Another scam is making the rounds after Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn made an appeal on Monday for Barbadians not to get duped.
Four days later on Thursday in his wrap-up of the debate on the Appropriations Bill 2025 which contained the Financial Statement And Budgetary Proposals, Straughn showed a WhatsApp message he received of an Instagram post listing four Barbadian financial institutions – COB, Sagicor, RBC and CIBC – with claims of various tier one wallet investments, “purporting to give extraordinary amounts of returns if you put in some money”.
A check by the Saturday Sun of the handle revealed the person joined the social media network in 2021, and so far has 21 posts, all financial schemes, with 43 followers and 35 following. The person changed their name once before on the network.
Recognised brands
Straughn beseeched Bajans to “please ignore such opportunities and that is putting it nicely”.
“All I can do is urge Barbadians to please, please, do not contact these persons. Ignore these because none of these financial institutions are associated in any way with this scam and the person is trying to give some kind of familiarity with recognised brands of financial institutions in Barbados in order to solicit money from unsuspecting Barbadians.
“Please let us not fall for these tricks. Keep your hard-earned money,” he said, calling the many get-rich quick schemes he is seeing “a propagation of scams”.
Earlier on Monday, during his Financial Statement And Budgetary Proposals
presentation, he asked citizens to not put any money into ventures that were unprofitable.
“There are legitimate business sectors that cannot give you the extreme profit margins that scammers promise. The next time someone swears to you that if you give them $100 today Monday and that they will give you $500 on Friday, trust me, that is a scam,” he said.
Straughn said that person was part of the scam, “even if they don’t know they are part of the scam”.
He said if it was that easy “he would put $100 million to get $500 million” to help the Prime Minister with Government’s fiscal programmes.
“I urge Bajans, if it looks like a duck and it sounds like a duck, it is a scam.”
In January, the Barbados Bankers Association also cautioned people to be vigilant when considering investment offers that promised large returns in a short time-frame with little to no effort and risks. The association said in recent times it had been made aware of certain “schemes” luring Barbadian nationals.
President of the Barbados Bankers Association, Shimon McIntosh, said then while Barbadians were encouraged to invest, especially in the advancing local economy, it was crucial that every effort be made to not be negatively impacted by fraudulent activities
and schemes such as pyramid and Ponzi schemes.
Ask questions
Last year, December, Straughn made a plea similar to Monday and Thursday’s in the House of Assembly during debate on the Resolution: Barbados Fiscal Framework 2024-2025 To 2026-2027 And 2025-2026 To 2027-2028.
He told Barbadians then to question what service was being provided by the company they were being asked to invest in and unless the people could say, “that is telling you it is a scam”.
“Please, Bajans, it is Christmas and I don’t want next year to be hearing on social media that there’s another set of people who have lost money to this scheme.”
Straughn was speaking against the background of the previous month when the TKY Media crashed, leaving so-called investors holding the bag.
General manager of the Barbados Co-op & Credit Union League Ltd, Anthony Pilgrim, also gave financial advice after hundreds of people suffered losses through TKY Media.
“Before you make such a decision, you must do your research on the institution to determine whether it is credible. Are there financials that are available that you can analyse? What is its track record as an institution? Use age-old wisdom. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is not true.”
In one of his quarterly report last year, Central Bank Governor Dr Kevin Greenidge had also issued warnings about similar schemes. (NS)
