Protect Ourselves - Investment Scams

Ruby's Corner
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From https://www.police.vic.gov.au

Different types of investment scams, how to protect yourself from getting tricked, and how to report a fake investment scam.

Investment scams involve tricking you into putting your money into a fake investment.

About investment scams

Investment scammers may ring, text or email you - it may even be an offer from someone you trust. They will ask you to invest money in different business opportunities.

The main types of investment scams are when:

  • the investment offer is made up and does not exist
  • the investment offer exists, but the money you give the scammer goes elsewhere
  • the scammers falsely claim they are from a well-known investment company.

About investment scammers

Investment scammers are usually organised crime groups. They often target the retirement savings of middle-aged and older Australians.

The scammers will contact you and claim they are investment brokers. They might contact you regularly to maintain contact and gain your trust.

The scammers will trick you by using:

  • professional looking websites and investment platforms
  • your own personal accounts with login access
  • regular reports of a strong return on investment
  • media releases
  • professional-looking documents delivered via courier
  • deep-fake AI generated videos of celebrity endorsements.

For more examples of the latest investment scams including Quantum AI, visit Moneysmart.

Who is being targeted by investment scams?

Anyone with savings to invest is at risk, especially men over 50 who have invested before.

The fraudsters get their contact details from publicly available investor registries. They might also buy contact lists from survey and seminar participation.

Advice to protect yourself against investment scams

Scammers are good at convincing you to invest your money into schemes that are too good to be true. If you are unsure about any phone calls, emails or messages, talk it over with someone you trust.

Make sure that you:

  • always seek independent financial advice before making an investment
  • alert family and friends to this fraud, especially anyone who may have savings to invest
  • hang up on unsolicited telephone calls offering overseas investments
  • check any company you are discussing investments with has a valid licence at Check before you invest - Moneysmart.gov.au(opens in a new window)
    .

If you have been affected by an investment scam

If you have been tricked into investing money into a bogus scheme, take immediate action.

You should:

  • stop sending any more money
  • block all contact with the scammer
  • call your bank to report the scam and block any further transactions
  • alert family and friends to this fraud, especially anyone who may have savings to invest.

For more advice and support, visit Moneysmart

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Report investment scams

If you have been a victim of an investment scam, you should report it to police:

Fraud Report Form

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To help disrupt and follow scam trends, warn others about new scams, and receive advice and support, report your experience to Scamwatch.

To find out more about reporting cybercrime visit Report online abuse, cybercrimes, fraud and scams.

Support services for victims of investment scams

If you have been affected by an investment scam, help is available.

  • Scamwatch
    The National Anti-Scam Centre has set up Scamwatch to support awareness and reporting of scams. Visit for more information, advice and to report different scams.
  • Moneysmart
    Get information, tips and advice on safe investment options and receive support if a scam is causing you problems with debt.
  • IDCARE
    Help with advice on scams that involve stealing your identity. This free Australian and New Zealand service can help you limit the damage and recover from the scam. Call 1800 595 160.
  • Consumer Affairs Victoria(opens in a new window)

    Advice and information services to support consumers to exercise their rights.

Updated 13 November 2024

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The latest data: Paid advertisements used to promote fraudulent investment platforms on social media, warns ASIC - ABC News

A report by the National Anti-Scam Centre found investment scams continued to result in the most significant financial harm to Australians, with combined losses of $837.7 million in 2025.

There are a lot of different types of scam. Ignore the noise. Investment scams remain the #1 most lucrative scam on Australians. Daylight second.

According to a survey by ASIC released last month, 63 per cent of 18-to 28-year-olds said they used social media as a source of financial information.

My personal opinion: Social media is a very poor source of financial information. Unsolicited advertising (via any medium) is a poor source of financial information.

though its website is now defunct, coming up as a “certificate error”, indicating that a browser cannot verify the website’s SSL certificate was issued by a trusted certificated authority

I think the ABC may have got this wrong.

Via Telstra as ISP, Telstra is hijacking the web site and hence it comes up as a certificate error. Other ISPs may be doing the same. The error message is effectively bogus, in the sense that it reveals nothing about the true state of the company in question’s web site.

If you bypass your ISP, it appears that the domain name will no longer resolve to an IP address i.e. nobbled at source (but not actually deregistered as a domain name). (That doesn’t mean that the web site no longer exists but it makes it very hard to find unless you had previously visited.)

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Fully agree, and relying on social media FinInfluencers is a recipe for a financial disaster. FinInfluencers aren’t qualified to provide any financial related advice nor are allowed to spruik investments (as they often receive kickbacks, are leeches by making money off their viewers or promote scams). Fortunately ASIC and many other financial regulators are taking action to protect consumers:

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I imagine that anyone online providing financial advice to, or promoting a financial product to, a person located in Australia would be obliged to quote an AFSL number.

That would apply to finfluencers but it would apply much more widely.

Then the government just has to provide a means of at least verifying the AFSL number and getting the corresponding name and additional information (âś“ - mostly already done - https://service.asic.gov.au/search/ ) but more importantly a means of verifying that the person or other party who is quoting the AFSL number is entitled to do so (i.e. legitimately represents the organisation that holds that licence).

For those who use social media and, more specifically, for those who use social media via an app, wouldn’t it be great if the app did that automatically? i.e. verified the ad and marked it as a scam unless it meets the conditions (even though the ad may not in fact be a scam just because it doesn’t meet the conditions). For those using social media via a web browser maybe there could be a browser extension that covers the same functionality.

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