{"id":61455,"date":"2025-10-06T01:14:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T01:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/61455\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T01:14:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T01:14:04","slug":"scam-warning-over-pump-and-dump-scheme-whatsapp-groups-and-fake-investment-advisers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/61455\/","title":{"rendered":"Scam warning over pump-and-dump scheme, WhatsApp groups and fake investment advisers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThey then persuade investors to purchase low-priced shares in [the] overseas company, artificially inflating the share price.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scammers promote investment club group chats through social media.<\/p>\n

The FMA said scammers often published ads impersonating business leaders or financial commentators to promote the group chats.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some cases, the scammers send unsolicited invitations to the group chats through messaging platforms like WhatsApp.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scammers might initially recommend purchasing shares of a big, well-known company such as Nvidia or Tesla. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a tactic to build trust before drawing potential victims into the pump-and-dump scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scammers then sell their holdings at a profit. <\/p>\n

\"LeonardoLeonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort ran a 1980s penny stock pump-and-dump scheme. Photo \/ Mary Cybulski<\/p>\n

Then the share price collapses, leaving investors not in on the scam with big losses. <\/p>\n

And sometimes the victims are exploited again.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a victim suffers a loss, the scammers often claim, falsely, that the victim is entitled to compensation or reimbursement.\u201d<\/p>\n

That tactic is known as a recovery room scam.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scammers use these claims to harvest personal information and further payments from the victims,\u201d the FMA said.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop engaging with the scammers,\u201d it advised people.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not provide any further personal information or payments to them. Report the group chats to WhatsApp and block the scammers on all devices.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FMA has released numerous phone numbers and WhatsApp group details it alleges are involved in the scams.<\/p>\n

The Herald tried calling some of the numbers but two appeared to be disconnected.<\/p>\n

Another went to a voicemail message saying: \u201cThe person you are calling cannot accept calls at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pump-and-dump WhatsApp group chats<\/p>\n

276The Stock Investment Elite Wealth Group 1Investment Navigation Group 1Stock Market Tracking group Z1, +1 (314) 665-7424Stock Market Trends 51, +1 (856) 500-8420 and +1 (504) 657-6110Stockmarket navigation group302, +1 (504) 261-9422 and +1 (808) 216-7031US Stocks Investment Group-672<\/p>\n

Fictional investment advisers<\/p>\n

Amy Mills, +1 (681) 427-8556David Greene (imposter)Jane Share GuruLaura Marcuzzi (imposter), +44 7563 754111Nicole Vera (imposter), +44 7731 897748Scott Horsburgh (imposter), +1 (217) 862-4364<\/p>\n

The FMA said people who lost money to the scams could phone Victim Support on 0800 842 846.<\/p>\n

The Herald\u2019s Scambusters<\/a> series has more information and advice on scams.<\/p>\n

John Weekes<\/a> is a business journalist covering aviation and court. He has previously covered consumer affairs, crime, politics and courts.<\/p>\n

Listen and subscribe to the Today in Business<\/a> podcast \u2013 the top headlines from the NZ Herald business team summarised and delivered by an artificial intelligence (AI) voice as an easily digestible recap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThey then persuade investors to purchase low-priced shares in [the] overseas company, artificially inflating the share price.\u201d Scammers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[13105,95,138,124,37483,28450,1426,111,139,69,1523,50450,1461,3170,50451,5424,13558,1455,19607,50452],"class_list":["post-61455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-advisers","tag-and","tag-business","tag-could","tag-fake","tag-groups","tag-investment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-pumpanddump","tag-scam","tag-scheme","tag-sopranos","tag-street","tag-wall","tag-warning","tag-whatsapp","tag-wolf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}