On social networks, we sometimes discover young people whose lives make you dream: beautiful cars, vacations in the sun… They are in their twenties and boast of making a fortune in finance thanks to their phone. If we are to believe them, we too could do it… So The Eye of the 20 hours tried the experiment.
Behind these promises is a company based in the United States, whose members offer, via social networks, online training in financial market trading. This month, they are organizing presentations all over France: 700 people in Paris on Sunday 23 September.
In hidden camera, we invited ourselves to that of Bordeaux. On site, about fifty people, between 18 and 30 years old, all invited via social networks. A young leader calls out to the assembly: “who today in this room knows how to make money with their phone?”Few hands go up. So he presents a tempting offer: online training to become a trader against a subscription of 130 to 170 euros per month. With the promise of profits.
At the exit, a student is convinced. He made his calculations: “this company should be seen as a university: it provides training for 130 euros per month. A trading school is 15,000 euros a year!”
In terms of training, the company offers online videoconferences. What are they worth? We showed them to a finance professor, not really convinced. For Roland Gillet, “all this seems quite far from what we do today when we want to train people in this kind of market in a rigorous way.”
If this system is successful, it is because besides training it offers another form of income, not by playing on the markets, but by sponsoring new subscribers. A pyramid-shaped system: by recruiting 3 new clients, online courses become free. 9 others, and we touch 500 dollars per month, then 1000, 2000, 15000… Always more according to the number of recruited customers.
But for an enriching minority, there is an army of losers. “I would say it’s a scam for those who have just arrived,”Says a young man who, for two years, hoped to get rich with this system. “Because if the person cannot recruit, they end up paying a hell of a lot of money every month.”
However, these promises of easy money make the youngest dream come true. Last spring, a professor of Economics and Social Sciences discovered that a Grade 1 student was trying to recruit her classmates to high school. “They explain to me that a high school student is an apprentice trader and that he earns money, ”She recalls. “And it turns out that this student hasn’t come to class for 3 months. He was a very good student until December, then he stopped coming to class. ”
In the schoolyard, its supposed wealth fascinates. “He showed us this on Snapchat, he put in ‘easy money’”, Says one of his comrades. For another, “he was like in a sect, he thought only of that, that was his life. he put his studies on hold, he saw himself living from that all his life.“Today, this student would have resumed lessons.
We asked the representatives of this company, who showcase their financial success in video. No answer. Outside of social networks, they avoid advertising.
They do this in a relatively discreet way: they are on social networks, never really talk about it publicly. They will directly reach young people, their target, without parents realizing that their teenager is receiving messages on Snapchat, from someone who promises him wonders.
Vincent Manilève, independent journalist
Last year, the financial markets authority issued a warning against a similar company, recalling that she “does not benefit in France from any authorization to exercise a regulated activity“, and “was particularly aimed at a very young audience, including high school students.“But through social networks, this online training sales system escapes, today in France, any regulation.