Video / Short
I Almost Got Scammed by a Fake Investor 🚩
A founder recounts a suspected investor scam where the contact's name did not match and they showed little knowledge of the company, revealing several red flags.
Video summary
A founder recounts a suspected investor scam that raised several warning signs. The contact’s name did not appear to match, and the person showed little understanding of the company they claimed to be interested in.
The story encourages founders to slow down and verify who they are speaking with before sharing information or investing time in a potential deal. It is a personal account of red flags, not a claim about a confirmed individual or organisation.
Video transcript
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Just got off a call today with someone that I met through social media and as I jumped on the call something just didn't add up. I'm calling it the classic bait and switch. Stick around and I'll tell you what that is. Well, I was on one of the social media channels. I won't tell you which one and I was going through cleaning up all the messages and invitations that I had and I clicked on one and I thought, "Oh, this is interesting. It's a company that's going to raise capital." Now, we're into ventures. We're always looking for opportunities for our ventures to receive some funding and this seemed like a good opportunity. Now, I connected. There was a meeting to be scheduled.
I scheduled that and I immediately felt something wasn't right because the name of the person was not the same as the person I was going to meet with. So, I sent a message back, didn't hear a reply. Anyway, an hour later I jumped on the call. So, the person's name did at least match the invitation, but I started saying, "Well, who am I talking to? Why are we talking?" And I even referred back to the referral and they didn't even know the name of the person. They didn't know the name of the company. Complete disconnect in terms of name, in terms of company, in terms of location. So, naturally I was a little confused.