He made a this high-quality, this fascinating documentary
Traveling to Thailand to confront some unknown dudes that took you for $100k? I believe that’s the definition of cojones. Or f*%$ing crazy. Depending on how you look at it.
I am impossible to scam, because I never give anyone my money, for any reason.
So… hungry…
Simple rule never give your money or business or more then two seconds of your time to anyone who ever cold calls you.
It was hard to watch because it was like all my biggest fears rolled into one documentary; Financially screwed and no one of authority with power or care to do anything about it. And what’s worse the support mechanism in place for the criminals like the HSBC that allow for it…
The real criminals are HSBC and their ilk. These fellows who scammed this guy are two-bit hustlers compared to HSBC.
I had a mate who had a large court settlement ten years ago. All of a sudden, out of the blue, these financial investors start cold calling him. Fortunately, he said no, even though they offered to send one of their friendly representatives around to his place in Brisbane.
Thank god he kept saying no.
The people in this documentary are the most clear-speaking aussies I’ve ever seen. It was also pretty interesting and well done for a basically amateur video.
Nice find!
2 seconds? Yeah, that’s just about long enough to tell them to fuck off and hang up. 
He may live in Australia, but that’s an English accent.
12% return is going to be risky or a scam, greed wills out everytime
You can get far more invective than that into two seconds, man.
Feels better to tell them you’re interested and then put them on forever-hold.
this guy took a huge risk going there. HUGE.
I can’t believe this guy. On his website he has an audio conversation with “Edward” in which it’s clear that he’s complicit with having his “gains” kept in an offshore bank to shielf his gains from taxation. IF this story is real, then he is truly a lamb being led to slaughter, completely isolated from reality, and willingly going along with his handler at every turn. Did he really expect to walk into a major bank in Hong Kong and get anything but laughter at the front desk? No wonder thousands of people around the world are trying to bilk citizens on the Net … and he’s made himself into a walking billboard with neon lights that spell out “eat me”.
Sorry, not one tear for Mr. WhamBam, or anyone else who’s got $100,000 to throw into a pisspot. Nobody with any sense at all would ever “invest” with someone they’ve never met. So playing “James Bond”, as he put it, entirely fits with the fantasy scenario he’s living his life in.
Not sure why he thought HSBC would help him. He’s not HSBC’s customer - the scammers are. Nor is he law enforcement. So from HSBC’s perspective, a complete random guy just went up to them and asked them to help transfer $100k from one of their customers. You should feel relieved this didn’t work, because if it did, it opens up a whole different sort of scam.
Speaking of HSBC, there’s a new post from Matt Taibbi in his blog -
While “[BIG CORPORATION] IS BAD!” is a great story, it’s hard to have any sympathy for Mr. Jones whose saga begins with a cold call from “a global financial services group with offices in California and Singapore.”
The address of the California offices is shown on screen in the video at 2:39: “8100 Nipa Av, California City, CA 93505.” Let’s take a look at those offices: http://goo.gl/hKKh3q
Keith has them buy him some Nokia shares because “this seemed to present a good buying opportunity.” What good luck!
Why would anybody watch more of the video, unless for Schadenfreude?
Sure doesn’t sound like he did even minimal due diligence. “HI, we’ll invest your money.” “OK, sure, here’s 110 grand Mr. Cold Caller.”
If people used their brains, 90% of these kinds of scammers would wither and die. Too many people have been brought up to think the government will take care of me if I do something dumb.
I don’t see what he did as having cojones, i see it as compounding his stupidity: “Hey, I’ll go confront these criminals on their home turf in a country where i don’t speak or read the language and don’t know squat about the local legal system. What could possibly go wrong?”
