I'm With Stupid
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 6 May 2013
- Messages
- 20,292
There's so much shite online from people giving financial advice with a tiny "I'm not a financial advisor' disclaimer. Apparently it pays more in ads than any other topic on Youtube. I remember watching one saying that if you invest in the S&P 500, the only way you can lose all of your money is if there's some sort of catastrophic economic disaster that destroys the biggest 500 companies in the US and that in that situation, losing your money will be the least of your worries anyway. I remember watching that and thinking, I must have just imagined all of those people who lost money in Icelandic banks then. The reality is that if the financial institution goes tits up, then it doesn't matter how well the stock market is doing.Was shutdown by them citing terrorism risk for money laundering, only moved 24k over a period of 12 months. Made me jump through hoops to get it out. Never again.
I had some money invested in the Cayman Islands (don't ask, suffice to say it was my only pension saving option when working in Morocco, because no-one will deal with Morocco's shit banking system). The company went to the wall and three years later, it's still going through administration. Interestingly, the company didn't cease to exist, it just closed its Cayman Island operations (funny how they're able to do that without compensating everyone from the wider company, isn't it?). I found out later than the CEO had previously been done in the US for financial crimes. And this is the problem when you're outside the UK. You get a 'financial advisor' but they're in no way regulated, so you end up basically having to just trust someone based on recommendations from other people (who in reality are in no position to give an opinion). Getting advice from people on social media is even worse. It was quite funny watching a video looking back and financial 'gurus' recommendations from 2 years ago and finding out how much money you would have lost if you'd followed their advice. But the number of adverts you see advising people to invest everything they own into some app that isn't even vaguely regulated in their country is pretty worrying.