Fake Gurus vs. Real Experts in Financial Markets

Fake Gurus vs. Real Experts in Financial Markets

• The Rise of Fake Gurus in Financial Markets.
• Fake Gurus VS real experts.
• The distinguishing marks between a real and a fake guru:
  • Personal characteristics of fake Gurus
  •  Behavioral characteristics of fake gurus
• How to protect myself from them?

The Rise of Fake Gurus in Financial Markets

The presence of an expert in financial markets is of utmost importance to both markets and investors, as investors and dealers in various financial markets are in dire need of reliable advice in a business environment characterized by a huge amount of information and a high degree of complexity, fluctuations and rapid developments.

In fact, distinguishing between a real expert and a fake guru is important for financial markets and the economy in general, as markets may be negatively affected by incorrect investment behaviors or unsound financial decisions, due to following incorrect advice from a fake guru, which in turn leads to huge losses for dealers, loss of confidence in markets, wasted opportunities, and exposing the country's economic growth to risks.

Distinguishing between real and fake gurus is not an easy matter, for many reasons, including those related to the characteristics and experiences of fake gurus and the development of their tools using modern technology that allows them innovative ways to show themselves as real experts.

Social media, and how a person can increase his promotion through it by pumping money, has also contributed to the increase in the status of fake experts who deceive their victims with modern means and advanced visual techniques, and convince them that they are the best experts in this field.

The following will address the definition of fake and real experts and point out the most important distinguishing features that can be used to distinguish a real expert from a fake one.

Fake Gurus VS real experts:

Fake Gurus:

They are individuals who claim expertise or authority without possessing the necessary qualifications, experience, deep understanding, or necessary licenses that enable them to provide advice to investors in general.

Fake Gurus often promote biased opinions or exploit greed or public fear, with the aim of achieving purely personal gains.

Also, Fake Gurus vary from those who benefit from their work in the financial market without possessing the required qualifications, to influencers present on social media and only have followers.

These fake Gurus are characterized by many personal and formal traits that make them very convincing and make it more difficult to identify them compared to real experts.

Real experts:

They are individuals whose scientific and practical knowledge is supported by a remarkable record of experience, analysis, and decision-making, and specialized work in the field of financial markets in general or a financial market and specialized.

In addition to their academic credentials, these experts usually have a range of specialized professional certifications, such as a Chartered Financial Analyst or a Certified Financial Planner, in addition to a history of careful analysis and sound judgment in dealing with the complexities of the financial markets.

The distinguishing marks between a real and a fake guru:

The importance of having a real guru has been pointed out for both financial markets and investors, but recognizing the distinguishing marks that enable a person to distinguish between a fake guru and a real expert is also very important, to achieve the desired benefit from the presence of experts.

The following are some of the most important distinguishing marks and characteristics through which a fake guru, a pretender, and a real expert who can be trusted and resorted to can be identified.

1- Personal characteristics of fake Gurus:

1. Excessive confidence:

Where the fake Gurus shows an exaggerated sense of his abilities, and often speaks with certainty even if he lacks real knowledge or substantial experience, for example: he makes a bold prediction, or provides advice that seems very good (to know the concept of this advice, see the article Warning signs of unrealistic promises in trading), and the fake guru may provide high success rates for his analyses without providing any tangible or understandable evidence.

2. Lack of transparency:

The fake Gurus avoids sharing certain details either about his expertise or analysis or about his personal life (such as full name, place of residence, place of work, or any personal data that any ordinary person could provide), for example: they use vague statements or complex terms to hide little expertise or poor analysis or to keep people away from asking them more, or they do not provide any information about themselves or provide it very scarcely if asked.

3. A glamorous and polished image:

The fake Gurus almost always appears with a glamorous and expensive appearance and personality, and they link their rich material appearance to their fake field of expertise in terms of analysis and financial markets, for example: The fake guru always meets his victim wearing very elegant and expensive clothes, a luxurious car, and talks about his easy success through his expertise in the field of financial markets.

4. Aggressive Tone:

Some fake Gurus use aggressive marketing tone, such as limited offers, threatening to miss out on the opportunity to get rich quickly and easily, or generally mocking the training seminars of other experts. For example, a fake Gurus might say: "I guarantee you quick profit if you take advantage of my very temporary presence in the country", "I know all the competitors, but they don't have my experience".

5. Giving general success stories:

The fake Gurus shares general success stories, and these are success stories that are difficult for the victim to verify.

The fake Gurus highlight these stories in a very enthusiastic tone, and the goal of these stories is to increase trust or build the greed factor in the victim.

6. He/She starts by getting to know the victim before introducing himself:

Most fake Gurus resort to getting to know their victim before introducing themselves adequately.

This behavior aims to know the victim's personality, ambition, dreams, level of greed, or degree of knowledge, to exploit any loophole through which he can enter his victim and convince him of his analyses and experiences.

7. Evasion and nervousness when questioned:

Real Gurus often have information about the subject he is expressing his opinion on, and if he does not have the exact information, he will not use the excuse of saying "I don't know", and he does not find any reason to be nervous if he does not know something.

These qualities are not possessed by the fake guru, who will often evade if he is questioned about a wrong decision, or asked about a matter he does not understand, and he may even resort to nervousness to avoid the question directed to him. For example: The victim may ask the fake guru about his opinion on an unknown currency pair, and the fake guru answers that this pair always exposes the markets to losses, and that there are political problems surrounding those countries, and then returns to promoting a specific currency or asset.

2- Behavioral characteristics of the fake gurus:

1. Love of appearing on various occasions:

The fake guru’s love of appearing on various occasions can be observed, and he is keen to take pictures with public figures and display them on social media, in order to create a fake social aura around his personality, in a way that creates trust between him and potential victims to lure them, or actual victims to keep them from doubting his personality.

2. Constant travel and wandering:

The fake gurus usually travels and wanders constantly, in order to achieve many goals in addition to marketing himself and attracting a wider audience, and the most important of these goals are: creating an image of success through luxury travel destinations in particular, in addition to creating an impression among his victims that he is an experienced and advanced expert with global experience, and the fake gurus may also undertake these trips to avoid scrutiny and investigation by victims or responsible authorities.

3. Shows sympathy and offers gifts to victims:

The fake guru always shows sympathy with the victim and convinces him that the mistake in the financial or investment decision was unintentional either by him or by the victim through not accurately understanding his advice as an expert.

He may even admit part of the mistake and make promises of imminent compensation. In addition, some fake gurus are often keen to offer gifts to victims.

4. Avoids indicating his place of work accurately:

The general behavior of the fake guru prompts him not to be present in a specific workplace, to avoid legal or personal accountability, specifically because he does not have the necessary and required professional certificates, which prompts him not to declare a specific place of work, and he may even rent a place for a temporary period to convince the victims of his professionalism.

5. Be keen on having incomprehensible certificates:

Having professional certificates is not a condition, but having professional certificates that are understood, known and necessary is more beneficial for any real expert.

Therefore, due to the difficulty of these certificates for the fake guru, or his lack of interest in having them for reasons related to cost or duration, he may resort to having incomprehensible or unknown certificates and displaying them to the public to deceive them.

6. Having a weak website:

Given the financial environment that is closely linked to technology, some fake gurus may resort to building a website, which they aim to use to give it a professional and official character, but this matter is no longer that difficult considering artificial intelligence and the spread of people qualified to build websites remotely regardless of its content.

How to protect myself from fake gurus?

1. Ask for the expert's academic qualifications and carefully examine them and make sure of their date, place of issue, and some signs of their logic, such as grammatical or spelling errors in writing the full name, the full name of the university, or the university specialization.

2. Ask for tangible evidence of his experience, such as professional certificates, previous experiences, or any evidence of analyses and opinions he has presented, whether old or new.

3. Get to know the expert well, by giving the expert the opportunity to talk about himself, his personality and life in general, his place of residence, and other general information that anyone can tell.

4. Visit the expert's location if he has a tangible location, and make sure that this location is licensed for this task, and that it is the location of the expert in general and is known by the environment close to his workplace.

5. Make sure of his social media sites that he promotes himself through, by checking the reviews, by taking a random sample of reviews and making sure of the identity of their owners, and that the reviews take a traditional pattern, and are not fake or paid reviews.

6. Check the expert's website, by going to some website specialists, or specialists in the labor market that the expert specializes in, and show them his website, to give their comments, in addition to browsing the website and looking at its history, licenses, and the entities that the expert indicates that they rely on his analyses and opinions.

7. Ask about the expert through the competent authorities, such as the entities that grant licenses, such as the financial market authorities, or the official specialized institutes, or the unions to which this expert belongs.

8. Check the names of the professional certificates that the expert publishes, to find out how serious these certificates are, and the extent to which they relate to the experience that he claims to have.

Conclusion:

From the above information, it is clear that distinguishing between real financial experts and fake gurus is essential to protecting investments and maintaining market stability.

Fake gurus often use exaggerated confidence, vague details, and aggressive tactics to deceive, while real experts have proven qualifications, transparency, and documented experience.

To avoid falling victim to these scams, investors should carefully check qualifications, seek tangible proof of expertise, and evaluate online presence and reviews. By being vigilant, individuals can protect themselves from misleading numbers and make informed financial decisions.