Indiberries & Co, a platform that claims to offer investment opportunities in ventures with more than 300 “evaluated and approved” berry farmers across seven countries, has seemingly vanished from the public eye following an FSCA warning.
On 11 April, the Authority issued a warning that Indiberries is offering unrealistic returns.
The FSCA reported that Indiberries was operating without proper registration and falsely claiming to be associated with Peter Berry Trust Services (Pty) Ltd (FSP No. 696). The Authority added that Peter Berry Trust confirmed it has no connection with the entity and did not authorise the use of its details.
According to the FSCA, Indiberries uses referrals and videos on YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook to encourage members of the public to participate in its scheme by investing in “berry farming ventures”. The entity promises participants returns of up to 45% a month.
In less than 24 hours after the public warning was issued, almost all traces of Indiberries & Co on these social media platforms were seemingly erased. A search for “indiberries.com” redirects you to a reputable, long-standing specialist financial services provider. Try and access its Facebook page, and all you get is a “this content isn’t available right now” message. Searches on YouTube and X also come up empty. All that could be found on the search engine was an image of a single purple berry drifting on a white background, the entity’s logo.
Although the scammers moved quickly to scrub potential evidence from social media, they weren’t quite fast enough.
News24 reported that Indiberries & Co’s website – prior to being removed – claimed individuals could invest in farmers’ activities and earn interest of 45.1% a month. The Facebook page showed images of piles of cash and people posing with newly bought cars.
According to the online news platform, the entity described itself as an investment management company with 300 000 active investors, offering returns within two weeks. Posts encouraged investing as little as R1 000 for a payout of R2 347 in 30 days or investing R5 000 to get R11 251 in 14 days. Larger investments of R1 million were promised to yield more than R2.8m in just seven days, the News24 article read.
Moneyweb reported that Indiberries’s website claimed investors’ funds directly supported berry farmers, helping them to produce cost-effective berries. The website alleged that these berries were sold at auctions for prices 60 to 100 times higher than the initial cost. The profits from the auctions would be shared with investors by transferring them directly into their bank accounts, Indiberries claimed.
What the internet search did dig up was a lone Hellopeter complaint, dated 8 April. In the post, the complainant accuses Indiberries of operating through Facebook as an investment company “where they falsely use our local farm berries to attract people into investing in their scheme”.
The complainant claims that after investing, when it’s time to get your returns, Indiberries asks for more money to cover “SARS paperwork”.
The investor claimed he had put in R1 000 last year. When he tried to withdraw his accumulated R6 000 in January, he was told that he needed to pay R2 300 to access the funds. A month later, he was informed there was a shortfall in the amount he had provided and was asked for an additional R700.
“Now they need R200 so I can get the money,” the complaint read.
According to the complainant, Indiberries uses different accounts for each payment request.
“They claim to have the offices in India and not having physical office in South Africa, Botswana, and other [sic]. They are not even registered anywhere in businesses. They created the terms and conditions, but when you press, it doesn’t even work. Please help to expose this [sic] people!” the complaint read.
Scammers posing as legitimate financial services providers
In addition to the rise of fraudulent investment schemes on messaging and social media platforms, there is a growing trend of scammers impersonating legitimate FSPs to deceive and defraud the public.
Read: FSCA warns public of rising scams on social media platforms
The FSCA has issued no less than two public warnings so far this month, cautioning investors from doing any financial services-related business with individuals purporting to represent licensed FSPs.
The first was a group of individuals impersonating Fairtree Asset Management (Pty) Ltd, a legitimate FSP (No. 25917).
The Authority stated that these individuals were soliciting investments from members of the public via WhatsApp, “promising unrealistic and excessive returns”.
According to the FSCA, the individuals behind the WhatsApp group use “Fair Tree Crowd Capital” as their business name with a similar business address to that of Fairtree Asset Management, and “Fair Tree Capital” as their bank account name.
“Fairtree Asset Management (Pty) Ltd has confirmed that they are not in any way associated with those individuals and they have not consented to the use of its name,” the Authority said.
The second public warning flagged Rina Labuschagne.
The Authority said Labuschagne was impersonating FP Markets (Pty) Ltd, a legitimate FSP (No. 50926), “with the intention of defrauding unsuspecting members of the public”.
“It is the FSCA’s view that Rina Labuschagne is conducting unregistered financial services business.”
According to the FSCA, Labuschagne, through WhatsApp, solicits investments from members of the public, promising unrealistic and excessive returns, using FP Markets’ name.
The Authority added that FP Markets confirmed that they are in no way associated with Labuschagne.
Check before you invest
The FSCA says members of the public should always check the following:
- That an entity or individual is authorised by the FSCA to provide financial products and services, including for providing recommendations about how to invest.
- The category of advice the person is registered to provide, as there are instances where companies or people are registered to provide basic advice for a low-risk product but advice on far more complex and risky products.
- That the FSP number used by the entity or individual offering financial services matches the name of the FSP on the FSCA’s database.
You can check whether an entity or person is authorised to provide financial products and services by:
- Phoning 0800 110 443 (toll-free)
- Conducting an online search for an authorised financial institution by licence category: https://www.fsca.co.za/Regulated%20Entities/Pages/List-Regulated-Entities-Persons.aspx
- Conducting an online search for a financial institution that is an authorised FSP: https://www.fsca.co.za/Fais/Search_FSP.htm
