France’s financial markets regulator, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), alerted investors that scams related to stock markets are beginning to circulate, with criminals capitalizing on the situation to run a range of financial scams.
The AMF had spotted fraudulent offers to invest in stocks of blue-chip companies at a price below their official price. It also warns about an uptick in internet promotions claiming that shares of certain companies will dramatically increase.
The watchdog says it continues to receive reports of victims falling prey to scams offering to buy shares in listed companies through fraudulent platforms posing as regulated providers of “savings accounts”. It also advised members of the public to be wary of stock recommendations given on social media and messaging applications.
These are typically from overseas ‘brokers’ who target potential victims offering to sell what often turn out to be worthless or high risk shares. These callers can be very persistent and extremely persuasive, and their activities have resulted in considerable losses for some investors, the authorities said.
The AMF statement further reads:
“Retail investors receive investment proposals, for example, in a “GAFA savings account with guaranteed capital and indexation on the performance of Google Amazon Facebook Apple shares”, or a “Tesla Apple Facebook savings account”, “diversified savings accounts” based on shares of companies that are sometimes…
