An investor is looking at a financial investment website on his desktop. Several platforms suddenly collapsed recently, showing signs of fraud. (Photo baodauthau.vn)Severalplatforms suddenly disappeared in recent months and thousands of investorsclaimed they lost huge sums of investment.
Economicexperts and management agencies have consistently warned about the risks ofvirtual financial investment platforms, but investors have been tempted byskyrocketing returns.
Busstradeand Coolcat were among platforms that suddenly disappeared during the past twoweeks. These websites can't be opened, investors can't access theiraccounts and withdraw their money and they have no way to contact thewebsites’ admins.
Advertisementsfor financial investment platforms are abundant on websites, Facebook,Zalo and other social networks with many offering returns of up to 30 percentper month.
Financeand banking expert Nguyen Tri Hieu said financial investment platforms oftenused traps to attract investors. At first, investors were paid interest ontime and adequately but when they put a large amount of money in theiraccounts, these platforms suddenly collapsed and investors lost their money.
Hieusaid some platforms did not have a specific address and could not be tracedwhen collapsed.
Hewarned that this was a fraud. “If it is not clear who you are dealingwith and where you put the money in, only through websites, this is certainly atrap," he said.
Accordingto economic expert Phan Phuong Nam, this was a form of investment related toforeign exchange (forex) which was not recognised under the laws of Vietnam.Until now, no company is officially recognised as a forex investment company inVietnam and allowed to directly collect investment from individual investors.
Namalso pointed out there was a lack of mechanisms to protect investors on theseplatforms.
NguyenHong Bach from Hong Bach and Partners Law Firm said that similar to forex,cryptocurrencies were also not recognised as a legal means ofpayment and all transactionsrelated to cryptocurrencies were not protected by law in Vietnam.
TheState Bank of Vietnam and the Ministry of Public Security have warned about therisks of investing in cryptocurrencies, he said, urging investors to be verycautious when investing in these platforms.
Themanagement agencies also warned about some forex and cryptocurrency platformssuch as wefinex.net, raidenbo.com and bitono.io.
Expertssaid that it was important to increase awareness for citizens to keep away fromthese forms of frauds.
Forthe long term, Vietnam needed to develop a legal framework to put the operationof these platforms under control together with strict punishment measures toprevent violations.
Hanoi’spolice late last week prosecuted two people in Ho Chi Minh City and one in Hanoifor the alleged appropriation of property through the internet. The initialinvestigation found they appropriated investment worth a total of 4.3 million USDfrom 12,000 accounts on four gold and forex platforms, namely rforex.com, Yaibroker, Vistafore andExswiss./.
VNA
