Typically, when a ponzi scam decides to “close shop”, they will come up with a “legitimate sounding” excuse to do so. They will have something to blame for their closure. Common ones include: 

• Investigation by authorities
• Hackers
• Too much accusation of them being a scam online leading to loss of reputation
• Problem with third party system, eg payment processor
• Brokers
• Frozen funds

Rarely will they come out and say “Hey we are a scam, you have been duped.“ The really naive investors continue to believe them.

I suppose this is the end of the road for Stoic Capital and their investors. Expected it to be around this time as I didn’t expect their investor congress to really take place.

The notice put up by Stoic Capital is as follows:

Interim activity moratorium

With apologies to inconveniencies to all parties concerned, we have to declare an interim activity moratorium due to the following events that have recently taken place:

1) Our company has been abruptly targeted by official structures of Europe and the U.S. The attack of Feds was all-embracing, distressful and multi-purposeful; all assets, cash and bonds were seized. All our accounts have been blocked to avoid further in-out market motions with insecured previous deals involved. Our offices sealed, offshore and onshore companies halted. The termination is complete.

2) The basic Federal claim is strong suspicion in money-laundring and indulgence of investors in concurrent and steady tax evasion. In line with the charges moved forward, the offcials demand that we should disclose all investors’ pool data, accounts and gains earned through our company’s work. Our lawyers have elaborately investigated the issue, and got down to work, so that the privacy of investors, their revenues and rights to utilize their means in the most free way be defended notwithstanding any circumstances engaged. Our company has always been dealing in the stock exchange markets despite underhand plotting of magnates next to certain establishments.

3) The given situation and appeared problems needs some time to take care of. The event has also made impossible the expected investors Congress in the nearest future (all Congress fees already received by us will be returned to available balance as soon as possible).

4) To conclude the given above statement, due to objective circumstances we have to open up interim activity moratorium for new deposits as well as yields and principals up to August 31, 2009. During this period of time, we estimate that our lawyers will settle down the matter, and obtain necessary assent to continue our company’s work, so that in short a time we restructure our liabilities in payouts with the help of returned means that are now seized.

5) We would be grateful to all our investors for cooperation who voluntary give us power to disclose their data and required details about all incomes received with the assistance of our company, so that we provide the files to the Secret Service, Postal Service and SEC. Please be informed that you’re required to provide the authorization to pay all taxes that are liable therein and confirm the taxes paid already. For this please e-mail us your account holder authorization in writing signed.

A few months ago, I wrote a post warning people about an obvious Ponzi scheme – Stoic Capital.. The post generated numerous comments. From the comments, we can see that there are still people who are taken in by Stoic.

Therefore, I decided to talk with Stoic’s chat operator and see whether they can stand up to my questions. The full transcript follows below. Will you invest with a firm that:

• tells you not to look for them in their office and if you do, you will be chased away?
• does no anti-money laundering checks as is required by all regulated funds?
• can make 2%+ every day without fail no matter which direction the market moves? A $5 million investment will compound into almost $1 billion in a year.

Peter:

Welcome to Stoic Capital customer service.
How may I help you?
Roy:
Hi Peter
Roy:
I am looking at investing a sum of money with Stoic. Can you tell me more about how it works?
Peter:
Sure, sir.
Peter:
You simply sign up for a new account
Peter:
You deposit the amount of money you want to
Peter:
With no maximum
Peter:
According to the amount of your deposit you will enter a category
Peter:
Start: investment amount:10-999$
Daily profit:1.4%-1.8%

Classic:1000-4999$
Daily profit:1.7%-2.2%

Premium:5000-19,999$
Daily profit:2.0%-2.4%

VIP: more than 20,000$
Daily profit:2.2%-2.8%
Roy:
What is the return like? I am looking at investing around US$5 million for a period of 1year.
Roy: (after a few minutes)
Peter, are you still there?
Peter:
Yes, sir.
Roy:
Can you tell me the returns I would get at the end of 1 year?
Peter:
You will then enter the VIP investors.
Roy:
Is there a VVIP one? Anyway, so how much in dollar terms will that work out to be?
Peter:
$307,349,062.00 / $540,135,454.70 / $944,864,790.50
Roy:
what do the 3 different numbers mean?
Peter:
If you choose 100% compounding
Roy:
Are the returns and principal guaranteed?
Roy: (after a few minutes)
Peter, are the returns and principal guaranteed?
Peter:
Yes,sir.
Roy:
How is the guarantee achieved?
Roy:
You know recently, we have a number of bank failures. Even Citibank is shaky. Who provides the guarantee in your case?
Roy: (after a few minutes)
Are you there Peter? Did you get my previous question?
Roy: (after a few more minutes)
Peter?
Roy: (more waiting)
If you can’t answer my question, it’s very difficult for me to invest the full sum with you guys. I might reduce to just $100,000 to test it out.
Peter:
Sorry, sir. I am checking the information for you.
Roy:
Ok. What have you got?
Peter:
You will be able to put all the amount of money you want, sir.
Roy:
Yes, I know. I was asking about the guarantee.
Peter:
And yes you will recieve all the funds
Roy:
Who provides the guarantee?
Peter:
The system will send you a verification e-mail after the 190 business days are over
Peter:
This e-mail for your own security
Roy:
How does Stoic provide the guarantee?
Peter:
Guarantees:
The Stoic distributes assets on numerous markets. Apart from ordinary shares we invest in monetary market instruments (treasury bills, deposit certificates etc.), and also in derivative securities (futures, options, warrant certificates etc.)
-We profit not from the market rise, but from the Variability. Thus Stoic stays stable and reliable and pays interest as agreed.
If u invest with us, you will receive daily profit statistics which will be sent to your e-mail. Stoic Guarantees a daily profit (according to the investment plan you choose) and insures the safety of your deposit.
When making a deposit, your consent with our Terms of Service is equall to signing a contract on a paper and it is valid.
Roy:
Is Stoic rated AAA?
Roy:
Does that mean no matter which direction the market moves, Stoic can still make the returns of 2+% every day without fail? From your investments in treasury bills and derivatives?
Peter:
Yes, sir.
Roy:
That sounds good. So is Stoic rated AAA?
Peter:
I have no information about this, sir.
Roy:
Where are you guys incorporated?
Peter:
- The Stoic is a guaranteed hedge fund established by Stoic Capital Management Inc. registered with the legislation of Seychelles. (Legal address: 306 Victoria House, Victoria, Mahe, Seychelles.) The Stoic was established in August 2007, but has been to public by February 2008.

Main & Mailing address:
Stoic Capital Management Inc.
Golden Cross House,
456-458 Strand, Westminster,
London, United Kingdom, WC2R 0DZ
Company manager: Mr. William Cagney
Roy:
So you are regulated by FSA in UK?
Peter:
Yes, sir.
(Stoic is of course not regulated by FSA. A check can be done at http://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/firmSearchForm.do)
Roy:
How do I arrange a meetup with your company manager?
Peter:
Regarding the London office address – that is a big multi-floor and multi-office building and it is not open for walking visitors or solicitation. We have more then 10 thousand clients and 99.99% inquiries should be easily resolved online. Very seldom we have meetings with our VIP investors only and only in case we scheduled this meeting for some really serious reason. So, nobody may just walk in – the security will intercept and prohibit from such visitors and may say that there is no solicited visits allowed, or that such company is not available or just kick out such visitor.
There is no need to say that you work from London office. Due to the live-chat and support is 24×7 the out-source operators are involved from several time-zones.
Possibly that was your conversation with competitor’s fake-voter whose aim was to find some uncertainty to compromise our image for public then or that was just an insane person.
Roy:
I can arrange for your company manager to meet at my place. My office is quite conveniently located.
Peter:
Stoic Capital Management Inc.
Golden Cross House,
456-458 Strand, Westminster,
London, United Kingdom, WC2R 0DZ
Roy:
So, can we arrange a meeting?
Peter:
Kindly send our technical support and arrange this
Roy:
Aren’t you the technical support?
Peter:
No, we are the live chat support “customer support”
Roy:
How do I reach the technical support?
Peter:
Send to the support support@stoic-capital.com
Roy:
Ok. I will arrange with them.
Peter:
Sure, sir.
Peter:
Telephone support for VIP investors only: +44 207 419 5037
(8.00 a.m. – 5.00 p.m. GMT, business days) Fax: +44 207 900 1905
Roy:
Last thing, how do I transfer the money to you guys?
Peter:
You can also call us.
Roy:
Because I have an issue with cross-border transfers. Especially if anti-money laundering checks are in place.
Peter:
Via Liberty Reserve and Perfect Money
Peter:
Or you can bank wire
Roy:
Will that be a problem with Stoic?
Peter:
No, sir.
Roy:
Do you need to check the source of my funds?
Peter:
No, sir.
Roy:
That’s good
Roy:
I will call the number later.
Roy:
Thanks for your help.
Peter:
You are more than welcome.
Roy:
Please tell William to standby for my call.
Roy:
Bye
Peter:
Goodbye.

Someone tried to post a comment on my blog about an investment opportunity with Stoic Capital. My intial response was to delete the comment but decided in the end to post it here for learning purposes.

According to the FAQ on the website, the Stoic invests its assets in ordinary shares, monetary market instruments (treasury bills, deposit certificates etc) and also in derivative securities (futures, options, warrant certificates etc).

An investment with Stoic Capital gets a guaranteed return of 1.4% to 2.8% per day. Anything that can guarantee that kind of returns is a dead giveaway ponzi scam. If you want a good laugh, you can continue reading the rest of this post. 

Will you want to invest with a company that has a legal address which is actually a mail forwarding address shared by dozens of other similiar companies? And which does not entertain any meetings at their physical office?

Note: Stoic Capital is not to be confused with Stoic Capital Corporation, a commerical mortgage loan specialist.

The following text is reproduced from what the person tried to post. The text is not written by me. The kind of returns he mentioned is of course not possible.

I’m xxxxx, I was looking for the way how to make online investment in the net, and someday I’ve found  Stoic Capital the investment portal.

The main point of online investment was really far from my understanding. It was something new for me, something unexplored. I never thought before that investment can be so easy and simple.

I have spent much time for reading feedbacks about Stoic-Capital on boards and monitoring sites.

And I realized – Stoic-Capital really works and makes a profit for customers. So, I have decided to put some money in. First of all, in April I put $2000 and gain approx. 2 percent daily. I mean EVERY business day. I had $40 daily 5 days a week. It’s $200 per week – not bad for beginning, and not bad for doing nothing. Money been working without my meddling in process.

I’ve never known before and even couldn’t imagine that such slight investment can bring such sizeable profit. City banks and mutual funds surely can not give such profit consider my amount of first deposit. When I’ve got $1000 for a bit much more than a month I certainly decided that Stoic-Capital is serious project honestly paying its investors and taking care of their prosperity. So, I open another deposit. I’ve trusted so much to Stoic and I decided to deposit my savings of $25,000. I’ve just withdrawn it from my Bank of America account with their paltry percents.

Right before putting my deposit I found out that for amounts of more than $20K Stoic-Capital offers VIP plan. It’s 2.2% – 2.8% per every business day depending on day-trading results. These results are e-mailed to investors daily. Then I contacted the support of Stoic, their live-chat, which thanks God works 24×7 online. (It’s really convenient to get advice and explanation). So, right at that time I received information about such tool named COMPOUNDING. Compounding means re-investment of gained profit back to deposit, so it brings maximum profit to the end of deposit term.

That’s why in the middle of May I deposited last $25K of my cash and set up 100% compounding. In the beginning of February 2009 I will have $2,700,677.20 exactly. I calculated it using Stoic calculator.

At the moment I’ve earned profit of approx. $4500, withdrawn and cashed it out. That means that by now my profit return has already exceeded the initial investment more than twice. And I will gain the same amount of profit again till the end of the deposit term of 190 business days (24-12-2008). Profit from the second deposit together with the deposited amount of $25K will become available for withdrawing in 190 days, in Feb 2009, just because I’ve set up the 100% compound. Let all of day profit be added to the deposit for the next day interest be accrued on the bigger amount of deposit every day.

In May I knew about one more tremendous opportunity to make money that Stoic provides – their referral program. And I joined it to invite relatives, friends and mates to get wealthy too. Now I have 77 referrals who have already invested total amount of around $1,800,000. That brought me additionally $90K as referral fee. Not really bad for the beginning, is it?!

Now I know how to make much money. I have stabile income and become wealthy man thanks to Stoic-Capital. Now I feel the illuminative way open to me. The Peace is plentiful – just get in right time in right place! That is the Stoic!

And my mission is to expand my experience to the folks! Let people have the idea how to join the world of prosperity.

That is the right place! And now it is the right time!

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