Grand Capital Investment Program. https://grndcapital.com
To start off, Grand Capital looks like a great program to get involved with. I mean, who wouldn’t want to earn a 17% or higher return per week for a one thousand dollar deposit that lasts 2 years and then you get your original investment back? It sounds very lucrative.
They also have a Facebook page where members post when they have received their weekly payments and everyone - all 45 of them - looks and seems super happy. A real win.. Who couldn’t use an extra $170 a week fpr every $1,000 invested? That's what it is now - When this author came across the program about a month ago it was only fifty dollars to open an account at 15% per week interest.
Nicest thing is the payments from Grand Capitals is sent directly to your own bitcoin wallet. No back office wallet on this one. Direct automatic payments to whatever BTC wallet address the member decides to give them. That's $7.50 a week
Great opportunity - Or is it????
Turn the Due Diligence machine on. First going to whois.info to see the where and what of the web address. grndcapital.com. We find there that it was registered at the server namecheap.com in Panama, October 29, 2019. Interesting because the website says they have been in business for over 900 days. This was not the first red flag on the opportunity.
The first red flag on the opportunity is the web address itself. grndcapital.com Why not Grandcapital.com? Well, because that one is taken by another investment company galled Grand Capital. Who are legit and have been in business since 2003. That is when their name was registered on names.com Hmmm Interesting already.
Then we go and check the team. Well, The pictures are ether a stock photo bought from a dealer or they are stolen from elsewhere on the internet. Two photos link to real people on the net who have never replied to the emails sent to their offices to verify they are actually taken part in this investment scam, yet are listed as customer relations and account managers.
After that the Companies House was checked to see if the business was actually registered. Sure enough there was a registration number, but not verified by the Companies House in Cardiff Wales. Nope - Doesn't exist. Red hot flag now.
Then we look at the website after one signs up to participate. In the authors case - it was decided to sign up and test a few things.
First was the functionality of the site itself. Scored a 40%. The crucial items that needed to be editable were not. Only one payment address was allowed to be entered and could not be deleted to add another. The wallet address could not be changed either. I tested this and had to write to support in order to make a change. This is critical as payment processors and account numbers change. Each member ought to be able to change the wallet address payments are sent at the click of a button. Not in this case.
The next challenge was the actual investment part of it. Dipping into the test fund throwaway cash, it was a fifty dollar investment at 15% a week to get started. The form I had to fill out to make the deposit asked me if I wanted weekly payments, a payment in 3 months, 6 months or did I want to compound the investment for 6 months. Compounding was chosen and on it went. The fifty dollars was sent in and registered. I now have a contract for 24 months where the first 6 months all the earnings were to be compounded and first payment made 6 months later, continuing for the next 18 months.
It was noticed that the payout number the test account was to receive in July this year, was more than$1.6 million. So I wrote support again to check on the status and if there was a mistake made. it was then revealed the compounding offer was only meant to be for an investment of three thousand dollars and up. They advised about the three thousand dollar limit and said I couldn’t have that option because mine was only fifty dollars. Took them 2 weeks to change it. Notification was given that payments would begin directly into my payment account starting 7 days after the new contract was established.
Excitement filled the air as the first payment was waited on. Then an email was received a couple days later stating they are going to now raise the minimum investment to five hundred dollars. Ouch - out of the testing budget so couldn’t do that. The payments were supposed to continue, however and the lesser contracts would just expire at the end without any renewal option. Ok.. receiving a small payment every week for two years is still ok.
Next email came two days later stating they were AGAIN raising the minimum to one thousand dollars and all members MUST top up every contract they have to the one thousand dollar minimum. AND that all payments on the lesser contracts were no longer going to be paid unless the accounts were topped up. No exceptions and if you couldn't, too bad. Now way too far out of the test budget.
What happened next is laughable. Grand Capital was asked to cancel the test contract and just send the fifty dollars back. No go. Will not do it.
This is called a bait and switch in legalese. It is always a con and the consumer is given no choice but to comply or lose the funds they have in already. When Grand Capital was called on their shady dealings, in public on their Facebook page, they locked the test account and access/participation in the Facebook group was blocked. Not the actions of a legitimate company.
If you see an investment opportunity called Grand Capital and the website is grndcapital.com, the recommendation from this author is to avoid it like the plague. On the test scale it is given a -2 out of a 10 rating.
Beware out there folks, there are many of these opportunities out there to participate in and most are just scams. This particular scam has been operating for about a year so far and what it looks like is happening is a final push and run tactic. They will use all the funds brought in to pay the weekly profits in classic Ponzi style and then to the “push and dump.”
Following the pattern in classic form. All of a sudden the minimum investment is raised and all accounts must be topped up to the minimum amount or they stop paying. After a year of constant payments - What would you do? Never mind that now a small investor can have up to 14 $50 contracts based on the purchase of new ones every time the amount paid out totaled more than $50. Remember, this was real money the member could have spent on a pizza.
This creates a flood of money coming into the website. With 5,350 members all potentially having $50 contracts to upgrade - possibly 14 $50 contracts the amount asked for could be in the 70+ million$ range. After a couple of months to allow all members to upgrade to the minimum, they hit the target amount and boom. Gone. One member I know got hit with just under $3,000 to upgrade his several contracts.
In the Crypto AND banking realms, we must be extra careful not to get involved in shady deals like this one. Not to take away from the REAL Grand Capital Site - Where they ARE legitimate and
There are legitimate opportunities out there that do pay very large (as compared to a bank for instance) percentages but have mostly been found peer to peer rather than a slick (or in Grand Capitals case not so slick) website. Don’t fall for the super high ones because it is almost 100% they are a scam and most likely will take off with your funds. You may get your money out of it, but not much more.
No matter what - Never invest any money anywhere including banks - that you cannot afford to lose. Nothing is guaranteed. Next: at first opportunity, remove your seed money. Run the rest on funds earned through the program. Doesn't matter how little it is. Or how much. Pay yourself first. Use it to add to your portfolio through other means.
Long and short - Grand Capital @ grndcapital.com is NOT recommended. Until next time.
John Willms
Feb 18, 2020