if something seems too good to be true....it probably is
Feel sorry for those who lost money, but, I can't imagine transferring money to someone making such promises
Feel sorry for those who lost money, but, I can't imagine transferring money to someone making such promises
In Spanish we say "even though the monkey dresses up in silk, it's still a monkey." But people are blinded by their own greed and can't see through the sham.
I kind of understand what you mean, but this is a little unfair to Latvia. It's a member of the EU and the eurozone, its banks are (don't laugh please) supervised, and the bank itself was very likely not shady at all. Rather, the bank's customer, which opened an account with the bank, was a shady fraudulent business.
The issue with transferring money like that is that it makes investigations harder and slower, as there are more jurisdictions in play. But I think the bank that processed the transactions was basically quite all right, unless there is specific evidence to the contrary.
Completely agree, it'd be just as possible to perform such a scam with bank accounts in e.g. the UK or the US.
It doesn't take much. Here's a 16-year-old complaining about his bank's conduct after he was basically caught processing fraudulent payments via his bank account:
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/jul/07/strange-bank-ac...
The severe economic depression that hit Latvia in 2008/2009 forced the worst problems in the banking sector to the surface. In that way, the Latvian part of the EU banking system might be even more stable than that in other EU areas.
To a shady bank in Latvia, no less.
Except when it isn't, but it usually amounts to high amounts of information assymetry, or high (real or perceived) risk.
I know people who have made massive amounts of money in short-term bets - during the fall of the Pound Sterling due to the threat of Scotland independence was the last such event, but they already had money to lose and were pretty experienced.