The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said that fraudulent schemes that promise high returns from trading complex financial products — but force victims to pay excessive fees and taxes to collect earnings — increasingly target people working from home or who have lost jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported. The CFTC said that it has received hundreds of complaints about such fee frauds in recent months and warned individual investors should be particularly aware of the schemes, which promise easy ways to make money with no trading experience, the agency said in an advisory note. Victims usually are introduced to unregistered brokers online through social media and messaging apps, such as Telegram and WhatsApp, the CFTC said. Swindlers try to convince investors that they can earn high profits from home if they join the brokers’ program to trade in financial products, such as binary options, foreign exchange programs and cryptocurrencies, according to the advisory.
