It's got all the hallmarks of a classic boilerroom operation. The
shares offered may well be in a legitimate, albeit risky, venture.
However, that does not mean that the outfit offering the shares are
legitimate, authorised or honest. It is very easy to set up a good
looking web site, to seed a few news media web pages with 'press
releases', and to hire an accomodation address. Please put your spare
money in an investment such as a fixed term bond where it will be
reasonably safe and it'll be more difficult to succumb to temptations
such as these. If you are not a skilled and experienced venture
capitalist with money to gamble on a varied portfolio of high-risk
business startups, don't think of taking part in such schemes. If you
really want to gamble, there are new share issues handled by UK firms.
You may well lose money but at least it won't be an out-and-out scam.

"Adrian Midgley" <adrian[at]woodstove.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:2bd1bfbb4d.Woodstove[at]halfmoonhealthfoods.co.uk...

- quote -

What you could be missing here is that these people have a lot of experience
scamming others. The person on the phone has a list of questions that the
marks are likely to ask and has rehearsed the answers thoroughly to sound
believable. They have done it many times before and know how to quickly come
up with the answers you want to hear.

Here's the acid test, if the person who is offering this deal to you isn't
family or owes you money, why would he give you a sure thing?


"Adrian Midgley" <adrian[at]woodstove.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:2bd1bfbb4d.Woodstove[at]halfmoonhealthfoods.co.uk...
- quote -

Adrian Midgley wrote:
- quote -


Adrian,
If I knew you I would make a joke about "where to get professional help"
that had nothing to do with barristers or accountants!

Seriously: we're writing from the US but one Universal Truth of
Investing is that, as John Weeks said, no worthwhile "ground-floor,
can't-miss" investment will ever be presented to you via an unsolicited
phone call. Especially a call coming from overseas. It just doesn't work
that way. Legitimate investment opportunities have countless sources of
capital, even if (as claimed) 20% of money needs to come from
individuals. That leaves the garbage and outright scams for cold-calling
- done from what are commonly called "boiler rooms" (see US movie of
same name).

And c'mon, you said that your country's regulator flat-out told you not
to go ahead, and even that the fact of contacting you violated UK law!
Would a legitimate company skip whatever steps are required to raise UK
capital legally? Of course not. Isn't that enough to warn you off?

Nothing about what you described adds up, and I can't imagine how you
could overcome these concerns, regardless of what questions you ask. It
sounds like they could say anything they want, and you'd have no
recourse. Would you fly to HK to file suit if your money vanishes? Where
would you even begin? Might not even be HK for all you know.

-Tad

- quote -

Unsolicited overseas investment, not starting off too well.

- quote -

Of course it sounds good.

- quote -

You need to wake up and stop living in denial ("but this one's
different")

- quote -

Hmm, the trail get even more convoluted.

- quote -

This is the clincher. A "sure fire investment"? Don't walk, RUN away
from this deal. Even if it's not an outright scam (where they simply
take your money and disappear), I'd rate your chances of this ending
well at less than 5%.

In article <2bd1bfbb4d.Woodstove[at]halfmoonhealthfoods.co.uk> ,
Adrian Midgley <adrian[at]woodstove.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:

- quote -

In general, any investment that someone brings to you is going to be
a scam.

-john-

--
================================================== ====================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708 john[at]johnweeks.com
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ====================

I am a managing director of a small retail store. I frequently get "cold
calls" from overseas offering investment opportunities. I usually tell them
I'm not interested as I assume that any unsolicited call may be some kind of
scam.

Recently out of curiousity I heard out one of these phone presentations. The
opportunity sounds good but I have no experience in investments and fear
that if I go ahead I can say goodbye to all my hard earned money.

I've exchanged a number of phone calls with the agent offering this
investment along with a number of faxes and e mails. The fact is that they
have a reasonable (to me) answer to all my concerns. If this is a con it's a
lot more sophisticated than anything I've managed to turn up by research on
the wwww.

The agents are in Hong Kong and have supplied phone numbers and a physical
address. Research on the www shows that the address does exist. Worryingly a
number of scams seem to have originated in that neighbourhood, on the other
hand that is probably the case within any major financial district. (eg
Harley street in London has it's fare share of quacks along with
distinquished doctors). The agents have been authorised to sell equity units
in a privatly owned TV company fully licensed and registered in Germany. The
MD of the company a Mr Micheal Oplesch was MD of Viva TV and MTV Eurpe
thtoughout the 90s. The company is expanding fast broadcasting sporting
events while offering subscibers access to betting services through
telephone, e mail fax SMS and online.

The agents in Hong Kong explain there cold calling by saying that companies
wish to generate 20% of their investment from individuals rather than
institutions. The agents admitt to using marketing firms lists to reach
potential new investers. They say this is so that they can grow their client
base. From time to time when a sure fire investment comes along which they
believe will generate an impressive short term return they like to offer
this to new investers as a way of gaining trust.

The price of one Equity unit is 5000 Euros. The method of payment is by
bankers draft via HSBC bank direct to the TV company. The TV company issue
the ownership certificates. The agent say they do not handle the investers
money.

Because the agents have been able to answer all my concerns I'm beginning to
seriously consider making the investment. However I have no experience.

I understand after a phone call to the UK Financial Services Authority that
as a UK resident I would have no safety net as the entities involved are not
registered in the UK. As such they advised me not to go ahead, infact they
said the agents had acted illegally by contacting me

Can anyone help by telling me the sort of questions I need to ask, what sort
of research to carry out or where to get professional help

--
Adrian Midgley