This website has long been warning about the perils of investors dealing with offshore 'brokers' who cold call you offering quick, easy and fantastic profits normally on shares in go-go sectors like technology, drugs or mining/oil. Most of these 'brokerage' companies are in fact nothing more than scams who exist only to steal money. So when the customer wires money, usually to a Far Eastern Bank (The Bank of China in Hong Kong is a favourite) it will be the last they ever see of it. Some of these scammers just disappear when the money has been wired but others are altogether more sneaky and will try and work a longer term scam on the assumption that if someone has fallen for their tricks the first time, there's a good chance that they'll do so again. Of course the trick to any successful double scam is to make sure the customer never actually realises he's been scammed in the first place.

Regulation S Shares

To try and placate an original 'investor' and give him the illusion he hasn't been setup the scamming brokerage firm will furnish him with what are called 'Regulation S Shares'. Regulation S shares are shares in US companies which can be sold to non-US customers living outside the US. This type of stock is a perfect tool for the scammers because the companies that issue them are themselves generally suspect - very small, are often late with issuing accounts (if at all), highly speculative, non regulated, almost impossible to find information on etc. Now whether the investor actually gets Regulation S shares or just a fake share certificate is another debate altogether.

Be Wary Of Any Company That Offers To Deal In Regulation S Shares

Recently there have been a number of internet sites that have sprung up offering to help investors sell Regulation S type shares. But we would strongly anyone who is thinking about doing business with any of these firms to do as much research into them and their backgrounds as possible. This research is even more critical if the firms in question are NOT located in your own country AND regulated by your Country's own financial Regulator.

Some Ideas For Researching These Regulation S Brokerage or 'Stock Exchange' Sites

1 - Get Researching Remember the internet is your friend when it comes to research and people who don't take the care to fully investigate who they're doing business with can often encounter problems. 2 - Google Is A Real Friend & Ally Always do a Google search on any financial firm you're about to do business with unless they're a well known brand Type in the company's website address into Google and take a great deal of interest in the other websites that are linking to them - financial sites should be linking to financial sites etc For example, if you type in the name of any brokerage company in your own country you'll see many hundreds of links coming from all sorts of legitimate sites within that industry Of course, if you find a site where other related sites are not linking to them there might be a reason BUT we would still advise extreme caution 3 - No Address on Website As a very firm rule of thumb we would strongly advise everyone never to do business with any financial firm that doesn't publish its address on its website Can you imagine a regulated brokerage or financial firm in your own country trying to hide this information? Ask yourself the possible reasons for not publishing such fundamental information especially for a firm dealing with client money A cynic would argue strongly that financial firms that hide this information have a strong reason for doing so But if a firm which you are not sure about does list its address then again do some digging with Google on the address and more often or not you’ll find it’s nothing more than a rented maildrop