How can you avoid investment scams? At a law firm, Utsudo sat in on a cryptocurrency fraud case. Lured by high returns, the victims lost millions of NT dollars and then had to run around fighting lawsuits, with different verdicts in the first and second trials, while the perpetrators had long since fled with the money. Her reminder: be on high alert whenever you hear about investments promising “guaranteed profits” or “high returns.” Gifts don’t fall from the sky—if you aren’t greedy, you’re much harder to scam.

Translated from Utsudo’s original Chinese column.

A fraud case at a law firm

In May, I had the chance to visit a law firm and listen in on clients’ problems.

This case involved several victims of cryptocurrency fraud. The defendant was found guilty at the first trial, but the second trial found the prosecution invalid. So they were torn over whether to go to the third instance. But a third trial is expensive: if the compensation is large enough, it might be worth appealing; if not, it’s better to take another route.

I pretended to be an assistant typing on the side, recording the whole story and the blind spots in the other side’s testimony. Listening to their helplessness and exhaustion, my heart went out to them.

Being cheated out of millions is bad enough, but then they have to go to court and worry about it every day—a real bolt from the blue. Still, they were lured by a promised return of up to double their investment. You could say greed is poison. Normally we might be wary of anything that looks too good to be true, but when it’s introduced by friends or relatives, not only do we let our guard down, it’s also hard to say no.

The perpetrators have long since walked free

But compared with the victims’ torment, the perpetrator ran off long ago. Even if found guilty, he’s already living free with the money and couldn’t care less.

The lawyer couldn’t help lamenting that law-abiding people who don’t understand the law get stuck in place, while those who know the law specialize in finding loopholes or spaces where they can skim a profit, circling around in them and living happily ever after—leaving only the good people to painstakingly pay off the bad debts the crooks left behind.

The lure of high returns

Of course, I’m not encouraging anyone to study the criminal code to make money (?). I’m reminding everyone to be really careful when facing possible temptations. After all, when something falls from the sky, who knows whether it hides a sweet filling or a deadly poison?

But I believe that in an era when people no longer count on a salary that never goes up, and instead scramble to invest so they have more money every month, scam rings exploit this pain point. They set up companies, run Ponzi-style schemes and use all kinds of methods to trick people out of their hard-earned money.

Even if your family hasn’t experienced it, I’m sure you’ve heard of someone being scammed or losing money when a company they invested in collapsed. Anyway, I urge you to be careful whenever you hear pitches like “guaranteed profits,” “so-and-so joined a while ago and has made this much,” “recruit people under you” or “get in as soon as possible.”

Basically, if you aren’t greedy, you won’t get scammed.

My family was scammed too

Honestly, my dad has been scammed quite a few times. He was never very guarded to begin with, and the deals were introduced by relatives he trusted, so he was cheated repeatedly. Afterward he became terrified of investing, but there were still many bad debts to deal with, which gave us a real headache.

So after going through all that at home, I became more guarded. The downside is that I’m quicker to suspect people, but that beats being naively scammed (?

Everyone, making money isn’t easy, so always be careful. Remember: if you’re not greedy, you’ll be fine.

Otherwise, after being scammed, you’ll still have to run to court, wearing yourself out and wasting time and energy—it’s just not worth it.

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Further reading

• Previous: Hey! I Heard You’re a Writer on Ghost Island #234: How Am I Supposed to Answer That Question?
• Start from the beginning: Hey! I Heard You’re a Writer on Ghost Island #01: Utsudo’s Debut — A Road to the Dream Covered in Frost
• Utsudo’s books

About the author

Utsudo is a Taiwanese light novelist and novelist VTuber with more than ten years in the industry and 40 commercially published print books. Her novel 《遺失的情書》 received a 2022 Ministry of Culture youth creative award. The 《嘿！聽說妳在鬼島當作家》 series records her experiences as a novelist in Taiwan.