How do you advise?
Posted: December 7th, 2017, 9:35 pm
Forgive me but I am not sure where to post this.
I've done rather well out of a lifetime of steady and consistent investing in investment trusts - certainly enough that I'm enjoying early retirement with enough funds to support my lifestyle. A number of much younger friends clearly want the same and seek my financial 'opinion' on matters. But the latest request has foxed me on a response.
A young friend (early 40s) has sought my advice with regard to buying some financial software for £2K from the 'get rich quick brigade'. They claim that with this purchase they can turn £5 into £30K in two years and 'guarantee' that losses will be capped at 5% in any year on the amount invested. Of course it's a scam or at best caveat emptor. But the problem is that the software is connected to investing in highly 'sophisticated' currency futures - certainly of the type I don't understand (and wouldn't want to).
So my problem, in a nutshell, is although I have conveyed my scepticism my young friend believes he has discovered Midas and because I can't exactly explain to him why I am telling him not to invest he keeps on asking me to disprove the blurb and the complex mathematical formulas within. He does not accept my 'I don't understand and I don't invest in what I don't understand and it is too good to be true &c' arguments.
Can someone please point me to way of dissuading him before he is tapped for £2K and perhaps more from these scammers. What can I say that might get him to think again?
Eb.
PS I have not gone into details of the forex instruments simply because I don't understand them and would not want to pretend that I do.
I've done rather well out of a lifetime of steady and consistent investing in investment trusts - certainly enough that I'm enjoying early retirement with enough funds to support my lifestyle. A number of much younger friends clearly want the same and seek my financial 'opinion' on matters. But the latest request has foxed me on a response.
A young friend (early 40s) has sought my advice with regard to buying some financial software for £2K from the 'get rich quick brigade'. They claim that with this purchase they can turn £5 into £30K in two years and 'guarantee' that losses will be capped at 5% in any year on the amount invested. Of course it's a scam or at best caveat emptor. But the problem is that the software is connected to investing in highly 'sophisticated' currency futures - certainly of the type I don't understand (and wouldn't want to).
So my problem, in a nutshell, is although I have conveyed my scepticism my young friend believes he has discovered Midas and because I can't exactly explain to him why I am telling him not to invest he keeps on asking me to disprove the blurb and the complex mathematical formulas within. He does not accept my 'I don't understand and I don't invest in what I don't understand and it is too good to be true &c' arguments.
Can someone please point me to way of dissuading him before he is tapped for £2K and perhaps more from these scammers. What can I say that might get him to think again?
Eb.
PS I have not gone into details of the forex instruments simply because I don't understand them and would not want to pretend that I do.