There is a huge scam going on where victims are often middle class to upper class individuals or families, where that one good, if not, the perfect friend ruin your family’s finances. This is a well known scam for years, but it become a very popular tool for many in this hard economic times. What gets me is that most of these criminals are well educated!

Let’s get to the point so that you are aware of the scam before its too late. There are a lots of ways to become a victim of fraud by your close friends. The following example is just one of them:

Friend(s) or even a family member(s) become very close to you.

They earn your trust using;

their educational background, specially if you are in South Asian or Chinese community

by spending money on items to impress you or your family

by building good friendships with other family members of you

Propose a great scheme usually involving stock market shares, real estate or business ventures.

your personal assets will be a target

Because they already gain your trust, they will ask your to join them/him/her with their scheme where legally you become a partner of the shares, house or company.

If it is a house, they will remortgage the house andtake money out WITHOUT your knowledge, but the banks see this as your credit as well. If it is a company, the fraudster will most likely get involved in insider trading and get in to legal issues, but you will be hooked for it.

The most common people who become victims trusted their good friends. Regardless of the friendship was a long running friendship or a newly ignited one, the blind trust is the key issue here. The criminal is using the victims’ emotional and social attachments to themselves as a tool to blind the reality.

Most victims are unaware of the fraud until they decided to apply for a bank loan or make a credit check. Often times, the victims DO NOT speak out for few reasons. One is due to the embarrassment, specially in Chinese and South Asian community. Another is that the fraudster and/or his/her family is a well educated respected individual(s) in the community that the victim fear that no one will believe you. Since most cases there is not enough evidence to prove a fraud did happen without a reasonable doubt, law enforcement can do nothing at all.

Please please stand up for your rights and save others becoming a victim in your community. This is the major problem… Not a single victim willing to speak out to save others from becoming a victim due to fear of social backslashes from the community. I know this for a FACT because a lot of Sri Lankan community members in Calgary are victims of fraud by one single well respected Sri Lankan family in our community. But no one willing to speak out.