I was reading the readers’ letters section in our local newspaper recently where a guy wrote in voicing his concern over the authorities’ negative attitude towards the Internet investment schemes that are becoming the latest craze here in Malaysia.

I can’t recall exactly what he wrote but it went something like these schemes offer an opportunity for the low income group to improve their livelihood while participating in the country’s ICT development.. The authorities plans to crackdown these scheme were unwarranted according to him.

I have nothing against improving livelihood through ICT but what concern me was he didn’t realise those schemes got him off on the wrong foot.

Swiss Mutual Fund or Swiss Cash is one of the most popular of such schemes that promise big returns.

Swiss Cash claims to offer a 300 percent returns on investment in just 15 months, an amazing offering for any investment company - especially from one which has only started operating in 2005. This sounds too good to be true and like most things, it probably is. Here’s why.

Confusing facts about Swiss Mutual Fund & Swiss Cash scheme.

1. The website claims Swiss Mutual Fund was founded in 1948. It’s baffling to see that their web presence just started in 2005. The SwissMutualFund.Biz domain name was registered in Jun 12 2005 for only one year.

   An answered I obtained from a self-replicating affiliate website explains this shouldn’t be a concern to investors as the domain name is renewed automatically every year. OK, but I don’t understand why an established company which supposedly in it for the long run would choose to auto-renew their domain name instead of pre-registering it for several years in advance.

   The whois info shows that the domain was transferred to another server on Jun 21 2006 and later the expiration date was extended to 2011. It contains fake contact information too.

 

2. Swiss Mutual Fund owns three websites which are SwissMutualFund.biz, SwissCash.net and SwissCash.biz. Swiss Cash is an investment scheme managed by Swiss Mutual Fund.

   To the untrained eyes, the main website at SwissMutualFund.biz is a well designed site belongs to a well established investment company. To me it’s filled with a mediocre sales pitch trying to sell some vague and suspicious investment scheme which guarantees large returns. The website is filled with pictures of people and images unrelated to the company. They even try to make it looks legitimate by including stock market performance charts obtained from Yahoo.

   

   I tried to find information about their other services such as the Swiss Trust, Swiss Invest Foundation, Swiss Brokerage and Swiss Equity but was dissapointed to discover that they either forget to include these or they only run Swiss Cash. SwissCash.Net suffers from the same red flags and SwissCash.biz isn’t working.

   Apparently, the guy in charge of managing the fund is Michael Mansfield the Chief Financial Officer as shown below

   

   Then below is the picture of the financial team

   

   The Financial Team page named six people including Michael Mansfield. The rest are Kurt Sandelman, Rupert Benedict da Vinco, Julia Rodriguez, Hector Willem Sidberg, and Fernando Munoz.

   Now is that a picture of Michael Mansfield on the first right when he was young? There are seven people in the picture but why only name six of them? If Michael Mansfield is not in the picture, why did SwissCash find the need to include two nameless employers in this supposedly very important group photo?

 

3. They claimed that they are based in the Dominica - a statement questioned by many sources. Without a solid proof, anybody can claim anything on the Internet. I can claim I am based in the Republic of Dominica too. Their current addresses:

    

   280 Madison Avenue, 912 - 9th Floor, New York. NY10016, U.S.A

   P. O. Box 2342. Roseau, The Commonwealth of Dominica

   Tel: +1 212 386 5570
   Fax: +1 212 386 5573
   service@scsupport.net

   There’s no telling if those addresses are indeed real unless someone take the time to walk up there and check. But here’s an info I found

   Hi, I found that the Swisscash address actually is belong to one of the travel agency called Exlusive Departures, visit http://www.exclusivedepartures.com/ContactUs.html and I have made a call to them, phone no. +1-765 277 6831, there was a guy answering me and he confirmed that the below address is belong to Exclusive Departures:

   280 Madison Avenue, 912 - 9th Floor,
   New York. NY10016, U.S.A

   He said they are not related to Swisscash and not even heard about Swisscash office around their building area, or same floor with them - 9th floor…..

   So the Swisscash address is still questionable now?? Maybe someone who stay nearby can really walk to that building to find out where is the Swisscash office for a final confirmation…….

   Looks to me they have a virtual present in that building where their address points to a non-existance physical office. Now tell me where does the grandiose looking office shown in their Financial Team page located? Fake photo detected!

   The domain for the the support email Scsupport.net is a parked domain - quite strange for a self-proclaimed multi-million dollars company.

   As for the phone number, several people did try to call them, the line was manned but it seemed they were outsourced to a third party personnels who were not very familiar with the business operations of Swiss Mutual Fund or Swiss Cash.

    

4. Legit investment companies disclose how and where the investors money is invested in, illegal ones give excuses to hide this information to cover their tracks.

   From their affiliate FAQ page
   

   We are sorry to inform you that how SwissCash Global Investors fund are managed is part of SMF Private Investment Policy. SwissCash financial facility does not function by explaining to its investors how their money are invested. It functions by paying a fixed return for the investment made. Swiss Mutual Fund has and will always do investment with only legitimate business. We have been operating for nearly 60 years and will not jeopardize our reputation with investment in businesses that is not legal.

 

5. Swisscash.biz had used a mail server located in Malaysia with the following IP address 202.189.46.230. That server hosted several websites - one of which was emobile2u.net. This website was associated to a now defunct get rich scheme at empireddreams.com

   Their answer to this

   Our database and ftp servers are situated in US as well as other places. We do have mail servers in Malaysia , Hong Kong , Australia , UK , Brazil and US. If you trace the source of our mail servers from the email that you received, you will find that its IP
   could originate from any of these countries.

   They claimed that they are not registered in Malaysia , therefore are not a Malaysian company. Strangely enough most of their investors come from countries in South East Asia, namely Malaysia , Singapore and Indonesia.

 

6. Bank Negara Malaysia & Securities Commission of Malaysia had issued a press released giving out warnings on Swiss Cash or Swiss Mutual Fund.
   

   Bank Negara Malaysia and Securities Commission of Malaysia would like to inform members of the public that Swiss Mutual Fund, the company that is promoting the Swiss Cash fund, is not licensed or exempted from licensing by Bank Negara Malaysia to accept deposits nor is it licensed by the Securities Commission to carry out asset management activities or services in Malaysia. Swiss Cash fund promoted by Swiss Mutual Fund has not been approved nor endorsed by the Securities Commission.

   Without a valid license, Swiss Mutual Fund is basically doing business illegally in Malaysia .

 

7. The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission listed SwissCash.biz, Swisscash.net and Swissmutualfund.biz as scam websites.

 

8. The Switzerland embassy in Malaysia & Singapore denied that the scheme is registered in Switzerland . Here’s the full warning issued by the Swiss embassy.

   The Swiss Mutual Fund (1948) and or Swiss Cash are not registered companies in Switzerland . Until proof of the contrary, the Embassy doubts that the remarks about these funds and their historic links to Switzerland as outlined on their original website are genuine. The original website is indeed registered in the USA and the contact telephone number is from New Jersey (USA).

   It is obvious that this company uses the denomination "Swiss" in an illegal and fraudulent way to attract customers .

   Moreover, the promotion of the fund seems to work via agents on a MLM system which appears to be close to a Pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes are illegal in Switzerland .

   The Embassy does therefore not recommend these funds as an investment opportunity.

 

9. MayBank issued a statement that MayBank2U.com trademark has been used without their consent in the brochures of Swiss Cash.

Now after reading this, do you still think Swiss Mutual Fund and Swiss Cash as legitimate businesses?