Karatbars and the Canadians

We reported previously on the Karatbars scam, in particular their preposterous claims that Consumer Watchdog had somehow endorsed them. In fact if they'd asked us I would have given them the finger, not the "thumbs up" their representatives claimed to have received.

Of course the whole thing is a pyramid scheme and a disastrously unwise way to buy gold.

We're not the only ones warning people about this. The Autorité des marchés financiers, the regulator of financial service providers in Quebec, Canada feel the same way.

In a warning they published last Thursday they warned the Québécois about Karatbars saying that:

"With the company's "Affiliates" program, investors can make Internet-based purchases through Karatbars plans and they are encouraged to recruit two other Affiliates. These Affiliates are in turn encouraged to recruit two other Affiliates each, and so on. Affiliates are lured by the possibility of earning large payouts, in particular through a percentage of amounts collected from the Karatbars plans and gold products purchased by referrals."

In other words it's a pyramid scheme.

You have been warned.

Thanks, yet again, to my friend Kasey Chang for the news.