BEWARE OF OFFERS OF INVESTMENT IN WINE

The FSMA once again warns the public against fraudulent investment offers in wine (see our warning of 24 June 2021).

The principle remains the same: after having clicked on an advertisement on social media, victims are contacted by phone by a salesperson, who offers them investments in wine and invites them to consult an online trading platform for fine wines.

These companies offer the opportunity to acquire bottles, undertake to stock them in a cellar for you, and promise to find some major buyers so that you can earn a handsome profit. Would-be investors have nothing to do, and the companies will take care of everything! The concept, however, is too good to be true. In the end, the investors never recover their money despite the promises!

The suspect companies active in recent weeks:

In recent weeks, the FSMA was informed that the companies behind the following websites have been approaching Belgians with these types of fraudulent offers:

• http://metropole-conseil.com/
• https://gst-investissements.com/fr/admin/login

The FSMA warns that these companies do not hold an authorization and are thus not permitted to offer investment services in Belgium. Moreover, these are likely cases of investment fraud, which means that in the end, the amounts invested are never reimbursed.

Be careful, don’t trust the 'professional' appearance of the website to which you are referred; the swindlers do everything they can to appear as legitimate as possible.

How to avoid the trap?

In order to avoid such cases of fraud, the FSMA urges you to exercise utmost prudence and advises you to remain alert to any indication of investment fraud. It offers a few recommendations to this end:

• Be wary of (promises of) completely disproportionate returns. If a return seems too good to be true, it usually is!
• Always verify the identity of the company that is contacting you (company identity, home country, etc.). It should not be trusted if a company cannot be clearly identified. Find out as well when the company website was set up: if the company’s website is relatively new, this could be an additional sign of investment fraud.
• Be wary if you are asked to deposit money to bank accounts in countries without any connection to the country where the company contacting you is said to be registered or with your own country of residence. Be wary if you are asked to deposit money into accounts whose beneficiary is someone other than the company itself.

In any case, if your contact person comes across as particularly insistent, this is an additional indication of fraud.

This article was published by Financial Services and Markets Authority

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