Good luck Puck, if she ends up bringing it up again please let us know yours and hers reaction.

Yeah after telling him this will probably end badly, Puck owes us an "all in" and a look at the river anyway imo.

Haha will do

When did you say your book on the psychology of women was being published?

I'm not sure if that question is directed at me or tooth, but her being a woman isn't a factor in my decision making.

It should be obvious who it's directed at.

---

Out of interest, for those not willing to help their friend/colleague from being scammed for potentially thousands, due to some selfish "-EV" calculation, would you also turn your back if someone you knew was, say, being mugged because you might get physically hurt? Is it more the case that you're scared or selfish that you wouldn't help?

I can't fathom how someone could be "genuinely concerned that she could lose a ton of money" yet do nothing to help.

Among other things, I've put my life on hold for months to personally help wean a self loathing alcoholic friend in a bad way off alcohol; taken punches, nasty abuse, deep embarrassment publicly and fear for my own safety to do it. And I'm a pretty together person who hates that **** intensely. So I help when I can and have; I am neither scared nor selfish when it comes to things I believe I can make a difference and there's no one else willing or able to do it.

The difference between me and you is that I'm not an idiot. Across all scenarios, if you ran this 100 times, the scenario in the OP where they say something ends up worse for both her and the OP the majority of the time, and have positive effects a small percentage of the time. You're operating purely on feels reaction: "this is horrible! you have to do something!" and not strategy, and you'll get the results that come from that course of action. Life is no different to poker in that regard. Write an emulator for it if you must.

When did you stop beating your ugly lesbian partner?

It's more the case that we're not emotional idiots like you are (you started the idiot comment so you can wear it because it's true here), and think things through to avoid making situations worse overall. Think of it as life EV, and it's -life EV for both parties for OP to get involved here.

I assumed it was directed at Tooth due to his troubling comments about women, but snowie seems to think I want to pursue this woman romantically so I wouldn't have been surprised if you were talking to me lol.

I disagree with your characterization that I'm unwilling to help a friend/colleague out due to selfish motives. I've already made it very clear that I wouldn't hesitate to share my true feelings about Darren Winters with close friends or family. Hell, If I was shooting the **** with someone at a bar about investing I probably wouldn't hold anything back either.

I don't understand how you don't realize that our professional relationship of only two weeks muddies the situation. She's not my boss, but she has seniority over me, I've only been with the company for 2.5 weeks, and I barely know her. Sorry for having some self preservation instincts when it comes to my new job lol.

If I knew this person for 6+ months and thought they trusted me I probably would share my true thoughts.

"Would you also turn your back if someone you knew was, say, being mugged because you might get physically hurt? Is it more the case that you're scared or selfish that you wouldn't help?"

I would absolutely turn my back and run if I saw someone I know getting mugged at knife/gun point. I'm not risking my life to protect someone I know from losing at most a few hundred dollars, a nice leather wallet, and their phone. Are you insane? My instinct would probably be to intervene/protect them, but that's clearly the foolish thing to do. You could escalate the situation and quickly turn a robbery into a double homicide.

I thought you were kidding but it looks like he made it himself: https://www.thetruthaboutdarrenwinters.com/ , this is so bad it's funny. Can't believe he has this following.

Hard to get into the mindset of the kind of person who would fall for something this dumb. The reviews are insane: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/wininvesting.com

I see even less upside now intervening.

OK, well I'll just summarise by saying it's not surprising that such obvious fraudsters can be successful given that there are sadly, it seems, a lot of people not willing to help out their friends and colleagues by warning them. I'll bid adieu to this thread, and hope that the lady doesn't lose a ton of money as OP predicts.

It is not his place to get involved in the financial situation of someone he barely knows. If she is not aware enough to have done a few minutes of research herself, him telling her its a scam will not help. This is something she will need to find out for herself.

If I said anything, all I would say it I looked into this Darren Winters guy and he seems to have a bad reputation, be careful. Something brief.

Most women who end up in cults and scams and bad relationships and bad habits like gambling addiction (more men on that one) are warned repeatedly by those around them - family and friends - before they get too deep. They don't listen because they know better, and telling the person usually has the effect of driving them deeper into the cult/scam/bad relationship/addiction. It is what it is.

This "blame other people for the victim's own stupidity and stubbornness" mentality you have is terrible. You don't understand how scams work and how and why victims fall for them. Specifically, this is just wrong as a cause:

The "given that" is not correct. The correct term here is in spite of lots of people willing to try and help. The cause is a culture/attitude in the victim of having an ego, just generally being a dupe who thinks with emotion rather than strategy, and not listening to others. The cause generally is the victim's own personality, not the lack of friends and family trying to help. There are lots of unwise people who do try to help and most strike out and make things worse. You're claiming that OP has a duty to wade the murky waters of this situation with a person he barely knows with a probable bad outcome for both in the hopes of hitting the <20% spot where she's better off rather than worse off and there's no blowback on him. I say that's not good life strategy. There are endless numbers of people and situations to help, you have to pick spots where the help is +EV for both.

As usual, tooth start sane but it quickly turns into a hate-filled incel diatribe.

when people get excited about something its usually tough to change their mind without getting into a heated discussion. Not worth it.

I use to always try to win these dumb discussions for no benefit when I was younger. the other person doesnt think you are smart when you win and like you more. they just emotionally go into denial and start to hate you for disagreeing with them.

so either positively come up with a cool better idea to share to them while not shutting down their idea but by being more into a another idea to override their thought or let them learn the hard way

sell them your scam instead is an interesting alternative now that you know she is gullible

Just adding my useless input to the OP question:

I tend to be overly honest to people in these spots, right from the start. Just tell them what's up. I don't care if their feelings get hurt. I don't want them to get harmed and I, very importantly, don't want scammers to profit off of them.

I'm also comically bad at dealing with people like this, so take everything I say and do with a grain of salt.

The problem is that this approach generally doesn't work.

I am not American, but all I can think about is, replace the Forex training school with..


Trump University

I promised you all that I would post an update

Today she asked me if I would like to attend the wealth training program with her because she can invite one guest for free. I thanked her for the offer, but said I didn't want to take time off work right now.

I went on to send the following message, "I did some reading on the course and it looks like you might learn about FOREX trading. For what it's worth I've heard that it is very risky and low edge for non professionals. Some of his other material looks interesting though"

I probably shouldn't have said that some of his other matieral looks interesting, that's pretty much an outright lie, but I was trying to cushion the blow about FOREX trading.

She followed up with saying, "I’m going as complete novice and blank. Thank you for the heads up"

I went on to tell her, "I lost some money trying my hand at trading options last year and that caused me to course correct and adopt a far more conservative approach to investing"

This isn't an outright lie. I came out slightly ahead in options, but I did have some big losses a long the way, and it ultimately did play a significant role in me adopting a more conservative approach to investing.

So far no reply, but I feel happy with how things went. I feel that I was able to warn her about FOREX trading without causing damage to our professional relationship. Maybe she's just being polite and she's fuming on the inside, but I highly doubt that.

TLDR; I warned my colleague about FOREX trading - didn't address Darren Winters being a scammer

You should tell her to get into reliable and scam-free investments, like crypto.

She wants to invest in you, not forex. You should have gone and done a trip report (for the thread). Never turn down a financially solvent female.

Why did you lie to her??? Here's what she heard when you said that:

The net effect of this was to increase her interest in him/endorse him.

You should have been a friend and gone with her.

You then lie again to tell her that you're a loser. Here's what she heard:

- You don't want to spend time with her sharing what she's interested in even if it's free
- The scammer's content looks interesting
- You're a loser who loses money

This is pretty much the opposite of what you should be going for, no?

OP I think we did the analysis wrong. We were suggesting a strategy (don't get involved)/odds based on you playing your hand correctly, but optimal analysis includes the odds you'll screw it up.

Correct strategy: "In my experience there's no such thing as easy money. These guys are just scammers who make you feel good while collecting your money for their talks; they give you a free feel-good talk to make you sign up to the very expensive ones. They're just like Trump University and they're very good at scamming you in the free talk to signing up for their expensive ones. Stay away, or go if you want to free one but don't give them a cent of your money. I'm telling you this because I think you're sweet and you deserve better."

OK strategy: "The investment people I know thinks he just makes people feel good but you don't get any real investment value out of it. Go if you want but they will try to pressure you into paying for a course, it's a bad idea". Then send her this link so she's prepared for the hard sell they will pull: https://www.theguardian.com/money/20...t.jobsandmoney

Your strategy: "Some of his material looks interesting!"

By the way, this is the cost of what you said looks "interesting":

You directly increased the chances that she will pay thousands of pounds for one of these courses with your intervention.

MeleaB, hope you learned a lesson here.

Truth+validation. "It's a complete scam, but it makes sense that it looked like an attractive idea to her. You wanted to warn her, but you felt uncertain about it because you value your professional relationship. of course she is free to go, but you believe she should be careful to pay money for such courses" .

she is dead set on trying to beat the odds and make money on forex. anyone can do it

Nothing useful. I learned OP shouldn't ever volunteer to man a suicide hotline, and I learned you probably don't have a girlfriend.