It happened when she still lived in China. One day she telephoned me, saying that a friend from her church told her about a fantastic investment opportunity. A brother in Christ had an ingenious business idea; he would buy water ponds, set them up for fish farming and sell his daily yield to restaurants for profit. He promised great returns. To get it going, he needed to borrow money with an annual interest rate of 36% (or 3% monthly.) He also wanted to keep this lucrative opportunity exclusively for fellow believers. My mom’s friend further testified to her that she had invested $10k and had already received her monthly interest, which she promptly invested back into the enterprise upon advice of this fellow Christian. 

I told my mother to stay away from such a scheme since it made neither economic sense nor incentive sense – see my previous article. 

My mom countered with these arguments:

• He was a brother in Christ. How dare I cast doubt on him?
• He had organized a tour of his ponds for church members, and she had seen with her own eyes that the ponds were really there – not some kind of fiction.
• Many of her church brothers and sisters had already invested in his business and had received interest payments. They liked the business so much, not only did they reinvest all the interest they received, but they also put in new money.
• If she (my mom) did not invest what she had now, she would miss the opportunity altogether.

I remembered yelling at her over the phone – “Don’t you trust your son who is a financial advisor?” To that, my mom answered: “I trust you but I trust my brother in Christ also.”

In the end, my mom invested $50k, which 15 years ago in 

China was a lot of money, like half of her life savings. Guess how much my mom got back?

1. She lost everything.
2. She lost more than 90%.
3. She got her principal back.
4. She doubled her money.

Just for the fun of it, please send me your answer and I will reveal the truth in my next article and how not to recognize trickery.

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