Latest Property News Pie in the Sky Awards 2008 announced

PRLog (Press Release) – Apr 04, 2008 – You would invest your spare cash in a device that promised to cut ordinary Australians' power bills by 37 per cent by recycling `ambient electromagnetic radiation back into usable household energy', wouldn't you?

ASIC hopes not, but the website set up a year ago inviting people to invest up to $40,000 with `guaranteed' returns of at least 30 per cent per annum has drawn at least 75,000 visitors.

This week it has been awarded the ignominious glory of being runner up in the 2008 Pie in the Sky Awards announced by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

ASIC launched the fake scam on April Fool's Day in 2007 to educate investors about how to identify and avoid financial scams. Anyone who tried to go ahead and invest was led to a page with advice about how to research investment offers and who to contact for help.

This year's first prize went to an 'advanced fee fraud' scam which pleaded with people to help a Togo barrister access US$17 million from the estate of a man who along with his family was killed in the Boxing Day tsunami three years ago.

According to the offer, people could get a share of the wealth by claiming to be the deceased's next of kin. To claim the wealth, you would need to respond to the email. The nature of this type of fraud is that you would need to pay a fee before you would receive the money.  Uh huh.

`Of course there is no $17 million estate, and people were being scammed for the upfront fees', said Ms Delia Rickard, ASIC's Acting Executive Director of Consumer Protection.

The second-place getter is Instep Super, which advertised on television, radio and online offering returns on investment of superannuation funds between eight and 20 per cent.

The advertisements also claimed Instep Super was `the best performing superannuation fund in Australia'.

Unfortunately, Instep Super did not have an Australian financial services' licence.

ASIC concluded that Instep Super did not have any reasonable basis for claiming to be the `best performing superannuation fund in Australia'. As a result the Instep claims were found to be misleading and deceptive.

Fortunately, no one invested in Instep Super.