The Financial Services and Markets Authority, or FSMA for short, says it has received complaints from consumers in recent weeks about new trading platforms that are active on the Belgian market and are fraudulent.
Victims are lured through fake advertisements on social media or online video platforms, and sometimes also through mobile applications. “In these fake advertisements, a (known) person often talks about a method or project to get rich quickly,” the FSMA says.
“After clicking on the advertisement or downloading the mobile application and filling in contact details, victims are usually quickly called by the scammers with a concrete investment proposal.”
WhatsApp and Telegram
“Other trading platforms contact consumers via dating apps and fake accounts on social media. Many trading platforms also use groups on WhatsApp and Telegram.
“The scammers also try to convince victims to invest increasingly larger sums. They claim that only one additional payment is needed to release their funds. This is a technique to extract even more money from their victims.”
After a while, victims no longer hear from the platform where they invested money. And they have lost the transferred amount.
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