💼  “Thanks for the Ad”: A Fake Advertiser Scammed a Subscriber Out of a Security Deposit. What Can We Learn, and What Happened Next?

💼  “Thanks for the Ad”: A Fake Advertiser Scammed a Subscriber Out of a Security Deposit. What Can We Learn, and What Happened Next?

APEXPAY, which we recently wrote about, placed an advertisement with us to recruit traders in Egypt. As a result, a colleague with whom our team had previously worked successfully in Turkey suffered a financial loss.

Over the lifetime of the channel, we have encountered three similar advertisers – roughly one per year. Still, it is worth repeating: someone who pays for advertising is not automatically trustworthy or operationally capable.

We would therefore like to revisit several points that can help reduce risk, and also share a positive outcome that followed our exposé of “Apex.”

1. Be Careful

The channel will continue to publish advertisements of various kinds. For new market participants, advertising is one of the few ways to introduce themselves, secure their first deals, and begin building a reputation.

Just as a supermarket lets customers sample cheese or sausage for free, a newcomer may offer significant concessions: a lower deposit, better terms, or additional obligations. This is a normal price to pay for having no track record.

The problem is that scammers use the same attractive promises.

Therefore, assess not only the offer, but also the person behind it:

🤩 What is their track record?
🤩 Who can vouch for them?
🤩 How much can you afford to lose without suffering critical damage?
🤩 What is your response plan if the risk materializes?

No verification process can eliminate risk entirely. However, your level of exposition is always your own decision.

We also encourage you to reduce risk by using our Guarantor Service.

2. What Happened Next

After the exposé was published, a member of our closed club offered to take the affected colleague on as a partner.

This became possible because interaction within the club builds bridges between people who may not have known each other before. We have a high degree of confidence in this partner for three reasons:

💙 We have mutual contacts and positive references.
💙 The colleague’s expertise was assessed during the interview before joining the club.
💙 He demonstrated the seriousness of his intentions with his own money by paying for the club membership.

The initial deposit required to begin working together was also reasonable. As a result, we were able to offer the affected colleague an opportunity to start operating in Qatar and Saudi Arabia with a trusted partner whom we are prepared to financially guarantee.

Networks like this help the market mature. Mistakes and abuse cannot be completely prohibited, but they can be prevented (and their consequences reduced) when reputation, knowledge-sharing, measured decisions, accountability, and mutual benefit become part of the way people work.

A network of trust and a shared vision can transform isolated market participants into a community capable of correcting the consequences of negative events on its own.

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