Overseas Or Agricultural Land Scams

People have reported many new scams during the Coronavirus times, like goodwill payments, advance fees, lottery and new client tax scams. In most cases, the responsibility continues to fall in the cracks of regulators and online platforms, while the victims continue losing money. 

Various reputed financial agencies claim people reported low savings due to financial strains in the past year. Many succumb to online deals as the fraudsters continue to explain to people about the coronavirus pandemic's uncertainty and the chances of making high profits from the before-mentioned deals. 

Overseas agricultural property investment scam is not new. The trading firm often claims it is a high return, low investment opportunity to buy a plot of agricultural land overseas and use it to build property or for farming. 

The investors are often offered a scheme to invest in trees, plantation crops or biofuels and are promised returns of 15 to 25 per cent ROI. 

The investment duration is often around five years or more because the plantation of crops or trees takes time to grow and harvest. The firm sells the harvest on behalf of the client, and they promise to deliver profits against the sale of the harvest.  

Such opportunities are offered for a long duration, and when the investors realise they have lost, it can be too late. 

How does the Overseas Scam work?

The investors are often called out of the blue or contacted through email, word of mouth, posts, seminars, or exhibitions. The sellers often have a professional website, and sometimes they are registered, but the investors should verify the accuracy of the information provided. 

Mere registration on the authorised site does not ensure it is reliable. If the company is registered, one can identify at least one individual or the company address to contact in the event of a disagreement. Sometimes, the scammers pick up names resembling the popular genuine registered sites, hoping to be mistaken.  

Most scammers pretend to be genuine sellers, but some copy the genuine deal from a popular site and sell through a clone site. The clone sites are designed to copy the original plan that shows up in the sponsored results on search engines, and some such ads can be seen on the top of the pages of search engines. 

In addition, these advertisements can be seen on social media sites. Therefore, one should always look into the details of the website carefully or ignore the sponsored links and click the pages that come on the top through organic searches – that is, based on relevance and trustworthiness. 

In addition, the government is preparing to set rules to put pressure on search engines for failing to prevent rogue firms from advertising online. 

The promoters use high-pressure sales tactics or aggressive language to state that they do not require FCA authorisation (often stating it is not a CIS project). 

They may have a manipulated review system that misuses the simple review tool and incentivises those giving a good review in exchange for a product or voucher. One should check multiple review sites to seek reliable reviews and dig deeper to see if too many good or unreliable reviews exist. 

How to Protect Yourself?

• Most overseas land and crop schemes are operated as collective investment schemes as the FCA regulates CIS, but it does not regulate the sale of land, trees, or crops. Instead, the scheme aims to pool investors' funds, and the operator manages the scheme.

• There are many risk factors in such projects where the investors do not have the power to control the activities/projects happening on the land or plots they buy. Also, they may not be in the situation to visit the site. 

• One should seek financial advice before investing and make sure any firm you are dealing with is regulated. Never take advice from firms that contact you out of the blue. Always seek professional help from an unbiased, reputed firm before making such investment decisions.

• In case you suspect a scam, contact the Consumer Helpline number.

• The FCA often does not regulate overseas land and crop schemes, and the investment is not protected by the UK's financial services complaints and the compensation scheme. 

• So if you have been scammed, the criminals can sell your details to other such firms, and sometimes, they call it a follow-up scam, where they may ask the victim to pay some fee to get back the invested money or buy back.