Recognise the common ways people are drawn into investment scams online.
Before you put money into any investment platform that someone has pointed you to, search for its name in the MAS Financial Institutions Directory. Lesson 4.2 has the steps. Scammers commonly use three routes to get people onto fake investment platforms: an ad with a famous face, an invitation to an insider chat group, or a friendly mentor. Each route ends at a platform chosen for you by someone you do not know, and the same short set of checks works against all three.
Picture this. On your lunch break you see what looks like a news article. A well-known businessman, shown in a photo on a TV set, is quoted as saying he made a fortune on a new trading platform and wants ordinary Singaporeans to share in it. The article has a sign-up link and hundreds of comments from people thanking him, and almost none of it is real.
Scam ads and fake articles like this often feature well-known people: business leaders, celebrities, TV presenters and sometimes senior politicians. The people featured usually do not know their name is being used. Their photos are taken from real interviews and events, and their quotes are edited or invented. The ad can come in several formats. It may be a fake news story copied from a real outlet down to the logo and layout, a short video with a recognisable face and a voice-over, or a social media post or ad that links to a sign-up page. The comments underneath are often fake too, posted by accounts the scammers control. Many of the people whose faces are used have said publicly that they do not endorse these schemes.
A well-known person who really backed an investment would talk about it on their own official channels. Look at their verified social media accounts and their official website. If those say nothing about it, or say the ads are fake, the ad is not genuine.
Some ads now use edited video or a cloned voice to make the person appear to speak. The official-channels check works whether the ad uses a still photo or a convincing video, because it does not depend on you spotting the fake. The course "AI risks: privacy, bias, deepfakes and scams" covers deepfake and voice-clone scams in depth.
The second route starts with an invitation to a WhatsApp or Telegram group chat. It may come from an ad, from a stranger, or from a contact who added you without asking. An insider group is a chat presented as an exclusive investor club, often led by a "professor", "analyst" or "teacher" who shares free tips.
Inside, members post screenshots of their profits, thank the leader and talk about their weekly gains. Newcomers ask nervous questions and get reassuring answers. Many of these members may be accounts run by the scammers to create the impression that ordinary people are getting rich. You cannot tell from inside the chat, because every message is written to persuade you. The profit screenshots come from fake platforms like the ones in lesson 4.1, so they prove nothing.
The pressure in these groups is usually gentle and steady. You hear that a special opportunity is coming, that there are limited spaces in a "VIP" round, or that a window is about to close. This is the scarcity lever from lesson 1.1, applied to a whole group at once.
The third route is the most personal. The mentor may be the group leader, an assistant who messages you privately, or a new friend you met on social media or a dating app. Mentors are patient and generous with their time. They share their own trading results and offer to teach you their method.
Eventually the mentor asks you to download a particular app, sign up on a particular website, or send cryptocurrency to a particular wallet. That app or website is part of the scheme. It is the fake platform from lesson 4.1, the kind that keeps you depositing once you are on it. The mentor is the scammer who will guide you through the deposits and, later, the excuses.
Rachel, a 30-year-old teacher (an invented example), clicks an ad and joins a Telegram group. An "assistant" to the group's analyst then messages her privately, asks about her goals and offers her free coaching. After two weeks of chatting, he tells her the analyst's trades only work on one specific platform, and he walks her through downloading that platform's app. Rachel checks the platform's name in the MAS Financial Institutions Directory using the steps from lesson 4.2. She finds nothing, and she leaves the group.
All three routes lead to the same place: an investment platform you have been steered to by someone you do not know. Each one works by borrowing trust, using a famous face, a crowd of happy members or a patient teacher to make a stranger's platform seem credible. Because the destination is the same, the defence is the same:
Check the platform with MAS, using the MAS Financial Institutions Directory as shown in lesson 4.2. Check any famous name against that person's own official channels, meaning their verified accounts and official website. Treat any push to a specific app, website or wallet as a warning.
Celebrity ads are the easiest of the three to practise on, because they're everywhere and they're public. Next time you see one in your feed, you'll know exactly where to look to find out whether the person in it has ever said a word about it.
Find one investment ad that uses a well-known person, then check that person's official channels for any statement about fake endorsements.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).