How finfluencers use fake screenshots to run micro scams

livemint.com:

Finfluencers are back in action, with fake screenshots, telegram channels and even mentorship. Ask Mayank Saw, a commerce student from Dhanbad in Jharkhand. Saw spent 14 months trying to time the market but was unsuccessful. Frustrated, he turned to Youtube videos to check if he could get any leads. That’s when he stumbled on a video posted there by Abhishek Kar, showcasing screenshots of the lakhs of rupees in profits that he had made by trading in derivatives.

Saw was impressed and bought a pass to Kar’s premium Telegram channel by paying ₹17,049. The payment was done through Rigi, an app made for creators to sell their financial courses and Telegram channels. These channels came out with recommendations or stock tips for subscribers on buy and sell options daily. Saw, however made a minor loss in the market based on these calls and thereafter ‘muted’ the channel, preferring to rely on his own research for stock trading.

Kar, meanwhile, is being called out on social media for putting up fake trading screenshots to lure people into joining his paid courses and telegram channels. His actual income statement that got leaked on social media showed a loss of ₹1.07 crore made by trading in derivatives from FY21 to FY22.

Another trader, ‘Ghanshyam Tech’, was also questioned on social media for putting up fake trading videos. What gave the game away was a video of him claiming to book profits when his console showed ‘buy’ and not sell orders. In another instance, he was accused of showing only profitable trades in a particular account and hiding losses from other accounts. Another video surfaced of him where he attached his verified P&L (profit and loss) statement in Youtube description which showed ₹72 lakh in losses from