Financial advisory firms

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
1

For some time, I’ve been following the Facebook page “Financial ruin by deVere advisors and others in all corners of the world” and noticed a recent query from someone asking about another firm. It’s Trustpilot reviews are mainly 5*, though the 1* reviews sound more familiar.

Then I found this profile on their website of someone who supposedly works for the firm. He’s mentioned glowingly in several of the Trustpilot 5* reviews and in testimonials under the profile. Yet his profile sounds too good to be true and there’s something odd about the photo: it looks to me as if it might be AI generated. Anyone else have the same impression? If it is a fictitious profile and photo, this is surely a further arrow in the quiver of wiliness of some of these firms.

2

His eyeballs are oval and his neck/shirt collar looks a bit too neat and snug.

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3

Yes, I see that too. Everything about the photo seems to look too neat and smooth and he’s dead centre facing straight on to the camera. It looks fake to me.

4

Yep, AI I would say as well. And that website is not compliant…

5

I’d be interested to hear your impressions of the website, OakbrookIL.

6

Not compliant, I checked one of those references on LinkedIn where I expect these persons to be, zilch. So looks very doubtful to me. You can also check the addresses if these exist and a company buildings.

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7

Check the office addresses in the footer. The phone numbers for Geneva and Brussels are the same. The Spanish has a typo (misses the R in Centro Comercial Doña Pepa) and lacks the proper accents.

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8

That Belgian address shows an address with rental offices and coworking offices.

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9

The above profile claims that he’s “an active member of the Personal Finance Society and Institute of Financial Services (IFS)”. Yet there’s no-one of that name on the Personal Finance Society’s member list. The only “Institute of Financial Services” appears to be in Malta and its website doesn’t seem to have a member register. Neither does the website of the UK “Financial Services Institute”.

So is it a completely fake profile of someone who doesn’t exist? There’s what looks like a corresponding LinkedIn profile for someone based in Geneva, recommended by six people (some of whom cite the full surname) and with 1K followers and 500+ connections.

Can’t work out what’s going on with all that.

10

If there are so many discrepancies, I would say fake and run away. It‘s definitely not straight forward and that is something I would expect from my financial advisor.

11

I’ve no intention of using his/their services, but am curious as to what’s going on. Is it a completely fake profile (but if so, does that mean the LinkedIn profile - which I can’t see completely, as don’t have an account - and recommendations are fake?) or a fake profile for a real person? And why use an AI-generated image?

12

Normally, scammers would create a fake profile and additional fake profiles to recommend each other.

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13

To create six other fake profiles for fake recommendations would seem feasible, but this profile of the first person to make a recommendation is quite elaborate, as is the profile of the second person (can’t see the rest, as don’t have a LinkedIn account). I don’t know enough about LinkedIn to tell if these profiles could be fakes, or if the supposed financial advisor’s claims about 1K followers and 500+ connections could also be faked.