Investment Forum - AMG ZURICH

I HAVE BEEN COLD CALLED TO BUY STOCK IN TERRA MED A COMPANY BASED IN CALIFORNIA. THE TICKER IS RQI.F, BY LOOKING AT THE TREND THE PRICE RISE IN THIS STOCK HAS BEEN ASTRONOMICAL.THEY ARE ALSO OFFERING TO GIVE ME CREDIT BY BUYING STOCK THAT I HAVE WHICH IS UNDER PERFORMING IS THIS UNUSUAL . IS IT UNUSUAL TO SEND MONEY TO A BANK ACOUNT IN CALIFORNIA FOR A STOCK BROKER BASED IN SWITZERLAND. THEY ARE NOT REGULATED BY THE FSA , BUT THEY TOLD ME THEY WERE IN THE PROCESS OF APPLYING FOR FINMA  REGULATION IS THAT A TALL STORY. IF YOU LOOK AT YAHOO FOR THIS STOCK THERE IS NO CAPITALISATION VALUES OR VERY LITTLE METRICES . THERE DOES SEEM TO BE NO VOLUME. THIS COMPANY IS VERY KEEN FOR ME TO DO BUSINESS. WHY DID THIS COMPANY OFFER ME A STOCK PRICE 1 EURO BELOW THE STOCKMARKET LISTED PRICE FOR THAT PARTICULAR DAY. THESE QUERYS LEAVE ME VERY SCEPTICAL. IF I GO AHEAD WITH THIS STOCK I STAND TO MAKE ALOT OF MONEY.

You stand to LOSE all your money. Not possibly, not most likely but DEFINITELY.
It all stinks: Cold call, Zurich, lend you the money (lol),California, Bulletin board. Just one of these would ring alarm bells. They won't be regulated by the FSA (that's UK). If they were most of the above would be ILLEGAL. What the **** is FINMA?
Here's the clue: "why did the company offer me a stock price 1 euro below the listed price" Why? Because it's a scam. I presume you are from UK as you mention FSA and therefore don't know about the bulletin boards. Firstly the shares aren't LISTED. They are just matched buyers and sellers. The price is the LAST TRADE. This could be 10 shares or 500 shares sold between two friends. They are PRIVATE companies. A minority shareholding in a private company has very little value.
DON'T do it!

I too have been col-called about Terra Med, trading (!) as RQI.F. A company called Trent Consultants in Seoul Korea first send you a glossy brochure then cold-call. They are pulling the same track as Harrington and Warrick Management Group did a couple of years ago. Boiler rooms. If you want to lose your money, this is an easy way to do it.

Trent Consultants: They proposed me yesterday to purchase 700 Terra Med Alliance, price per share 7.4 Euros (last price value 8.6 Euros 09.10.2009 09:08!), Commission 51.80Euros, total 5180Euros. Account Name: First Settlements  LTD, State Bank of Mauritius. I have to transfer the funds within 48hours. "Once full payment received by our bank we will issue you with a receipt for your records".  Site: www.trent-consultants.com. Address: 17F Jongro Tower Bldg., 6, Jongro 2-ga, Jongro-gu, Seoul, 110-789, Korea. Please comment and advice. Is somebody already a satisfied customer of Trent Consultants?
Do they really have any other financial products? It seems that they have nothing else and their site is totally "opaque", no factual information.
See also the same subject on this forum in French: http://www.boursorama.com/forum-allemagne-terra-med-alliance-dl-01-390845790-1?id_message=391482893

CEO: Nigel Beaumont
Senior consultant: James Kemp
Accounts Department: Diane King

Interesting link to understand the mechanism:

http://www.moneysense.gov.sg/publications/quick_tips/Consumer_Portal_Dealing_With_Unregulated_Persons.html

This is not rocket science. If someone cold calls you its a scam. If you know the person calling you, you will already have a relationship with him (like your stockbroker or financial adviser). Whether his recommendation is good or bad is another matter but it must be 'suitable', but it will not be a scam.

The difficulty  I have persuading people NOT to part with their money (or in some cases, more money)in share scams reminded me of a 'leg pull'we engineered in a broker's office many years ago. When the electronic price system first started, I think it was called SEAQ, there was a mock share set up on the system by the LSE to monitor things in real time (including MMs). The stock was called NODECHECK (I think). So the price just ticked away following the time (24hr). It started the morning at 800p (8 o'clock)and was £12 by, you've guessed it, 12 o'clock. At 4 o'clock it was £16.
Anyway we persuaded one of the junior members of the trading desk to buy some of these shares. It started fairly lightheartedly but we then got the Jobbers involved and got a contract note printed and everything like a real bargain. We kept saying th this guy things like "I bet they'll be about £15 by mid-afternoon". He went out to lunch at mid-day, I suppose making about £2 a share and we were worried he might book himself a holiday on the back of it. Of course the next day they started life at £8 and we told him there had been a 2:1 consolidation and not to worry because it would soon pick up (lot's more predictions of share price at various times of the day).
The point of the story is that, although we eventually confessed to him that it had all been a joke and that he had been well & truly 'had' he wouldn't/couldn't accept it and refused to believe he hadn't made money! Eventually we had to get the office manager, a man always to be believed, to officially inform him he had been scammed (although no money had changed hands). An extreme case maybe but it goes to show how powerful the promise of easy profit can be.

Hi guys

About Trent Consultant and Tera Med
Is there anything to do if money was already transferred?
Just forget about couple 1000 Euro or is there anyway to recover it.

Thx

I think that unless the police or the SFO get involved and are able to block any of the bank accounts where any investors money is held it is a hopeless case. These schemes are well thought out and money from investors is quickly spirited away beyond recall.
There have been some cases where money has been retrieved (I think). Was it Natrocell? http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=457218&in_page_id=2#

All out there DO NOT FALL for these scamers.
The latest scam is to offer you shares in a company called WEST GROUP listed in Frankfurt. The story is that this company has signed a huge contract with the Chinese government and when this news is published the shares will double and more. They have been scaming people with this story since last November!
If you check the Frankfurt exchange   http://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/EN/index.aspx?pageID=35&ISIN=US2044901062y
you will se that West Group were traded for last time on 30 December 2009.
These people are fraudsters. Their website is sallow with out substance. Their telephone systems are cheap skyp. Their banks are in Mauritius or in Malaysia where the opened a new account.

I fell for the West Group early in December but I was so lucky. 5 weeks after I send them 5K Euro to their account FIRST SETLEMENTS in HABIB bank in Mauritius, I got a call from Trent telling me that their bank and the intermediary bank had a dispute and my money would eventually return to my account in HSBC HK. They even advised me to ask my bank to do and MT103 funds trace and recall, and send me their new back account details: HSBC Malaysia to resend the returned funds.
My bank did carry out the trace and managed to recall 4990 EUR in three attempts. Perhaps HABIB bank has frozen their account.
So if there are any of you out there that have wired money to HABIB bank ask your own bank to attempt to recall the funds. The small fee that you will pay is worth it.

Trend is still waiting for me to resend the money in Malaysia. Let them wait! Now I will play them up. I pretend that I don’t know anything about the scam and I want to invest a large sum of money and drive them crazy.
So DO NOT FALL FOR WEST GROUP or any other crap form these bustards. IT IS A SCAM.
If you want to hurt them waste their time. Tell them that you want to buy a lot of shares  and never send them a penny. Yes they will threaten to sue you but the last these FRAUDSTERS want is to get involved in courts. ASK your friends to join the game pretending that they have large amounts to invest. Let them think that they are into a winner and drive them up the wall. This is what I am doing and I am really enjoying it. I play it stupid and make them think that they are into thousands of Euro. I really enjoy it. Join me!

Thanks for the info, Mike.
There is one simple solution to this scamming: don't get involved in the first place! A quick check on the internet will always show the chinks in these schemes and if you can't find much on the internet then don't do it. Or just ask the cold-callers who they are authorised by. If they do give an authority then check it out-not difficult.