A man named Jeremiah “The Bull” Joseph Evans, the owner of Alpha Influence LLC, was charged with securities fraud and money laundering, and in January 2025 he pleaded guilty to both charges that cost more than 500 victims a total of approximately $21 million.
He was later sentenced to 96 months in prison.
From KSL.com:
“From July 2019 through July 2022, Evans ‘conceived and devised a scheme and scheme to defraud investors, and to obtain money and property through materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, promises and omissions of material facts,’ the indictment states. “During the course and scope of the scheme, approximately $20,894,674 was transferred or otherwise sent to accounts held in Alpha’s name Influenced and supervised by Evans with approximately 530 victims.’
In court documents, federal prosecutors allege that Evans deceived victims by making false or misleading statements or omitting material facts, including:
- Alpha Influence had been operating successfully for years, even though that was not the case.
- That the investment would generate consistent, predictable monthly returns when it didn’t.
- That investment sum would be recouped within twelve to eighteen months, while that was not the case.
- That the investment would yield an average of 7%-10% return on investment per month in profit after fees, when that was not the case.
- That Alpha Influence and Evans had connections to high-ranking Amazon personnel at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters who were easily accessible to resolve issues that might arise with the Alpha Influence investment while he did not.
- That Alpha Influence had a legal team on staff to help resolve issues for individual investors, when it didn’t.
- Failed to disclose that Alpha Influence was unable to resolve store suspensions and get many stores up and running after they were closed for violating Amazon policies.
- We did not disclose that several testimonials in support of Alpha Influence and the success of the investment offered were made by Evans family members or others who received commissions from investor proceeds.
Do you want to avoid being scammed? Here’s tip #1: Don’t invest with someone who calls themselves “The Bull” and hosts an event called “AlphaCon.” I mean, come on.
But seriously, scams do happen. Fraudsters exist. Let’s see if I can help you avoid becoming a victim.
7 tips to avoid being scammed
By following these tips you will minimize the chance of falling victim to scams and fraudsters, or at least reduce the damage if it does happen.
#1 Practice good cybersecurity
There are actually two types of scams and fraud. The first kind just steals from you without you ever getting to know them. They send a phishing email or text message. Somehow they get you to share passwords and other information with them, and then they break into your accounts or establish credit in your name and steal from you. They can file a false tax return. Maybe your ne’er-do-well parent opens a credit card in your name and runs up a huge bill. Numerous variations exist.
You can protect yourself against this first type of scammer/fraud by simply being on your guard. Don’t click on links in emails and text messages from people you don’t know. Use two-factor authentication for your accounts. Use real passwords with a product like LastPass. Check your credit report regularly. Realize that real financial companies don’t call you and ask for information they should already have.
More information here:
How this financially literate doctor was scammed out of $75,000
Beware of pump-and-dump schemes
#2 Avoid all private investments
The second type of scam typically involves some form of private investment. This could be in some kind of crypto assets, online business, real estate or oil and gas. Fraud was a real problem leading up to the Great Depression. So the US government has passed a variety of laws to help reduce this, such as the Investment Company Act of 1940. The US Securities and Exchange Commission is far from perfect, but the truth is that true fraud and scams between publicly traded companies and funds are incredibly rare. That’s why Enron was such a big deal.
Most investment fraud does not involve public investments that are closely watched by regulators and hundreds of analysts. They are private deals. Of course, that doesn’t mean that most private deals are investment fraud. There are many great investments that are not publicly traded. But you can avoid 99% of investment-related scams by avoiding all private investments, because that’s exactly where fraudsters hang out most of the time. If, like me, you choose to invest some of your money in private investments, recognize that your risk of fraud just increased 100x and be prepared to deal with it.
#3 Be a real accredited investor
For most private investments, you must be legally an accredited investor. That means you have an income of $200,000 or more for each of the past two years, or at least $1 million in investable assets. No, these numbers are not indexed to inflation, and they have not changed for far too many years. I would suggest that if you want to invest in private investments, be a real accredited investor, not just a legal one. The spirit of the law for accredited investors is
- That you are so sophisticated that you can assess the benefits of an investment without the help of a lawyer, accountant or financial advisor, and
- That you are rich enough to lose your entire investment without it affecting your financial life.
Frankly, being a legally recognized investor probably doesn’t get you #2 (maybe you double both numbers and need both to be present), and it certainly has nothing to do with #1.
#4 Diversify
Diversification protects you from what you don’t know and what you can’t know. Real accredited investors don’t have to spend a lot of time crying because they got scammed out of $10,000. But getting scammed out of $600,000 of your $800,000 savings is a whole different story. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. If you decide to put all your eggs in one basket, you better keep a close eye on that basket. In fact, you better know more about and have more control over that basket than anyone else on the planet.
More information here:
Don’t invest in ‘too good to be true’: lessons learned from an alleged Ponzi scheme
#5 Use minimum investment amounts and watch
Most private investments have a minimum investment amount. While that may be $50,000, $100,000 or more, it is often significantly less. It could be as little as $5,000, $10,000 or $25,000. Take advantage of that minimum. While it may be an expensive hassle to deal with another K-1 and a lot of due diligence for a $5,000 investment, it gives you a relatively inexpensive opportunity to keep an eye on the operator/manager for a few years before investing any real money.
I have lost principal on two separate real estate transactions over the years: one syndicate due to fraud and one fund due to incompetence, impatience and poor debt management. In both cases, the problems came to light in less than two years, and our investment was minimal ($20,000 and $25,000). One reason Bernie Madoff was so infamous was the sheer length of time (at least 15 years and maybe longer) he ran his scam. Most fraudsters and incompetent managers blow up much faster. Take advantage of that fact. Make the minimum investment and just watch for a few years. There’s no rush.
#6 Know what realistic investment returns look like
People are often drawn into an investment because of the promise of outlandish returns. We once declined a call WCICON especially since the slides submitted talked about 40% returns, as if investors should expect such returns routinely. Guess what? You shouldn’t do that.
If you could earn a 40% return every year, you would own the entire world in less than your lifetime. As I write this, the world’s net worth is approximately $454 trillion. If you start with $1 million and earn 40% of that every year, your net worth will be just $454 trillion.
=NPER(40%,0,-1000000,454000000000000) = 59 years
No, a return of 40% is not realistic. I’m not saying that an investment can’t yield a 40% return in a year, but you should certainly never expect this, especially over the long term. The long-term return on the US stock markets is around 10%. When someone starts talking about a return of 20%, 25%, 30% or 40%, you have to recognize the bizarreness of that statement. And when you hear someone like “The Bull” tell you to expect a return of 7%-10% per month (100%+ per year), you have to realize that the odds of this being a scam are now approaching 100%.
#7 Understand the risk/reward spectrum
Although there is a lot of uncompensated risk in the world, risk and return are generally highly correlated. As mentioned above, long-term returns on US stocks are around 10%. And the US has historically been the big winner when it comes to stock returns. In other countries they have been much lower. By ignoring the major long-term “deep” risks such as hyperinflation, deflation, confiscation, and destruction, and focusing only on the “shallow” risk (volatility), those 10% returns have come at the cost of numerous 40% to 50% declines in value and one major 90% decline in value during the Great Depression. If that’s the risk you take to get a 10% return, what kind of risk do you think you’ll take to get a 15% or 20% return, let alone a 30% to 40% return? With many investments you can easily lose your entire investment or even more.
A 1939 movie was called “You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man,” and there is some truth in that (although many honest people are constantly cheated). Maybe it should have been titled, “You Can Only Deceive a Greedy Man.” If you understand the spectrum of risk and return, you will recognize the problem when people promise you very high returns with very little risk.
More information here:
Do you recognize the incredibly bad financial advice on these TikToks and tweets?
How to become rich
While working here at The White Coat Investor, I have met many wealthy people. In general, they all followed the same path:
- Earn a lot: They earned a lot of money with their profession or business.
- Spend much less: They took a lot of what they earned and used it to build wealth.
- Invest sensibly: They invested the difference between what they earned and what they spent in a reasonable manner. They made sure their money worked as hard as they did.
- They protected against loss: You can lose money through disability, death, divorce, speculative investments and fraud. Rich people protect themselves against this as best they can.
What do you think? Have you ever been a victim of fraud or scams? What happened? What do you do to minimize the risk of fraud?
#Avoid #Scammed #White #coat #investor