Recently, I have actually discovered an ad on Facebook where a guru was sharing a picture of his old car vs his current car. In that photo, he was also sharing how his life has changed since he discovered how to invest in Forex. The best part of all, he is offering to teach all his potential students for free by joining his Telegram group. After I clicked on that ad, more & more ads that were similar started to pop up. I think I actually saw 10 or more ads on that day itself.
There are many red flags that I’ve spotted in these ads. First of all, they will be sharing stuff that will attract you such as luxury cars, big houses or even a nice holiday. Their success stories on how they managed to turn their lives around are also a key point. Relatable? Solutions that are provided by them would be by investing in certain investments such as Forex, Gold & others can be foreign to some which make their potential “student” curious on how can they make money from it. The best part of all, they are offering those “investment courses” at a very cheap price or even free. If you read the comments, you will see some testimonies by their “students” on how they managed to earn money after they learned the “investment course”.
Here is the reality of it. Their “potential students” are people that are desperate to find a shortcut to make more money. Upon joining their group, they will provide you with a “basic course” for a very low price or free. If you want to learn more, this is where you have to pay thousands to them to obtain the “holy grail of investment”. They will “guarantee” that those thousands you pay them are worth it as you will earn back once you started to invest. There are many cases where people even borrow money from their friends or family or even use their hard-earned money to buy the course. Most probably, the “holy grail” is information you can find online.
Do you consider that a scam? This type, of course, has been around for the longest time. Since I started to work, I have seen almost 100 of them around. Some of my friends even attended those courses which ended up to be a waste of money to them & they are not driving any fancy cars or living in a big house. If you have any friends or family that became rich from attending those courses, please DM me as I personally want to learn from those gurus. I doubt there is any.
Do you think those gurus earn money from investing or they earn money from their students? No doubt the best investor in the world is the legendary Warren Buffett but those gurus make it sound like their investing skill is better than Warren Buffett, George Soros, or even Ray Dalio. Out of the ads or free courses that they market to 1,000 people, let’s say 100 people sign up for their paid course. If the guru charges their students RM3,000 for the “holy grail investment course”, how much can 100 people pay them? It’s RM300,000. That is why they can drive luxury cars or live in a luxury house. Not because of the investment techniques that they learned but it’s because of the amount of money their student pays them.
Conclusion:
Although I don’t think that this post can reach all Malaysians but I truly hope that it reaches as many people as possible so that they won’t fall for all those Facebook ads which will actually cost them their hard-earned money. If you have any friends or family members that plan to invest in those courses from the guru, please share this with them or if you personally plan to invest in those courses, please read this before you buy it & I hope this post can change your mind.
Investing can be really simple. If you are interested to learn, there are so many reliable sources out there where you can learn for free. If you have no time to learn, there are many legal investment platforms that you can invest in with minimal investment knowledge such as robo-advisors or mutual funds. As long as it is approved by the Securities Commission of Malaysia, it is safe to invest in it.
OSS!
You can also check out my latest YouTube video on Why I Sold My Mutual Fund To Invest With StashAway Instead:
