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.
His eyeballs are oval and his neck/shirt collar looks a bit too neat and snug.
1 Like
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.
Yep, AI I would say as well. And that website is not compliant…
I’d be interested to hear your impressions of the website, OakbrookIL.
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.
1 Like
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.
1 Like
That Belgian address shows an address with rental offices and coworking offices.
1 Like
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.
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.
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?
Normally, scammers would create a fake profile and additional fake profiles to recommend each other.
1 Like
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.