It’s unfortunate, but true: During times of turmoil, whether it be a geopolitical situation or the economic stresses of inflation and rising interest rates, scam artists in cyberspace will try to take advantage of unsuspecting investors. What can you do to protect yourself?
Here are a few suggestions:
• Be suspicious of unsolicited investment offers. Through tweets, direct messages, emails or some other form of social media communication, you might get unsolicited offers to invest from senders you don’t know. Unsolicited sales pitches may be part of fraudulent investment schemes, so you’ll want to be highly suspicious of these offers, especially if they use words or phrases such as “guaranteed” or “can’t miss.
• Do some research. Given the market volatility of recent weeks, cyberspace fraudsters may use social media to encourage unwary investors to go outside the normal investment world and put their money in “specialized” vehicles. But these instruments may have significant risk and lie outside the supervision of those agencies whose mission it is to help protect investors, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which over- sees stocks and other securities, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which regulates more complex investment vehicles, such as futures and options. If you’re…
