Riskfreeinvest RIPOFF stole egold - want to see if same people reversing PayPal Internet

I work for a retail brokerage. Here are some guidelines I would use to tell when an investment opportunity might be fraudulent.

1.) Just the name of the website "riskfreeinvestment" should tip you off that this was not a legitimate investment. NO Investment is risk free. A genuine broker is required to tell you everything terrible that might happen if you invest in XYZ, what might cause XYZ to lose its value, and, in some cases, that poor performance of XYZ may require you to pay additional fees (i.e. if you choose to "leverage" a portion of your investment). We're required to disclose all the risks short of "Investing in XYZ may result in money troubles that force you to move back in with your parents," etc.

2.) Never send money to someone who wants immediate payment. From the standpoint of personal liability, I do not want anyone to send any money until they have had enough time to research an investment on their own, and come to their own decision to invest. I don't want to get sued or fired because I let someone do something stupid. Scam artists are breaking the law - they want your money as quickly as possible, then they disappear. Just think about it - if it's a good opportunity, it should still be there after you've had time to think it over.

3.) Only send traceable funds. For large sums, most firms are going to require a bank wire anyway. No egold or any other paranoid Libertarian medium of exchange. To all Freemen and New World Order survivalists: trust your central banks when it comes to sending huge sums of cash.

4.) The difference between a scam and a legal operation isn't moral. It still comes down to money. A firm profits more from satisfied, long-term clients than it does from ripping someone off and running. I still want everyone's money. But I want it on a lasting, continuous basis. For this to happen, my money is generally tied to a client's investment. You should look for investment firms that have a financial incentive for you to do well. And though a firm may want you to do well, it cannot promise it. NEVER listen to anyone who claims they can certify the future. Also beware of over-speculation. Note that while aspects of the economy may be cyclical, history is NO GUARANTEE of what an investment might do in the future. Be cautious of ALL "advice" you receive.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand why so many people fall for these cons, and at the same time, I have people contact ME, come to ME to discuss an investment, and act like I'm going to rip them off. Yes, I just told you that if you invest in ABC you may lose everything and be contractually obligated to forfeit a kidney, yet somehow you're still asking me "what's the catch?"

Bottom line, don't trust anyone until they've earned your trust, and don't send them money if you have any doubts.

Another possibility is that paypal holders unknowingly hit a site with a keystroke logger download.

Basically, they record every key and letter you type and send it to a waiting recipient.

You go to paypal and type in access information, and they got it right along with paypal.

Basically, everything you access or type is public knowledge to the people who are interested in having it. Something to think about before you access that site which caters to the cross-dressing fetish, huh?

That's exactly why I have no paypal or any other online banking account. Let the hackers read these messages I type. Hell, they're public knowledge anyway!

Actually Chris, you're not as much a victim as this woman. You got a full refund from paypal.

This woman will never be able to say that. She got no refund, and paypal is done with her foolishness. So much for doing her ebay from now on, huh?

But that's OK Chris, because you did nothing to encourage the fraud. Your account was compromised without your knowledge. Clearly, you have no responsibility for that.

But, this woman went surfing, looking for a place to throw her money away. Had it not been for her, and others like her, the frauds would have nothing more than a collection of paypal numbers, with no way to turn them into money.

Without an unwitting accomplice, they were useless.

Anyone who volunteers to do the money transfers clearly is complicit in their own loss to some degree.

Like I always tell people, there are a million scams working all at the same time. It's all part of life in the big city. All you can do is try to use the best judgment that you are capable of.

You won't find anyone else getting a reversal from me, because you are the only one who was sent money from me not authorized from me.

Unfortunately, I am not dumb enough to fall for one of the many, many, many phishing emails out there... that being said, that isn't how they are getting the accounts. At least that's not how they got into mine. The only conclusion I can come to is that this is much like the problem AOL had a year or two ago with stolen email accounts.

It wouldn't surprise me if somebody working for PayPal is being payed by an outsider to get account info. Just my theory.

Also, the one curious thing I saw in this whole thing is that when it showed up as a temporary purchase through my credit card and I logged onto PayPal it didn't show up in the recent actions area, I had to view all actions. So somebody is trying to hide it, at least to buy time from both sides.

Like I said before, here and to you personally, Pamela, don't try and hold me responsible, I am a victim as much as you are. But I do my homework first.

Maybe you should check the battery, because something is clearly wrong here. This con is the world's most obvious scam. Some people try to hide the fraud. But, not this nonsense.

Everything about this says SCAM in big, bold, flashing neon letters on the side of a giant, goodyear blimp that is just 50 feet above your house. Plus, they are using a megaphone to scream out the monty python song over and over again.

SCAM, SCAM, SCAM, SCAM

Here, step right up young lady, take your chance on the wheel of fortune. Round and round she goes, where it stops, nobody knows!

Yes, I realize that people will actually get involved in this. What does that say about those people?

But, trust me, anyone with even a smattering of common sense wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole. You are simply way, way, way too trusting and nave. You believe whatever people tell you, without stopping to examine their motivations.

All this is, really, is another version of the Nigerian fake cashier's check con. The Nigerians offer to buy your car for $2,000 more than you are asking for. You agree. So, they send you a fake cashier's check good enough to fool your bank for a little while. The bank hands you all the money, or places it in your account. You then send BACK the extra $2,000 to the Nigerian. In a matter of a few days, the bank discovers the fraud and debits your account. Now, you have none of the money anymore. Plus, your bank will require you to repay anything that you ended up sending to the Nigerian.

Here, let me give you more details, since you are assuming that paypal is part of the scam.

A kid known as a script-kiddy is probably the one doing this. It's a simple, half-assed con that no serious hacker would waste their time with.

Anyway, the loser makes a fake paypal page that looks exactly like the real paypal page. He spoofs or hides his address so it's not obvious that the page is coming from a kid's yahoo address.

Next, he sends this phony page out to millions of email addresses, hoping to find some who have paypal accounts. Like anything, if you cast a big enough net, you will eventually find a few suckers to get caught up in it. The paypal holder GIVES his account number and password freely. Nothing is hacked. Nothing is stolen. The person is under the impression that they are being contacted by paypal.

That is known as a phishing expedition.

Now, the loser is ready to move on to part two. He sets up his phony site waiting for rubes to take the bait. The minute you hook up with the loser, he'll send you paypal money taken from the account numbers he has collected. It's not his money, it actually belongs to someone who inadvertently gave away his account number and password. That's why mr egold demands a quick transaction. The minute the paypal owner sees that his money is gone, he runs screaming to paypal. They will promptly reverse the transaction.

But, in the meantime, you have sent most of the money back, using egold. That can't be traced or reversed. So, you're out. You failed to spot a con. You failed to be suspicious. You went in trusting and believing the whole way. So now, instead of making a 50% profit, you have lost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

Plus, paypal is calling you a crook. You may get a call from an investigator. Of course, once they talk to you, they'll realize you don't have the brains to tie your shoes, much less figure out something like this. So, the chances of ending up in prosecution are remote.

But, you still owe the money. Your paypal account will be closed. That's a good thing, because clearly, you don't have the skills necessary to have one in the first place.

Let me ask you something here? Where did you think the 50% profit was coming from? How could someone invest money and make a 50% profit all in less than an hour?

Plus, you never even have to send your money. They will ADVANCE you the money from the stolen paypal account. So, why do they even need you in the first place?

Clearly, they need you to change the money over from paypal to egold. Paypal is traceable. Egold isn't. That's what they needed you for. To be the patsy left holding an empty bag, scratching their a*s, wondering what happened.

Here's my prediction. If you fell for this, you will go on to get involve in hundreds of other scams. Little by little, they will clean you out of every nickel you ever had, or ever will earn in the future. You may call this desperate. But, it's not desperate. Desperate people cling to every dime they have. They don't give any of it away to silly things like this.

Here's the thing that gets me the most. Why in the world would you actually send the loser anything back? Common sense tells you that you keep everything they give you. Once you take it out of the account, you have cash that can't be reversed. All you'd have to do is hand mr egold over to paypal and let them sort it out. Meanwhile, you'd have five grand in cash in your right-a*s pocket. Paypal thinks mr egold has the money. So, they're after his a*s, not yours.

One has to wonder the type of person who actually follows through and returns the money using egold.

Normally, I tell people to stay away from obvious cons like this. But, clearly, anyone who did this has years of losses ahead of them. It'll be years before they wake up and finally realize exactly how money is actually made and invested. In the meantime, they will bounce from one phony scam to the next half-assed con, assuming all the while that each new one is the opportunity-of-a-lifetime that they have been searching for all along.

And, nothing I or anyone else here says will ever change that.

Good luck; you're going to need it!

Many, Many did this, dumb or not. There are two other forums full of people reporting they did it for far more than I. We were probably all motivated by several things - first, that if they had to pay Google for the ad, they could be found easily if they were frauds.

It is an assumption they hacked all PayPal's accounts. If so, then PayPal must be pretty insecure. I had not heard of anyone's PayPal being hacked before, though I, myself, have had my egold account hacked. My belief is some of the PayPal reversals might be connected to the scamster and a comparison of names/cities might reveal that. By the way, they offered to accept money from me by Western Union as well as egold, and I've heard WU is pretty strict about checking ID's. That would also leave a lot of evidence as to their real identities.

I was honestly kind of curious to see if it was real, and one thought I had was that they might be transferring the egold to actual physical gold for their own reasons and taking delivery of it. I thought maybe it was possible to leverage loans against stored gold, or some scheme like that, and they wanted to get a lot of it fast, or wanted it anonymously and fast for some specific manufcturing purpose. And gold is used for many reasons. So I thought there might be some scheme involved where it could be real, as wild and unlikely as it seemed.

Of course, I thought about the possibility of reversals before I did it, and was told by two people it was difficult to do through PayPal. Obviously, they were wrong about that.

I had intended to report them on many scam boards, but when I got there, found it had already been done. I will turn them over to both Google and other authorities as well as local police for the scamster running the website, as reveal by WHO IS. I just thought correlating evidence first might be helpful to them, like seeing if some of the PP accounts connected could be part of the scam.

From all the people who did this, as evidenced on other boards and forums (and they had predecessor websites for around a year with different names), if every person responding to the ad caused someone's PayPal account's to get hacked, it is a serious revelation about that system's insecurity.

If nothing else, I hope my posting and yours helps end this fraud.

Readers, check this out. This is beyond belief how absolutely stupid this scam is. What drugs could somebody possibly be using to come up with something like this?

Here's the scam. Try to follow along because I guarantee this will make no sense to you either. You really have to see the site for yourself.

First, let's look at the name itself. Riskfreeinvest. Now, does everything about that name just scream scam in big, bold neon letter that are flashing on the side of a blimp? It sure says that to me.

This site is SO stupid that I can't even begin to explain what it is that they expect you to do. So, I'm just going to copy their text right from their site and leave it here for you to try to puzzle out.

------------------------------------
Welcome, and congratulations! You've landed on a webpage that will make you richer in half an hour. We guarantee that you can leave this page knowing that you will have made some bucks in 60 minutes.

YES, YOU READ THIS RIGHT - NOT TOMORROW OR WHENEVER - YOU'LL GET THE MONEY RIGHT NOW! click here and make $$$ in 60 minutes!!!

WE will always pay you your return UPFRONT! Our offer is absolutely RISK-FREE! Yes, that's right - we pay you NOW, and you invest AFTER you receive the money from us!

What is it all about? As you know, there is one thing that grows quickly in value - GOLD. The Internet has its own form of gold, called e-gold. If you invest e-gold right now, you will not only get your money back in 60 minutes, but you'll earn a 150% return on your investment - GUARANTEED. For every $1 of e-gold you invest, you will earn $1.50 in 60 minutes,

YOU GET YOU INVEST
$450 $300
$900 $600
$3000 $2000
$15000 $10000
etc.
NO MINIMUMS! AND THIS IS AS FAST AS IN 60 MINUTES!!

No doubts! We know how to build up your confidence. We will pay you your return upfront! Yes, that's right - we pay you NOW, and you invest AFTER you receive the money from us. Just send us your request and, after we verify and confirm your intentions, you will receive your 150% upfront! Click here to start.

Want more details? We'll be glad to explain. As you probably know, there are many projects on the Internet that return handy profits on investments. On average, Internet companies develop 500 times faster than offline businesses. That is why investing in profitable Internet enterprises can earn you a return 500 times faster than investing in more traditional companies. Our specialty is finding Internet projects and investing in them with Internet money - e-gold. You can enjoy a 50% profit on your investment in 60 minutes! Click here and make your $$$ in an hour!

BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF. NOBODY ELSE CAN OFFER YOU SUCH A GUARANTEED RETURN ON YOUR INVESTMENT, RIGHT? WHY NOT INVEST TODAY?
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Evidentially, you are supposed to send them money through a paypal account. Then, they give you a 50% profit on it. Or, maybe they send you their money first, and then you send your money back in return.

No matter how you look at this, it spells con in oh-so-many ways.

E-gold? What will the losers think of next?

I'll be honest, I laughed so hard I almost had a heart attack from the lack of air when I seen this nonsense.

Easily the dumbest thing I have ever seen in all my years. Too funny!

Here's what is happening in this scam. I'm sure that some people will actually be buying into this foolishness.

The fraud hacks into somebody's paypal account and uses it to send you some of the person's money. They probably get the number from a phishing scam.

So, after you, the sucker, get the money IN ADVANCE, you send 75% of it back through an e-gold method. You keep the other 25% as your profit.

Here's the problem. The other victim will notify paypal that money was taken from his account. Paypal will then reverse the money you received. But, you've already sent most of it back, remember? So, your account will be NEGATIVE.

Plus, the money you sent back through e-gold can't be reversed. So, you end up losing money, even though you never actually used any of your own money to begin with.

Like I said, this is the dumbest thing I have ever seen.

I gotta send this comment before I either piss my pants or die from a busted lung. I've been sitting here laughing so hard the whole time since I saw this crazy thing.

Too, too funny!

I stated my PP money -- supposed payment from investriskfree.com came form Minneapolis. But that was WRONG. The PP member who reversed charges was:
C C Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The scammer, according to domain registration at WHO IS, was in Minneapolis, MN.

Has anyone else had a PayPal reversal from a Chris C--- in Milwaukee, Wisconsin?

If we compare notes on who reversed their payments, might come up with some of same people.