In this day and age, anyone can hide behind a computer and pretend to be the Executive of the Year dishing out Executive Orders like they are President Obama. I recently interviewed a woman from Boston, Massachusetts who lost her entire life savings to an Internet Crime Syndicate from Nigeria. Before you cast stones and say how careless this poor lady was, listen to her story and how she got sucked into one of the greatest Internet crime stories in history.
Beware Internet Crimes and Scandals promising Riches and Wealth
Maude and her husband James had worked all their lives. They were savers and regularly saved 20% of their income since they were in their 20′s. After 40 years of work, they had a nice little nest egg saved up for retirement and planned on moving to Florida to retire and leave the cold Boston winters behind. They deserved it. They lived a simple life. Had two kids who are grown now and saved over $250,000 in cash.
They knew they wanted their money to grow and while James was still working for the final year and a half at his job, Maude decided to attempt to try to grow their nest egg into something more sizable that they could live off off for at least 20 more years, God willing. Maude decided to use a venture capital networking site via the Internet that she figured she trusted due to their reputation or what she thought was a good reputation.
She put out her executive summary and was surprised when an investor reached out to her saying he was with a UK investment firm and loved her business plan. He said he wanted to invest. She was excited and really wanted to put her money into good use and start making passive income and building more wealth with her hard earned savings.
The UK firm sent her a term sheet within a week after they reviewed her business plan and did their due diligence. They sent her a due diligence sheet that outlined what she needed in order for them to invest. She also received an official term sheet from Barclay’s Bank in London with their seal on it saying that she was approved for $950,000. The UK Investment firm made arrangement to fly to Boston, Massachusetts to meet up with her and close the deal.
She told her husband James and he was excited too. She wanted to surprise him and hold off on telling him until all documents were proven official. She sent the term sheet, offer letter, and due diligence sheets to her lawyer of 30 years and he blessed the documents coming from Barclay’s Bank as legitimate and official. The UK firm scheduled the day they were supposed to meet in Boston.
The day of their meet up, the UK Investment firm called and said they could not make it and that she needed to wire $5,000 to London so that they could finish the financing. At this point, she was so excited about the money that she wired it to them without hesitation as they gave her an escrow company to wire it to. (to be continued)
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