Complaint Review: Aztec Group - Singapore

I had this encounter with an investment company, that I ended up spending a lot of time with and almost got carried away into sending a big sum of money, that I would surely never have seen again.  Be warned of these guys they are shrewd and smoothtalking, very cleverly backengineering all sorts of verifiable information into a story that fits their -purpose - to have you wire an investment overseas to one of their trading partners.

Not long ago, Aztec Group (Singapore) started calling me on a regular basis regarding long term investment brokerage.  I feigned interest and went along, and they proposed investing in a particular company called Suncor (tickername SU at New York Stock Exchange).

I noticed that they kept talking for long periods and would now and then occasionally ask "Don't you agree?" or "Right?".  The funny thing was, that what they told me about the Suncor stock actually checked out, so they ended up getting me curious about the whole thing.  They were convincing about wanting a long term relationship and therefore they would make a great tip for first time investors, even offering a small discount at the stock rate (by foresight, they had already bought some shares and would now redistribute these to new customers).  They made a big emphasis about them not trying to sell me anything, they wouldn't even hold my money.  Their only charge would be a 1% brokerage fee, something I later found out is not quite cheap, but hey it's only 1% and it gave them an incentive to talk to me.

At this stage I was still curious, but tried to check out their company name.  It was actually quite hard just to find the right website, as there are several companies called Aztec Group, some of them also in the investment sector.  Well, I found it ok, it looked nice at first glance, but then I noticed that apart from their address, there was absolutely nothing personalized information.  All the photos were stock photos of happy people and there were no names of staff, board or the like.  Their web address is http://aztec-group.com.  It turned out, that the site has been up and running since 1998, I used Scamadviser and their information was that the site was somewhat trustworthy.  Oddly, the owner of the site has an address in Hong Kong.  According to Aztec Group web page they also have a Japan branch.  Later, I checked out the Japan address and there was actually a company called Aztec specializing in patent search and technology analysis.

To cut a long story short they called me more and more often, with the intent to persuade me into agreeing to a purchase of shares through their trader.  I smelled a rat, because they were very unspecific about the actual arrangements for the trade and how it would be done, especially any kind of verifiable information about the trading agent.  Furthermore, they would only ever talk about transferring the investment by international bank transfer as it was "the only sure thing to do".  Going along with them, I meanwhile called my bank and was informed that it was probably the only totally irrevocable way of sending money abroad.  If I paid by credit card or Paypal I would have a fair chance of being able to recall the transfer if something dodgy showed up.  But bank-to-bank transfer, once shipped off it takes away and there's no turning it around.

In the end they sent me a transfer form for me to sign and deliver to my bank.  By now, they called me twice a day at least.  Finally I could see who would actually receive my investment.  It turned out to be some company in Hong Kong called Optimun Limited.  Their physical address was in a financial tower in Kowloon, I checked out the address and surely enough it was in a district full of financial companies.  Now I tried finding something about Optimun Limited, and this turned out to be very difficult.  First of all I found two big companies, one London based and another one in Asia somewhere.  They had different addresses and had nothing to do with my trader.  I got stubborn and finally I found some online register service where I could search by company name.  Looking up Optimum Limited, I found that there was a company by that name active throughout the eighties, but in the early nineties i folded and started a series of shortlived companies by called Optimum Limited.  Uneasily I read that the present, active company by that name was founded just two months before.

Now, I wrote to them and told them that I would not use the wire transfer form they sent me, as I was not comfortable with the name or reputation of the beneficiary.  I enclosed the company's entreprise id, that I found in the Hong Kong register, just to let them know I did some research and could actually identify some of their partners.  To my surprise I had no answer at first, and then one of the two people I spoke with called me and left a brief grumpy message on my cell phone.  And that was it.  I was sure, I was going two have phone calls day and night now that they did not land their deal.  But no, I guess they gave up on me finally, and maybe they got scared by the details of the trader I sent them.

Eerily, I received some crank calls at night time, just a silent connection when I answered.  I quickly set up my phone to ignore thes calls, and then my girlfriend started receiving them!  It went on for a little while and then stopped.

I am in no doubt that these people are genuine and professionel scammers, so be warned about them.  They probably have several company names, but Aztec Group has existed since 1998, so they are probably still using this.  Oh, and the two guys I talked to were called James Button and Philip Harrison.  I am sure these are not their real names, but now you know.

These guys are a pestilence to the ear and serious bad news.  Don't deal with them, I am convinced Aztec Group (Singapore) is one big scam operation.