People are daft and sometimes you need to give them a good, hard smack over their stupid, little heads to prove a point—a lesson that the Alberta Securities Commission has apparently taken to heart.To mark their Fraud Prevention Month and to show just how easily people get scammed by shady "investors," well, they decided to scam Albertans themselves. In order to do this the commission created a fake company called Maple Stock Investments and Jonathan Fisher, a fake persona to head it.
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Going to lengths only seen in those wonderful 80s movies that centre around a scheme, the commission used social media, Kijiji and other online classifieds to target 165,000 potential victims. They also created a realistic website, fake business cards and the like to make this seems as real as possible. Their ads promised attendees of the event would be able to earn "$$$ FROM HOME" and contained numerous red flags for investor fraud."When the economy turns, you'll be casting your retirement worries aside and reaping the rewards of a lucrative investment," reads one ad. "Remember, the best investment is a smart investment."
Everything used in the scam, from the tie to the font on the business cards was meticulously researched by the commission to seem trustworthy. They said it was worth it to go to this trouble because that's what real scam artists do.When some Albertans took the bait, they invited them to a "free lunch" on Feb 22 for possible investors—48 people registered to go. So, taking this shit to the next level, they took some money, rented a banquet room and held the lunch. An actor playing the Fisher took the stage and started elucidating about investments and stuff—the exact talk a scam artist would give.In the coup de grace, the actor playing Fisher dramatically removed his glasses on stage and, for some reason, started taking off his tie."I'm not Jonathan Fisher," he said. "Maplestock is a fake company. I'm not a financier. In fact, I'm an actor."The audience looked up from their free meal and stared, rightfully, in confusion. The Alberta Securities Commission said that they did the stunt because they "wanted to showcase how simple it can be to become a victim and highlight lengths that scam artists go to, to fool investors." Talking to the CBC, Alison Trollope, the director of communications for ASC, said they were "flabbergasted with the response.""We were concerned that people would feel tricked, but people were very appreciative of coming to the realization of how simple it can be for anybody to get caught up in an investment scam," she said."They seemed very grateful that they had been warned."Follow Mack on Twitter.