The rush into AI technology has been paralleled by a rush of AI trading scams

NURP and Quantum Bots are two of the worst

All it takes to dupe thousands of people out of their life savings is a believable story of untold riches if you just give some money to someone else for advice, for an “algorithmn” or for some purported “trading software”. What is certain is that you will part with money. The only person getting rich is the one selling you the scheme.

On Words with Friends and on Facebook, I was deluged for a while with ads for NURP, a scheme that pretends you can make enormous returns if you just give them money for their help. Their website is peppered with “testimonials” of people who they claim have benefited enormously from their scheme. Here are a few.

The degree of puffery in the NURP ads borders on the criminal. Most investors average annual return on the S&P 500 is 8-10% yearly. So the claim is that a 338% return is a serious possibility using their “algorithm”. Despite what must be an enormous advertising budget, since I see their ads everywhere, this company has only fleeced 3,000 users so far. Don’t make it 3,001.

Give it some thought. If you had software, an algorithm, or some insight that would let you earn 5.81% percent per month on your investment and you only had $5,000 to invest, your investment would be worth $3.8 billion in just 20 years. If you could earn 15.73% a month, you would need only 7 years to become a billionaire.

Would you then decide to sell that “secret sauce” to anyone willing to put up a few thousand dollars rather than keep it to yourself and join the American billionaires club? Hardly.

When you see an advertisement for something that seems too good to be true, it is just that.

Quantum Bots uses a similar schtick to lure people into giving them money, but focuses on foreign exchange. In this case, they claim they will give you “fully automated” trading software that will produce exceptional trading profits and you don’t have to do anything but give them money and let the bots do the rest for you.

This scam encourages you to believe using their software will earn you a return of 16% a month “verified by FX blue” whatever that is. For sure it is not Price Waterhouse.

Ask why they don’t just use their own bots to make millions for themelves trading Forex rather than peddling their “bots” to you? The answer is obvious - the “bots” are not their source of income, you are.

For some reason, likely because I am an actual investor who has made millions in the markets, and with social media ads are targeted at your interests by Google, Facebook, Amazon, and pretty well every advertiser, I get more than my share of these scams on my various feeds. They are annoying, walk right up to the edge of securities laws by ensuring they have (somewhere in the verbiage of their ads and websites) the usual boilerplate disclaimers that past performance is no guarantee of future performance and that the success of others is not a guarantee that you will succeed.

One thing, and only one thing, is certain. When the dust settled they will have some of your money. Like most advisors, brokers, agents, and financial intermediaries, they are parasites that reduce returns for all investors in secondary markets and enrich themselves in the process.

Caveat emptor.