Scammers are smart and dedicated to getting their hands on your cash. Trading loss expert reviews scams are a particular danger to investors – and often lead to them being scammed twice over.
In this guide to how investing loss recovery expert scams, we will cover:
- What is a trading loss expert review scam?
- How to avoid them
- What to do if you are scammed
What is a trading loss expert review scam?
Trading loss expert reviews scams are where fraudsters post fake reviews, on any website they can comment on, promoting sure-fire ways to recover losses incurred by investors as a result of trading stocks or other assets, usually saying they have recovered money this way.
Ever posted in an online forum about a trading loss? Or even just spent any time on a forum that talks about trading investments? Then you probably will have come across fake trading loss expert reviews.
For example, there have been 16,151 examples of fake reviews and comments that were tried – and failed – to be posted on Good Money Guide alone. These are not approved or published because we check all reviews that are prior to publishing on the site to filter out these scams.
Likewise in 2023, Trustpilot detected and removed 3.3 million fakes, as the platform surged to 54 million reviews that year. The removal of fake reviews has remained steady year-on-year, with Trustpilot removing 6% of total reviews in both 2023 and 2022 (2.6 million).
Trading loss expert review scams are part of a wider fraud known as recovery room scams. This is where fraudsters approach investors who have been scammed or had failed investments, offering to help them get their money back for an upfront fee.
There is usually no explanation on how money will be recovered or, if an explanation is given, it is likely to be false or implausible. Recovery rooms usually insist on being paid a fee or transaction charge before carrying out any services to recover any losses.
Recovery room scams are widespread. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – the watchdog and regulator of the UK financial services sector – has received 7,220 consumer enquiries relating to recovery room scams between August 2023 and August 2024.
The FCA has also received 12,048 consumer enquiries relating to FCA impersonation scams over the same period, many of which are a form of recovery scam as they involve scammers impersonating the FCA and seeking an upfront fee to recover funds lost to scammers.
Louise Abbott, fraud partner at regulated law firm Keystone Law, says: “Victims of scams are often caught out by fake trading platforms, or unregulated and fake brokers posing as someone else. In over 50% of cases, victims are deliberately targeted by fake recovery agents in an attempted double scam.”
“The fraudsters will usually then sell lists of victims’ details to other organised criminal gangs,” Abbott adds. “Despite having been defrauded already, your personal details are put onto a list of those to be targeted again – that second approach is usually in the form of a fake recovery agent.”
How to avoid trading loss expert reviews scams
To avoid falling foul of trading loss expert reviews scams the best protection is a healthy dose of scepticism. If it sounds too good to be true, it absolutely is.
Remember, scammers are smart. They write these fake reviews in a way to make them sound genuine and convincing – especially to people who are desperate after already having lost a lot of money, often due to already being scammed once.
But contacting the people behind these fake reviews will only ever cost you more money. To dodge these dodgy dealers it is helpful to know what to look out for. So let’s look at a couple of recent examples of trading loss recovery scam reviews that were submitted (but not published) on Good Money Guide.
Example 1:
I was so heartbroken when I noticed I wasn’t able to move my assets from the company,
I lost so much and was really devastated, I had to seek help until I was directed to Mrs Oxxxx Trader and his Recovery company and Foundation that helped me to recover all the money I had lost. It was really worth it. I will be happy to share my experience with anybody, you can also connect with her for help and assistance for a successful and secured investment without any loss of funds.
oxxxxtraderxx @gmail.com
WhatsApp +1 (123) 456-789
Example 2:
HOW I RECOVERED MY LOST FUNDS
Never thought of getting back my money after investing with a website which I thought was legit and later turned out to be scammed. I invested over $39,300 USD with them until this very good day I got a recommendation from a facebook group about Uxxxx Rxxxx Fxxx I then decided to gave them a try and all my doubts was cleared to my greatest surprise my money I invested and everything in there was sent back to my wallet as USD I never believed it, it all worked like magic I would advise and recommend you all to reach out to them, they are the best. I can vouch for them because their services are Legit.
WhatsApp at +1(1243) 456-789
Email : xxx@gmail.com
As you can see, they often direct you to contact them by Whatsapp or a Gmail email address. Genuine, regulated professionals will never ask you to contact them in this way. It is a huge red flag.
Scammers will try anything to get you to hand over important personal information, including by saying they – or the company they are promoting in fake reviews – work for the Financial Conduct Authority.
As well as trying to scam you via fake reviews, fraudsters may send you an email or letter or call you claiming to be from the FCA (or the previous regulator the Financial Services Authority). They may use the name of an actual employee, the FCA’s logo, or other images from its website, to make you think the communication is genuine.
The scammers may claim you owe the FCA money, or you’re entitled to money and you have to give you bank account details to make the payment, or claim there is an investigation into your bank or another provider and you need to move your money to another account for security reasons.
But the real FCA would NEVER ask you to transfer money. The real FCA would also never ask for sensitive banking information, such as bank account PINs and passwords.
What to do if you are scammed
The best thing you can do if you have lost money due to being scammed is not to make it worse by being scammed again by a trading loss expert review fraudster.
Anyone offering services to recover funds lost as a result of a scam or trading loss needs to be regulated by the FCA. Consumers should first make sure that they are authorised by checking the FCA’s Financial Services Register. If the company the online review promotes does not appear on the FCA register, or you’re worried about a potential scam or you think you may have been contacted by a fraudster, report it to the FCA.
The FCA also offers advice through its ScamSmart campaign on how to spot the warning signs of investment, pension and other financial scams, and on its InvestSmart website.
Keystone Law’s fraud partner Louise Abbott says victims of scams are usually convinced not to report the matter to the police, any law enforcement, or instruct a solicitor, since the fraudsters allege that their involvement may delay the recovery of funds.
This often means by the time the victim realises what has happened, the funds are often moved out of reach and potentially transferred through multiple platforms and across jurisdictions.
If a scammer has convinced you to send money to them, the first thing to do is to contact your bank or trading account to alert them to the fact, see if they can stop the transaction, and what if anything they can do to get your money back.
Under new rules, from 7 October 2024 ALL banks and financial providers must reimburse their customers who become victims of a certain type of bank transfer fraud known as automated push payments (APP) – under current rules in place until October around 90% of UK APP fraud is covered. You can find out more here.
If you think a business has contributed to your scam in some way, and it is regulated by the FCA, you can take your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). Anecdotally, the FOS says it does see complaints about loss recovery scammers.
In recent years, the FOS has investigated thousands of cases, returning more than £150m to those who have fallen victim to fraud and scams, and it is currently receiving – and resolving – more than 500 fraud and scam complaints a week.
A spokesperson for the Financial Ombudsman Service says: “Being the victim of a fraud or scam can be a life changing experience – both financially and emotionally – but support is available. In all the cases we receive, we’ll look at the individual circumstances and investigate whether a business did everything it was required to do.”
The Financial Ombudsman Service is free for consumers, and you don’t need to use a third party to bring a complaint.
However if no FCA regulated business is involved in the scam – which is usually the case – and you can’t get your money back from your bank or other financial provider, then the only thing to do is to contact a regulated solicitor.
Keystone Law’s fraud partner Louise Abbott says: “Ideally, the law enforcement agencies and police would be able to assist victims, but the reality is that the exchanges (where the funds are often located), or the fraudsters, are almost always out of the jurisdiction.
“If a victim wants to recover stolen funds, a legal and investigation team must be instructed to act. It then falls on private investigators and lawyers to pursue the recovery of the stolen funds.”
Laura Miller has been a financial journalist for more than 10 years, and was on staff at the Telegraph before going freelance in 2019. Her experience includes hosting podcasts and panels, and she writes for the Times and Sunday Times, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and the Sun, as well as trade titles. She now lives by the sea in Aberystwyth, west Wales.
You can contact Laura at laura@goodmoneyguide.com
