Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

LAST week, Ana (not her real name), approached me regarding her situation. She has "loaned or invested" $182,000 to someone who is now missing with the lure of extremely high investment return.

So many times I have been personally offered these sales pitches myself. My simple and easy answer, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!" There are no guaranteed returns on an investment unless you are putting it on a fixed product.

How can someone like Ana fall into such a prey, almost giving up every hard-earned dollar they have? Simple.

Scam artists are masters of persuasion, who create their sales speech to match your psychological profile. They ask friendly questions at first, questions about your health, family, political views, hobbies or prior employers. Once they get an idea of who you are, they are able to present a sales pitch designed just for you. Don’t fall for it! Know the most common tactics and be aware of your financial footprint.

If you want to recognize a con attempt before you get burned, you have to learn to think like a con. With a little bit of education, you can protect yourself and those around you from getting scammed.

Ask lots of questions and demand answers. The things that cons don’t like are questions, because it gives them too many opportunities to slip up and say the wrong thing. So ask as many questions as you can think of and then listen to what they say. If something sounds fishy, it’s probably a con.

Look out for the get-richquick schemes. If someone is offering you huge returnsin person, over the phone, by email or by letter, it’s probably a scam. Money doesn’t grow on trees, so no one is that willing to just give it away to complete strangers.

Take note of the exaggerations. Con attempts are full of exaggerations and white lies. They have to make things sound better than they really are. Case in point, the now very famous Madoff case, preying on who’s who of American culture.