The people’s want for more and more money has made it possible for scams to occur. And for the wealthy lot who may have the money to spend, such scams also exist that drive to make them part with their money in the form of so-called investments. There are various investment scams now going around to victimize the rich and even the not so rich with promises of exceptionally high returns for certain special investments. Here are some of those costly investment scams

Ponzi Schemes

Ponzi schemes have been around for a very long time now. But then, despite such schemes being so, there are still a lot of people who seem to be victimized by them. Probably the most recent and the most popular one is the scheme set up by Bernie Madoff that victimized a number of wealthy investors as well as celebrities.

The thing with Ponzi schemes is that they usually attract wealthy investors with the promise of high returns for low risk investments. In reality, there are no investments in Ponzi schemes. The money just circulates among the investors. Early investors get paid by the money received from current ones and so on and so forth. In this set up, it can be easy to determine that such schemes are bound to break down some other time. It is only then that the victims realize that they have been scammed.

Prime Bank Scheme

Another investment scam involves investing in so-called bank guarantees. Scam artists would entice investors that they have access to bank guarantees that they can buy at a discount that they can then sell several times for a high profit. What the victims don’t know is that their money is being sent to an offshore account and then transmitted to the account of the scam artist. Victims are led to believe in such so-called investments because these schemes are run by people who seem to have a good knowledge of the banking sector and with a good stock of banking jargon.

Pump And Dump Scam

This investment scam involves a scam artist buying a relatively obscure stock investment and then spending time trying to artificially inflate its price through deceptive and misleading statements usually posted  and spread online. The positive news may generate a number of interested investors who might buy in to the statements. After a considerable number of investors had bought into the stock, the scam artist immediately sells his for a profit, leaving a lot of investors eventually losing out through the scam.