Wedding Dreams Shattered by a $120K Scam — Now Jason helps others
Investment scams are getting harder to spot. Regulators like ASIC rely on laws built for a pre-digital age and can often only act AFTER the event. Organised criminals impersonate trusted companies - including their business numbers, licence details, website addresses and branding - to commit long-running scams. If the ASIC registry also included the correct email and web domain, the whole industry could be disrupted.
Jason Loyola is what you’d call a careful investor. He works in technology and was keen to invest in Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) that would not only support his industry, but help boost his savings for the dream wedding he planned with his fiancée.
Jason did what many would consider careful due diligence. He looked into different industries, checked the financial consultancy’s ABN, verified their Australian Financial Services Licence, and found no red flags on ASIC’s Moneysmart website. Everything seemed legitimate. Over six months, he gradually invested $60,000.
Jason Loyola explains how global syndicates exploit and groom victims over time.
“The scammers built a relationship with me,” Jason says. “They’d talk about their families, ask about my fiancée. It felt like I was dealing with real people, not criminals.”
He was excited to finally withdraw his returns to help pay for his wedding—but when he tried, the company went silent. Their website disappeared. He soon discovered he had been caught in a global $80 million scam network that had already stolen from dozens of other Australians. These are boiler room frauds committed at an industrial scale.
His heartbreak deepened when he lost another $60,000 to a second scam from a seemingly different investment—only to find both were linked.
Despite the devastation, Jason refused to stay silent.
He connected to help build a group called Investment Scam Asia, uncovering a pattern of boiler room operations across Asia, identity theft, and cloned business credentials. Working with ethical hackers, Jason even helped trace parts of the scam network and alerted other victims—some of whom initially didn’t believe him, fearing he was a scammer himself.
Jason’s work helped uncover the photos his scammers would share, showing how they lived the high life across Asia.
Trying to get justice for his scam was even harder than uncovering who was behind the crime committed against him.
Regulators and complaints bodies offered little to no support.
Scam warnings were buried on websites victims never see.
A lack of transparency and accountability around where money goes once transferred.
“I’ve had to prove who I am over and over again to the banks, to AFCA to the police,” Jason says.
“I just couldn’t stand the thought of others going through what I did, alone.”
Jason is now an active member of the Scam Victim Alliance. He’s working to raise awareness and demand systemic change—because he believes these crimes are preventable.
“Whether it’s $1,000 or $100,000—it’s money that shouldn’t have been lost,” he says. “We need more accountability from regulators, banks, and tech platforms. Victims should not be treated as if it’s their fault.”
Jason’s experience is a painful example of how sophisticated these scams have become—but also of the strength and courage it takes to speak out. H
Investment websites impersonate legitimate companies but are run by organised crime syndicates, who spend months grooming people over the phone to invest