A friend just got scammed in TRADING big time :)

A friend just got scammed in online trading...Few days back he happened to have joined a whatsapp group, which was guaranteeing returns on a trade to trade basis. He monitored the group for a few days which consisted of around 250 odd members. The group called themselves as a division of AliceBlue. Some red flags which my friend did not notice... **1st Red Flag** \- They connected with him on whatspp **2nd Red Flag** \- The application download link was from the following link which is now a phishing site - [**www.down.aliceblub.vip**](http://www.down.aliceblub.vip) notice the spelling mistake **3rd Red Flag** \- They always insisted on him funding the account **4th Red Flag** \- IPO subscription did not have a limit you just blindly subscribe and you will be allotted any random number of shares for which you need to deposit the necessary funds... My friend deposited up to 3,50,000 in the account & started trading....here is how the modus operandi functioned **Every day they gave two trades** **Upper Circuit Stocks** \- Stocks that are expected to give upper circuit the next day, no fund limit. **Block Trades** \- These are trades where they would negotiate with the company for a discount & the stocks could be sold in the open market at the market rate. Minimum fund requirement 3,00,000. **IPO Trades** \- For these trades they said they negotiated with the company for 50% discount rate & which could be sold after listing. **How they Function**? There are three categories of trades. **Upper Circuit Stocks** \- Stocks that are expected to give upper circuit the next day, no fund limit. **Block Trades** \- These are trades where they would negotiate with the company for a discount & the stocks could be sold in the open market at the market rate. Minimum fund requirement 3,00,000. **IPO Trades** \- For these trades they said they negotiated with the company for 50% discount rate & which could be sold after listing. Below was some of the rate they offered \[Eleganz Interiors Ltd\]: The original issue price was Rs 126 and our subscription price was Rs 63. \[Ajax Engineering\]: The original issue price was Rs 615 and our subscription price was Rs 307.5.\[Hexaware Technologies\]: The original issue price was Rs 692 and our subscription price was Rs 346. **When did I get suspicious?** He was able to withdraw the profit for the first 4 trades till that time it was fine. They also forced him to apply for all the IPOs BUT the IPO screen never **mentioned the quantity he should apply for** for…I still questioned them why no quantity to which they said right now you just need to express interest and only pay when you get allotment. When he tried to withdraw the profit post the sale of EASTINDIA of 1,69,000 they rejected the request saying that you have been given IPO allotment of 25,000 shares of \[***Eleganz Interiors Ltd***\]. **He had to additionally deposit 15,75,000/- to which he realised that when the tentative allotment is 12Feb how did he get allotted on 11Feb and that also 25,000 quantity**. On detailed investigation he realised he was scammed. **Opinion** Guys please be aware of such scams and do not throw away your hard earned money just like that. For the past 4 hours we both have been trying to submit cyber compliant but have not been able to BECAUSE the PDF is not getting uploaded. :(