Anne-Marie is a young retiree who wants to grow her savings. One day she clicks on an ad that promises profitable investments. After registering on the page of the site to which the ad refers, she is called back very quickly by a platform, Trade 360. At the end of the line, a so-called broker in the financial markets, which uses the language of traders . He persuades her to initially invest 5,000 euros and guides her in buying gold, oil.
With confidence, Anne-Marie makes 54,000 euros worth of transfers, the entirety of her pension savings plan, on the platform in four months. But it will never look the color of a return on investment. Worse, she loses all her savings.
“Bonds”, “positions”, “stop loss”…
These false announcements are the first level of the trap into which the retiree fell. After the broker got in touch with her through the ad, he asked her to fill out a competency form. Since 2007, a European directive has made it mandatory to open a trading account. The goal is to protect novice traders and prevent them from taking too much risk. Professionals can handle more and are responsible for all their decisions.
This is the second level of the trap that Anne-Marie approaches: she fills in the form on the advice of the real estate agent… and unknowingly ends up at a professional account. In this way, the broker can let him take more risks, and above all clarify himself in the event of a dispute.
“Oil is rising, we need to add 10,000!”
An inexorable machine is then set in motion. Boosted by initial gains, the client is encouraged to invest more and more. Anne-Marie recalls a phone call that flagged her: “That’s it, the oil is rising! We are going to do surgery, we need to add 10,000! Do it right away!” Not content with letting him lose all his savings, Trade 360 continues to contact her even afterwards to make “very advantageous offers”… And declines all responsibility for her financial setbacks, as she herself placed the purchase orders from her computer…
Excerpt from “Pièges sur internet”, a report to see in “Special Envoy” on April 21, 2022.
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