Scammer's Portrait - Patrick Johnson, the Nerd

by Tony Clifton

Patrick Johnson's HYIP was one a little bit funny and at the same time evry well set scam. This is probably the only significant fraudient program I have seen which has such a poor website and customer's support. For these who don't know - the program survived more than an year paying 1.7% daily compounded! I believe you understand, to survive so long at this rate a pyramid scheme should have very large cash flow. How was this thief able to convince people - there wasn't any contact address, whois info or any other of these commonly considered "good signs"!

Instead of that the program had everything which was supposed to draw you off. Then why? Because this was a tactical approach. Patrick Johnson was a smart scammer althought he wasn't smart enough to get an anonymous domain and clean the tracks to his Russian background. But back to the main topic - let's discuss his scammer's tricks.

Poorly done website. How this can be a plus?! The investors usually are looking for nicely done websites which add to program's credibility. Well, here we had a imagemaker, who were looking to create another PR. When you look to the site it is telling you "I am not looking for investors and don't care if they'll join. I am just a trader, it is up to you if you will use my offer or not". This site was making people think that there is a real trader out there and he really works.

The nerdy picture. Again, it was there to tell you this guy was a nerd. He was looking like sitting in front of his laptop, trading, speaking by the microphone (to his brocker?) and watching the trends. No smiling scammers in suits here.

The bad customer's support. What?! Yes, the bad customer support was discussed in the forums. The people were discussing how Patricks often forgets to answer emails or was giving short and not very polite answers. This was part of the image as well. He had to look busy trading and to clearly show that he does not care about attracting new investors. "These who are in the program are happy enough with the payments" was Patrick saying. This was a bit strange, but quite effective way to convince people that he is doing his real business - no company or flashy site, but a hardworker.

Well, all of this worked perfect. More than a year at 1.7% compounding is really good for a HYIP. The people were earning money while the others were making laugh at his site. But at the end, of c

ourse, Patrick Johnson was making laugh on all his investors. He went to "International Forex Forum" which didn't exist and he never came back.

Published at Nov, 07 '05 ; read 927 times;

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