Hay River victim may get cash back after stock market scam

A potential victim of a stock market scamsaysshe wants others to be skepticalif they receive an offer to invest their money.

Debra Buggins of Hay River, N.W.T. received a letter from Ontario's Attorney Generalin early May. It said she may have fallen prey to a scam that swept up unsuspecting debtors, and that she could be entitled to compensation.

• Ontario stock manipulation scheme may have had victims in N.W.T.

It wasn't until shegotthe letter that she realized she was entitled to justice after she lost thousands of dollars in a market shedoesn'tunderstand.

"I thought, wow,"she said."That was a scam!"

Stock manipulation

Thescheme involved five B.C.residents who manipulated the price of two stocks on the TSX Venture Exchange: OSECorp. and Great Pacific International. According to B.C. securities regulators in 2015, theresidents made more than $7 million by sellingOSEshares to unsuspecting buyers.

Those buyers were often already facingfinancial difficulties.

According to a2011 settlement between the Ontario Securities Commission, Phoenix Credit Risk ManagementConsulting Inc. andothers involved, clients were often referred to the debt management services company based in Richmond Hill, Ont.through collection agencies.

The agreed statement of facts says debtors"were encouraged to unlock their funds and pay their debts" thenencouraged to invest the rest of their money in OSE or Great Pacific International shares.

• B.C. stock manipulators get $29M in fines

But that's not exactly how Buggins remembers being roped into the scheme.

Inlate 2007, she told CBC,a collections agentwas hounding her over an old student loan. She doesn't believe it was Phoenix and said she thinks it was a Vancouver-based company.

Buggins saidshe was under pressure when she told the agent she had money tied up inpension funds.

Sheremembersthe agent putting her on a three-way call with an investment company, and convincingher she could liquidate her money and pay back the loan if she invested $24,000of pension funds in Great Pacific International.

"I was too stressed out at that time. I just trusted this lady I wastalkingto, that she was really trying to help me and I was just, in my mind, wanting to get this paid off," she said. "She got me."

After Bugginsdidinvest, she couldn't figure out how to take the money out. She saidit was confusing, but for a while the collections agents stopped calling and the stock was making good money. In the first year, she said,she got a dividendcheque for $1,000.

I lost it all.- Debra Buggins

Eventually, however, the stock started losing money, and another collections agent started calling. Buggins said representatives fromthe investment company told her they couldn't advise her on what to do, soshe watched as the money slowly disappeared until she had "nothing."

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"I lost it all," she said, notingshe felt resigned to her fate. "Can't keep crying over spilled milk. It was gone, it was gone."

Bugginseventually got a good job and paid off her student debt. But she said it'sstill hearteningto learnshe might get some money back.

The Ontario attorney general hasan approximately $2.96 million fund to pay victims. Bugginssharedphotos of herletter from the attorney general with the CBC,whichsays she may be entitled to some of that funding.

Buggins is telling her story so that others in tough financial situations will think twicewhen someone offers to help them solve their money problems..

"Don'tlet your stress get the best of you," she said. "Question everything."