Coincidentally a few weeks ago a female client called me and said that she met this great guy online but now he keeps going on about cryptocurrencies and how my client should invest in these. It was clear that there was something not quite right as even a ‘normal’ crypto addict makes a very dangerous partner as their finances are likely to be in disarray a lot or even permanently. After our conversation my clients could read the signs and terminated the connection, which was painful but in the light of the above my client might have just escaped something much nastier.

Another client didn’t ring me and sent somebody she didn’t know $2,000 dollars, a bit more than was comfortable. The moment she made the transfer she realised that she was being scammed.

A popular trick that has become proverbial in Germany as it is so common is the grand-child trick. A person shows up at an older person’s home or calls them, saying that they are their grand-child or their child’s husband or wife and they are in hospital and immediately need money to be sent to them or to get the person’s credit card so they can pay their bill. Something similar happened to at least one client in Australia.

A decade ago a friend of mine met the most amazing guy online and they went out for two years until all her savings of $200,000 were gone. She never told me about it until afterwards.

When I was 24 and just arrived in Australia and earning good money as an IT specialist a friend of a friend approached me about investing in foreign currencies as the Australian dollar had just been allowed to float freely against other currencies by the Hawke-Keating government. I said ok, I will invest 3 weeks’ of earnings and went to the brokerage to sign the agreement which I hadn’t seen until then. I read the agreement and it showed that 90% of my money would go in fees and only 10% of my money would be invested. In other words, my currency bet would have to be super successful – 10-folding my money for me to just break even. I didn’t like that but something strange happened at that moment – the ‘friend’ of a friend bullied me by demanding that I sign – I can’t remember the reasons he gave but the key lesson was that I could be bullied because I actually signed. Of course, that money was gone but it was, dollar for dollar, the most valuable lesson in my life, showing me that I could be bullied and I never allowed that to happen again.