The document details the experience of an individual who was scammed by the website "Economic Frauds" (economicfrauds.com). They were contacted about a class action lawsuit regarding shares they purchased in a company. Economic Frauds charged legal fees to register them in the suit. They were then asked to pay additional fees, totaling over $1000. An investigation revealed Economic Frauds and related sites are likely scams, as they have no real legal cases and are only seeking to extract money from victims. The individual hopes sharing their experience will help others avoid being defrauded.
5. Some time ago I bought shares in a micro cap
company traded on the pink sheets. Lesson was
quickly learned as I have ever since tried my best
to sell them without success, as nobody seems to
be interested in buying the small amount of stock
that I held.
I had all but forgotten about them until a few weeks
ago when I was contacted by someone at the
website http://economicfrauds.com/ who said that I
was the victim of a scam by the company (Midas
Capital) that originally sold me the shares and that
they were filing a class action suit against them
and invited me to partake.
6.
7. After much eulogizing of their own skills and of
the potential success of the case I was convinced
and sent them $150 in legal fees to register my
name with the suit and cover other costs, which I
sent to their bank in Cyprus.
Shortly afterwards “Economic Frauds” contacted
me to tell me that the case had hit a stumbling
block and that a further $500 would be required
from each participant in the suit in order for the
case to proceed. $500 which I stupidly sent them.
8.
9. I was then informed that because not all of the
original complainants decided to pay their share, and
because of additional costs incurred by the delay, I
would have to pay a further $450 in fees. Better late
than never, but it was at this point that my belief in
http://economicfrauds.com/ seriously wavered.
Once it became clear to “Economic Frauds” that I
was not going to send them any more money they
broke off all contact. They stopped calling me, which
they had been doing several times a day when they
were looking for money, and stopped taking my calls
or responding to my emails.
10.
11. Hindsight is the only perfect science, but I am
incredibly embarrassed with the fact that
http://economicfrauds.com/ contacting me unsolicited
didn’t set off any alarm bells and that a company
based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with a bank
account in Cyprus also failed to rouse my suspicions.
However this third request for money with literally
nothing to show for it finally woke me up and I
started digging around a bit on “Economic Frauds”.
Firstly it turns out that their website
(http://economicfrauds.com/) was only registered on
30th of May 2011 and it was registered using the
email address admin@peoplealliancecorp.com.
12.
13. Now “People Alliance Corp” –
http://www.peoplealliancecorp.com/ – has a very
similar website to http://economicfrauds.com/
(content, not style), claiming that they will provide
legal help to victims of stock fraud. What is also
surprising is that peoplealliancecorp.com have
the exact same postal address (PO Box 22247,
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 333 35) and telephone
number (+1 954 449-6235) as “Economic Frauds”
have on their website –
http://economicfrauds.com/.
14.
15. Further Googling of the address reveals a link to
“Financial Frauds” – http://financialfrauds.us/ – (yet
another website with the exact same modus
operandi), http://www.independentwebdesigners.org/,
http://www.emiliachidester.com, http://www.emiliachide
ster.org/ and two sites that are only now referenced by
Google’s cache (possibly because they were shut
down?) – “Citi Capital Partnership”
(http://citicapitalpartnership.com/) and “Phoenix
Cooper Financial”
(http://www.phoenixcooperfinancial.com/) – both of
which have a number of warnings against them issued
by several European financial services authorities.
16.
17. Now while there is nothing legally substantial in any of
that, it is certainly strange at the very least. What is just
as strange is that the purported CEO of “Economic
Frauds”, Emilia Chidester, despite having a long and
varied CV including a regular Television slot with
Univision (Spanish speaking network in the USA), has
zero internet presence that was not created by her (or
her creators). No independent articles anywhere, not
even a reference to her from Univision, for whom she
anchored their financial news segment for years
(apparently), just Linked In, Twitter, Wikipedia and
several blog posts, all of which I would dare say have
been created since 30th of May 2011. If you watch the
videos it is also apparent that this person is far from
comfortable in front of the camera.
18.
19. What is even stranger about Ms. Emilia Chidester
is that the woman who appears in the videos on
the http://economicfrauds.com/ website looks
nothing at all like the photo of the woman on her
twitter feed (http://twitter.com/#!/emiliachidester).
They are both vaguely Hispanic looking, but that
is as close as they come to being the same
woman. In fact, the woman in the videos looks
more Asian to me, so considering the accent my
guess would be she is a Filipina. No surprise that
the Philippines is a haven for many fraudsters.
20.
21. While continuing my internet research, I came across this
forum warning people against many different fraudulent
websites –
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/brokerages/14154-boiler-
room-scams-385.html – they link “Economic Frauds” with two
other companies labeled as a scam that are working the
same advanced fee fraud – “Global Investor Alerts”
(globalinvestoralerts.com) and “Investor Alerts”
(investoralerts.com).
While my limited private detective skills can only come up
with the above, that, along with the actions of “Economic
Frauds” leaves me in no doubt that they have scammed me
out of my money and that http://economicfrauds.com/ is a
scam website. The fact that they pretend to be fighting
against fraud makes their actions all the more disgusting.
22.
23. I have no doubt that it will prove impossible for
me to retrieve my money, so if outing the scam
that is “Economic Frauds” and their website
http://economicfrauds.com/ on the internet makes
their attempts at defrauding someone else that
little bit more difficult, then I will have to settle for
that.
Just for the benefit of the search engines –
Warning that “Economic Frauds”
(http://economicfrauds.com/) is a scam website
looking to defraud people through charging bogus
legal fees.
