{"id":22465,"date":"2025-01-11T08:29:01","date_gmt":"2025-01-11T08:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/investing\/i-finally-got-into-crypto-the-barefoot-investor\/"},"modified":"2025-01-11T08:29:01","modified_gmt":"2025-01-11T08:29:01","slug":"i-finally-got-into-crypto-the-barefoot-investor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=22465","title":{"rendered":"I finally got into crypto \u2014 The Barefoot Investor"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cLet\u2019s find out what \u2018Scott\u2019 has to say\u201d I said, clicking on the link.
\u00a0
Immediately a pop-up page appeared with the headline:
\u00a0
\u201c5674 People Have Participated So Far! Weekly stock market quotes are 90% accurate and have 45% upside potential. Join our stock trading community via WhatsApp today! Only 30 spots are left. Hurry!\u201d
\u00a0
<\/em>Click.
\u00a0
<\/em>The next page that appeared was a privacy warning:
\u00a0
\u201cWe comply with Facebook\u2019s Privacy Policy and protect your privacy\u201d\u00a0<\/em>wrote the scammers, who were diligently following Zuck\u2019s rules.
\u00a0
Then they asked for my phone number.
\u00a0
After I entered my digits, Scott wrote me a special message:
\u00a0
\u201c<\/em>If you have any stock investment questions you can ask me, I will try my best to reply to you as soon as possible!\u201d
\u00a0
<\/em>Nice touch, Scammer-Scotty. \u00a0
\u00a0
The First Contact<\/strong>
\u00a0
Moments later a group called \u2018DB Wealth Institute\u2019 popped up in my WhatsApp feed.
\u00a0
\u201cExcellent! The scammers have arrived\u201d, I thought to myself. \u00a0
\u00a0
I quickly googled their name to see if anyone had outed them as a scam already.
\u00a0
Crickets.
\u00a0
The only mentions of the company were some automated press releases (written by the scammers for exactly this purpose) which had been picked up by the likes of Yahoo Finance, Forbes.com and LinkedIn:
\u00a0
\u201cDB Wealth Institute, founded in 2011 by Professor Cillian Miller, offers practical financial training and developed \u2018AI Financial Navigator 4.0,\u2019 integrating AI with big data to enhance trading strategies. By 2024, it had trained over 30,000 students from more than ten countries.\u201d
\u00a0
Now most people would stop at this search, satisfied that it all looked legit.
\u00a0
However, given I was the face of a group I\u2019d never heard of, I kind of had a hunch it was dodgy. So I googled \u201cprofessor whatsapp investment scam\u201d, and this came up:
\u00a0
US regulators were warning of fake \u2018Wealth Institutes\u2019 that promise crypto trading lessons via WhatsApp. A \u2018Professor\u2019 provides fake trading signals, while an assistant communicates with investors. Once enough money is stolen, the group vanishes, rebrands, and targets new victims.
\u00a0
Chica-Chica-BOOM!
\u00a0
I was going to make minced meat of these scammers \u2026
\u00a0
\u2026 If only I could work out how to read their posts, or even comment on things.
\u00a0
It was all so confusing.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0
\u00a0
So I messaged DB Wealth Institute\u2019s \u2018assistant\u2019, a woman by the name of Ally Brown.
\u00a0
Looking at her profile pic, she was in her mid-thirties, long wavy hair, a perfectly placed pink flower just above her ear, and she had a calm and collected look that says she\u2019s one latte away from running the world.<\/p>\n

I asked Ally for instructions on how I could post in the group. Now some would call this method acting. Yet those who know me well will attest that I have the IT skills of an 89-year-old man. A drunk 89-year-old man.
\u00a0
The scammers were licking their lips.
\u00a0
\u201cWelcome to the Institute\u201d, gushed Ally. \u201cWe\u2019re located in Adelaide. Our AI 4.0 investment has Scott Pape\u2019s investment philosophy as well as his investment strategies.\u201d
\u00a0
If You Screw This Up I Will KILL YOU<\/strong>
\u00a0
I chuckled to myself as I read Ally\u2019s message.
\u00a0
My wife, however, was in no mood for humour. \u00a0
\u00a0
She was in our bedroom, hurriedly packing her suitcase for her very first work trip since becoming a mum over a decade ago. She was heading off to produce a nature documentary overseas; the next month would take her to Iceland to film erupting volcanoes, to Romania to trek through snowy mountains, and then out to the deep seas off Denmark.
\u00a0
\u201cIf my card gets blocked while I\u2019m in Iceland, I will kill you. I am not even joking Scott\u201d, she snapped.
\u00a0
I nodded.
\u00a0
\u201cWhy do you need to be doing this now anyway? You\u2019ve got four little kids to look after! And the pets! And a farm! And Barefoot!\u201d she pleaded.
\u00a0
I shrugged.
\u00a0
\u201cHoney, I\u2019m just worried you\u2019ve underestimated how busy you\u2019ll be\u201d, she said more softly.
\u00a0
She was right of course.
\u00a0
I didn\u2019t know it at the time, but my entire world was about to fall apart.
\u00a0
I Make a Killing on Crypto<\/strong>
\u00a0
It took roughly 30 minutes from my wife leaving for my youngest to begin violently coughing.
\u00a0
It turns out he\u2019d been exposed to pneumonia. \u00a0
\u00a0
Three days later he\u2019d spread it to all four kids. Then to me.
\u00a0
Our home turned into the Hunger Games, but with more coughing and snot. I was struggling to even get out of bed, so I decided to outsource the farmwork to two German backpackers I found on a farm worker message board.
\u00a0
And, while all this was going on, the DB Wealth Institute WhatsApp group was buzzing on my bedside every few minutes. They were sending me upwards of 200 messages a day.
\u00a0
It began each morning with a 30-page PDF of \u201cTalking points from the Professor\u201d, outlining the current state of the crypto market, and was peppered with statements like \u201cGet ready to make 1,000% today\u201d.
\u00a0
And, at 11am each day, the Professor would give his trading signals. You were encouraged to post screenshots of your winnings in the WhatsApp group, which people did all day and all night. I suspected they were bots.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cLet\u2019s find out what \u2018Scott\u2019 has to say\u201d I said, clicking on the link.\u00a0Immediately a pop-up page appeared with the headline:\u00a0\u201c5674 People Have Participated So Far! Weekly stock market quotes are 90% accurate and have 45% upside potential. Join our stock trading community via WhatsApp today! Only 30 spots are left. Hurry!\u201d\u00a0Click.\u00a0The next page that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[10055,10954,7385,13177],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-22465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-barefoot","tag-crypto","tag-finally","tag-investor"],"yoast_head":"\nI finally got into crypto \u2014 The Barefoot Investor - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=22465\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I finally got into crypto \u2014 The Barefoot Investor - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cLet\u2019s find out what \u2018Scott\u2019 has to say\u201d I said, clicking on the link.\u00a0Immediately a pop-up page appeared with the headline:\u00a0\u201c5674 People Have Participated So Far! 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