to deposit the money into my account today
*I don't accept paypal or credit cards, you need to deposit the funds into my account (paypal and credit cards offer buyers protection in most circumstances of dodgy suppliers so to not use them means you've lost the most reliable avenue of protection and chances of getting a refund)
*Pay the entire amount before we can ship it to you or you can pick it up

Yes you scammers- Take that for screwing my friend over. This is where I help prevent potential victims from becoming your victims.

James Lovell Ponzi Scheme

Meet James Lovell - 31 Year Old Ponzi Scamster

Scamster. Ponzi scheme specialist. Owner of failed company Mirtna Holdings.  Fraudster. Forger. False broker activity statements. False documents. Taste for luxury such as Mercedes Benz albeit with other people's money.

A few months ago, James Lovell was sentenced to 13 years jail. For a 31 year old guy, he certainly managed to squeeze a lot into his life. The Australian justice system can be rather lame for white collar criminals so he'll probably get parole prior to serving out his full sentence.

Would you be fuming if you were one of the 200 investors that he fleeced $15 million from? He spent investors' money on 'fast cars and lavish parties'. It's unbelievable how he pretended that he was an ASIC licensed securities trader for several years without ASIC doing anything about it. Out of that $15 million worth of investors' money, he lost/spent $11 million worth. Wowzas. How many more Lovell, Madoffs and Munro's are out there still?

Lovell invested only 20% of the funds that he collected and with that 20%, he bought high risk shares which suffered huge losses. His ponzi scheme operated between 2001 and 2009. I can speculate that the global financial crisis triggered his liquidity crisis and thus caused his inability to pay rent when cash flow from investors dried up. And that's how an investigation was triggered and how he was ultimately caught.

Mark Ludlow wrote an article about Lovell and I quote Ludlow, "...Mostly through word of mouth from family and friends, Lovell was able to convice people to hand over their life savings on the promise of earning spectacularly high returns which were never delivered". 

*sigh* When will people realise that if it sounds too good to be true, it usually isn't true? And when will people stop taking financial advice from their family and friends without doing some good old due diligence and research prior to handing over their hard earned dough? Last year I wrote about Bernie Madoff and Roger Munro's ponzi scheme and delved into the issue of vulnerability and lack of due diligence. If you're going to throw hundreds and thousands of dollars of your life's savings towards anything or anyone, wouldn't it be prudent to research every single little thing about the investment?

It's a very sad state of affairs for the victims with many now suffering from depressive thoughts such as suicide and the rest suffering from financial instability. Various investors lost sums such as $150k, $300k, $259k and $1.25 million. I'm going to write about as many of these scamsters and ponzi schemers that I come across in the news so that my words shall live on beyond me and may help prevent future scamsters from ripping people off. Remember folks - due diligence is king.

Facebook: Spams, malware, viruses etc

Cleaning the spam out of inbox really is the pits. No matter how many spam/rule filters that I create, the spammers always find a way to bypass these rules with creativity.

The latest spams that are so annoying have been the wave of spam purporting to be from Facebook. How stupid do these spammers think we are?

Unfortunately they probably claim some victims every now and then, otherwise they would have quitted by now.

What do Facebook email scams look like?

 I'll post a few screenshots up so that anyone who isn't tech or internet savvy can have a point of reference. I love the idea of foiling those stupid scammers by posting this up. Anyway, if you get any of these, do NOT click on them. Delete them immediately.

If you really feel the urge to check your Facebook due to these 'fake' reminders, type "http://www.facebook.com" directly into your browser instead of clicking on the 'link' provided. Here are some fake Facebook spams and scams, bon appetit:

Facebook scam clickily.ws
Do yourself a favour and don't click on it, don't 'like' the page, don't add the application and don't add the java script to your address bar or else the spam will be sent to all your friends. If you have already become a victim, you NEED to REMOVE the application from your privacy settings in Facebook. Clickily.ws is a malware and may also possibly be a virus too so don't forget to run your virus and spyware applications.

Hover the mouse over the hyperlinked word "1 messages" and you will see where the landing page is> as you can see in this scam email, it alleges to be from Facebook yet the hyperlink takes the user to http://climbershub(dot)com/single(dot)html and this is dodgy

Hover the mouse over the hyperlinked section "To login to Facebook" and you will see where the landing page is> as you can see in this scam email, it alleges to be from Facebook yet the hyperlink takes the user to http://climbershub(dot)com/single(dot)html and this is dodgy

Do NOT open the attachments - it is most likely a virus/malware/spyware or something malicious.

 How can you identify between a real email and a fake one?

It's getting hard to determine between a real one and a scam because the spammers and scammers are getting intelligent.

• Don't open up attachments that are from unknown source.
• Delete emails from anyone that you don't recognise or you're not expecting.
• If there's a link that's embedded in the email, hover your mouse over the link (do NOT click on it!) and you'll see whether the link that is on your email is the same or differs from the link that is actually embedded (see the images that I've provided).

The same goes for all those fake 'job' emails and fake 'bank password' alert emails. The latest scam that even almost had me caught was when a virus alert popped up on the screen that looked like an authentic Microsoft or Nortons virus checking alert that says you must click on it immediately to stop the 'virus' from infecting your computer.

It compels the user to click quickly to 'activate' the virus checker but instead this activates the virus/malware. I find that if that happens, I kill the pop up and run the virus checking software immediately from the task bar section of the PC (the virus checking icon is usually near your clock on the bottom, right hand side corner of your screen).

http://aatrans.net/ is a scam so beware!

I'm not sure how long it takes Google to list and link my blog posts up to various topics so I'm doing my best in informing any potential buyers that AA Trans is a shipping container scam and do not under any circumstances, pay this swindler for shipping containers. It is a scam of evolving identities and this same fraudster keeps altering his/her identity slightly before going on ebay and online sale sites again to sell this fraud.

How do I know? I know someone who is a victim of this scam and it serves to remind me and everyone else to be wary when transacting your shopping online. I've researched into this scam and have discovered a few things. There are a few issues involved here:

1) Identity theft of Andrew Avis from the legitimate AA Transport Pty Ltd business by fraudster/scam artist "Alex Anderson" (highly likely a faked name). He stole Andrew Avis' company name and ABN number to document his invoice. Address theft by using a fake address 44 Botany Road. However a quick Google (map & streetview) and a phone call from me confirms that the business at that address is Community Broadcasting Association of Australia and they have nothing to do with shipping containers.

2) The scam artist has a bank account with Bank of Queensland (BOQ) (bsb: 124 036, account: 21472696) - do NOT under any circumstances, deposit your payment into this account because you will be scammed. I contacted BOQ yesterday and Sharon at their WA/Perth call centre said that it wasn't any of their business to deal with third parties (myself) and that they can't do anything about it. This is why fraudsters/scammers continue to proliferate. If banks such as the BOQ can't be pro-active in tackling the first mention of scam involvement then these scammers can keep conning many victims until the police can get their act together and interfere- this may take a long time since they have so many cases on hand.

Beware because it appears that this shipping container fraudster has been operating a string of frauds along the exact same line since last year. And no-one has stopped them yet! The same things occur again and again based on my investigation of the latest scam.

3)The domain http://aatrans.net/ was registered only on 7th July this year. So only 1 month ago. You can check it up yourself on a popular IT domain search site whois.com.au

A website so newly registered should scream out beware.

4)This "http://aatrans.net/" scam appears to be the third shipping container scam devised by the same person/group who scammed over 90 people last year and this year with "freight.forward" , "vicremovals - http://www.vicremovals.com and now aatrans.net scam.

Unfortunately for the person I know, they have already transferred funds to the BOQ account and that $2,500 is most likely a write off. If you have found yourself the victim of a scam, the steps you should take to sort out the mess and try to recover your funds will be:

1)If you paid by paypal or credit card, then you can dispute the transaction with paypal or your bank and request a chargeback
2)If you paid by direct deposit or cash then it's highly likely that you have unfortunately lost your money and the avenue of refund is very minimal
3)Contact your bank ASAP regardless of whatever means you used to pay the transaction or dodgy invoice
4)Contact your local police and report the theft/crime/fraud/scam
5)Contact the government agencies ASIC and ACCC to report the fraud/scam so that they can start investigations

To read further materials on how to spot and identify scams you can visit the following sites:
* http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/
*http://www.scamwatch.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/693900Some basic checkups that you can do yourself before you pay anyone when shopping online is:

1)Check their selling history or lack of history

2)Warning signs:
*A product is advertised at a very low price.
*The seller and any initial bidders have a very poor rating on an auction site.
*The other party wants to complete the sale outside of the auction site (if you do this, you lose any protections that the site operator offer to their users).
*The other party insists on immediate payment, or payment by electronic funds transfer or a wire service.
*The online shopping website does not provide adequate information about privacy, terms and conditions of use, dispute resolution or contact details.

3)If they issue you an invoice, do a thorough search on government databases(eg: ASIC) on the company name, who it is registered to, whether the address matches the company name, check Google map/streetview to give you a better idea (warning flags if you are buying from a shop yet the Google map/streetview points you at a residential house that looks nothing like a shop!)

4)Google the business and check whitepages/yellow pages registrations and call the number on those listings to verify

5)Check their domain on http://www.whois.com.au/ and if it has been newly registered then that may also be a warning sign

6)You can also check their IP Address with http://ip-lookup.net/(this can be found by looking at where emails originated from). For example, an email that I received from Amicroe Pty Ltd had the following IP numbers "211.26.140.226" and when searched it came back with the right match which you can see here http://ip-lookup.net/index.php?ip=211.26.140.226

7)Be careful when you are buying from a company that is supposed to be local, however after your research, you see that the domains/IP Addresses are registered in some foreign countries

8)Check that the ABN is valid and still active and matches the company name. You can do this with ASIC -http://www.search.asic.gov.au/gns001.html

9)Ask yourself if the claims made about the product are reasonable or just too good to be true. Be suspicious of online shopping websites that do not give their full contact details (physical or street address as well as phone and fax numbers).

10)Be very careful about paying by credit card and make sure the website used for payments is secure. Look for an unbroken key or lock at the bottom(this can also be at the top) of the browser window, or a web address beginning with ‘https//:’

11)Be wary when the person or company that you're transacting with has a sense of urgency about them when they try to get you to pay. This 'AA Trans' scam fellow used the following words to invoke a sense of urgency "I only have a few spots left this week so I'm really running out of time" - yep he was definitely running out of time...time to collect the funds and hurry off to the next scam victim before someone catches wind of the scam and the police is on their trail

Anyway, I hope that my recap of my investigations may shed light on how you can also investigate a business, person or transaction before you deal with them to verify that it is indeed, authentic and that you are not being scammed. Unfortunately for the poor victims swindled, it was painful for them to actually drive out to 44 Botany Road, Alexandria in search of their undelivered shipping containers only to discover that there is no shipping container site. It is infact the site of office buildings and takeaway food shops and urban development.

It is too late to regret after you've been scammed. All you can hope for is to protect yourself against future scams.

[Edit 12/05/12: The shipping container scammer appears to be making the rounds in the United Kingdom and London this time around- pls visit this post and have a read so that you don't get scammed: http://smartmoneyguide.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/united-kingdom-beware-of-shipping.html  ]

How to lose your life savings

Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme (Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC): $65 billion with losses to investors of $18 billion
Roger Munro Ponzi Scheme (RG Munro Futures): $100 million with the money missing, either lost or spread around the world

We all think we are indomitable and are too smart to be victims of fraudsters and ponzi schemes. But if we're all so smart then how come ponzi schemes continue to flourish and every time there's a downturn in the economy, another bunch of folks have lost thousands, millions or their life savings due to these ponzi schemes? It's not just your typical neighbour next door that gets caught by these sophisticated swindlers but also multi-millionaires. Don't they have a swag of accountants and lawyers working for them? Is that just blatant greed or blatant stupidity?

I mean, how can you entrust anyone or any single investment firm with your life savings?! Haven't they heard of the term diversification? Or being responsible for your own funds? Don't they realise that if it's too good to be true then it usually is or the greater the returns, the higher the risks. So if someone approached you with an investment opportunity that returned yields of 20% -40% annually with minimal risks, kick them out. Even 15% return year on year with minimal risk is asking a lot...especially in these uncertain times with the stock market behaving like a moody teenager.

Ponzi schemes and Nigerian schemes are usually everywhere...from the investments where you're required to outlay a few hundred bucks to a few thousand dollars upfront to beable to become 'privy' to rort your friends and relatives. Or the emails telling you that they require your bank account to hide or deposit some money. If people became a lot smarter and stopped falling for these scams then I wouldn't have to spend so much time cleaning the spam out of my inboxes.

Beside the most recent frauster Bernie Madoff, Australia has it's own fraudster in Roger Munro. Reading about how he managed to scam his victims made me feel as if I was living in the twilight zone. Munro is crazy enough to even try blackmailing his victims to support him in getting ASIC to return his passport (don't do it guys, he will just jet off to some country like Christopher Skase), pay his legal costs and drop all allegations against him.

Madoff is quoted saying "People just kept throwing money at me."
Susan Chenery's article on Munro examined their similar attitude and 'exclusive' style of investing. If it's too exclusive to join...you shouldn't join, if any investment adviser or investment firm can't or won't answer your questions, then you won't like the answers - moral of the story.

Tim Swallow, one of Munro's victim says:

"I observed everybody for about four years and everybody
seemed to be making a lot of money. It was easy money. If you make money quickly and easily, you think it is going to go on forever... All people like Munro do is play to people's greed, which is the root of it all."

Trevor King supposedly lost $31 million and an American Oil Consortium lost $23 million. Other investors (about 68 of them) lost varying amounts. Don't they have accountants and lawyers who help draft documents and audit figures before they allow their clients to invest? It's amazing that Jim Thompson, one of Munro's victim even decided to invest after being quoted as stating:

"We asked for some confirming documents regarding the results
he was claiming to achieve consistently and his reaction gave the impression that we were casting doubts on his assertions- no way to behave if we wanted the privilege of being allowed to join his circle of investors...He also told us he traded using a secret system he himself had devised, in currencies, securities, options and indices in international markets; he had live feeds set up which told him what
was going on...We had to leave it entirely up to him to decide what to do. He didn't want to be questioned or asked to prove anything. He demanded unquestioning respect."

So Munro was rather secretive, rude and provided no evidence or supporting documents of his success yet Thompson invested $1,005,000 with RG Munro Futures? Some investors need to get their heads checked. Why on earth would anyone entrust their life savings or a few million to an 'investment' where they don't get any reports or investment break down of how the fund returned 20% plus for several years.

Not only that, but for someone to amass a few millions, you would think they would be more thorough about where they invest their funds. It also raises the question of Munro's supposed expertise across several investment categories (currencies, securities and options) when most specialised traders find it hard to even master and predict what is going to happen in a single category such as currencies.

Also, the reliance on a 'trading system' that he had devised... the problems with most trading systems are that they neglect or cannot account for human fear nor greed. They can't program human pyschology and behaviour with accuracy. Human behaviour and how we all react collectively as a group determines the direction in which the market moves.

Greed allows fraudsters to flourish and unfortunately, the inability or poor ability of the SEC, ASIC and ACCC means that we, as the investor, have to watch out for our own bacon and ensure we don't get fleeced.