“Let’s find out what ‘Scott’ has to say” I said, clicking on the link.
Immediately a pop-up page appeared with the headline:
“5674 People Have Participated So Far! Weekly stock market quotes are 90% accurate and have 45% upside potential. Join our stock trading community via WhatsApp today! Only 30 spots are left. Hurry!”
Click.
The next page that appeared was a privacy warning:
“We comply with Facebook’s Privacy Policy and protect your privacy” wrote the scammers, who were diligently following Zuck’s rules.
Then they asked for my phone number.
After I entered my digits, Scott wrote me a special message:
“If you have any stock investment questions you can ask me, I will try my best to reply to you as soon as possible!”
Nice touch, Scammer-Scotty.
The First Contact
Moments later a group called ‘DB Wealth Institute’ popped up in my WhatsApp feed.
“Excellent! The scammers have arrived”, I thought to myself.
I quickly googled their name to see if anyone had outed them as a scam already.
Crickets.
The only mentions of the company were some automated press releases (written by the scammers for exactly this purpose) which had been picked up by the likes of Yahoo Finance, Forbes.com and LinkedIn:
“DB Wealth Institute, founded in 2011 by Professor Cillian Miller, offers practical financial training and developed ‘AI Financial Navigator 4.0,’ integrating AI with big data to enhance trading strategies. By 2024, it had trained over 30,000 students from more than ten countries.”
Now most people would stop at this search, satisfied that it all looked legit.
However, given I was the face of a group I’d never heard of, I kind of had a hunch it was dodgy. So I googled “professor whatsapp investment scam”, and this came up:
US regulators were warning of fake ‘Wealth Institutes’ that promise crypto trading lessons via WhatsApp. A ‘Professor’ provides fake trading signals, while an assistant communicates with investors. Once enough money is stolen, the group vanishes, rebrands, and targets new victims.
Chica-Chica-BOOM!
I was going to make minced meat of these scammers …
… If only I could work out how to read their posts, or even comment on things.
It was all so confusing.
So I messaged DB Wealth Institute’s ‘assistant’, a woman by the name of Ally Brown.
Looking at her profile pic, she was in her mid-thirties, long wavy hair, a perfectly placed pink flower just above her ear, and she had a calm and collected look that says she’s one latte away from running the world.
I asked Ally for instructions on how I could post in the group. Now some would call this method acting. Yet those who know me well will attest that I have the IT skills of an 89-year-old man. A drunk 89-year-old man.
The scammers were licking their lips.
“Welcome to the Institute”, gushed Ally. “We’re located in Adelaide. Our AI 4.0 investment has Scott Pape’s investment philosophy as well as his investment strategies.”
If You Screw This Up I Will KILL YOU
I chuckled to myself as I read Ally’s message.
My wife, however, was in no mood for humour.
She was in our bedroom, hurriedly packing her suitcase for her very first work trip since becoming a mum over a decade ago. She was heading off to produce a nature documentary overseas; the next month would take her to Iceland to film erupting volcanoes, to Romania to trek through snowy mountains, and then out to the deep seas off Denmark.
“If my card gets blocked while I’m in Iceland, I will kill you. I am not even joking Scott”, she snapped.
I nodded.
“Why do you need to be doing this now anyway? You’ve got four little kids to look after! And the pets! And a farm! And Barefoot!” she pleaded.
I shrugged.
“Honey, I’m just worried you’ve underestimated how busy you’ll be”, she said more softly.
She was right of course.
I didn’t know it at the time, but my entire world was about to fall apart.
I Make a Killing on Crypto
It took roughly 30 minutes from my wife leaving for my youngest to begin violently coughing.
It turns out he’d been exposed to pneumonia.
Three days later he’d spread it to all four kids. Then to me.
Our home turned into the Hunger Games, but with more coughing and snot. I was struggling to even get out of bed, so I decided to outsource the farmwork to two German backpackers I found on a farm worker message board.
And, while all this was going on, the DB Wealth Institute WhatsApp group was buzzing on my bedside every few minutes. They were sending me upwards of 200 messages a day.
It began each morning with a 30-page PDF of “Talking points from the Professor”, outlining the current state of the crypto market, and was peppered with statements like “Get ready to make 1,000% today”.
And, at 11am each day, the Professor would give his trading signals. You were encouraged to post screenshots of your winnings in the WhatsApp group, which people did all day and all night. I suspected they were bots.