Hyperfund: Mayor promotes dubious investment model

A mayor from Rhineland-Palatinate is involved in a dubious investment system. He advertises SR-Researches for business with cryptocurrencies and offers a return of up to 200 percent. Consumer advocates consider this dubious.

Deposit money, lean back and achieve a return of up to 200 percent in less than two years. This is what the Hyperfund investment system promises. In a promotional video it is said: “With this it is possible, perhaps after all, to finance the somewhat more expensive car”, a longer trip or “even your own dream house”. Simply exchange money for a crypto currency and deposit it at Hyperfund and get a part back every day until three times the deposit is reached.

According to the operators, the return comes from a company from Australia that is behind Hyperfund. This should put the investors’ money in numerous start-ups from the crypto industry. That’s all the investors, the “HyperCommunity”, learn about the whereabouts of their money.

How serious is Hyperfund?

If you get family and friends to put money in Hyperfund, you will get your return even faster, so the promise. SR searches however: There are great doubts about the seriousness of Hyperfund. Among other things, it is unclear where exactly the money for the high returns comes from. There is even a suspicion that it could be an illegal pyramid scheme. In this case, the return would only come from the payments made by the new members. If investors wanted to get more money out than what is being deposited, the system would collapse.

For the research, SR reporters signed up under a different name in order not to attract attention. In webinars it was said that there should be up to a million Hyperfund members worldwide and that people from all over Germany are investing, exactly how many, but remained unclear.

the SR reporters Chat and phone with investors who see Hyperfund as a classic risk investment. But also with those who have already planned the money, such as Heike * (name changed), who says she is not a crypto professional. “Thanks to Hyperfund we can finally start our big dream of a trip around the world as a family of five next year,” she writes. As a test, she initially had 50 dollars paid out in real money a few times. Because that worked, she has paid around 12,000 euros to Hyperfund since June.

Palatinate local mayor advertises in seminars

The research leads to a top German recruiter and webinar lecturer for Hyperfund with a public position. He has been the local mayor of a Rhineland-Palatinate 1500-inhabitant community in the Kaiserslautern district since 2019. The question arises: is he mixing up his office with promoting an opaque investment model?

The mayor advertises his webinars in a video on a Facebook page. He does not address his office. In the title, however, is his name, his community and his office. The text says: “Do you trust a mayor?”

His lawyer splits up SR request with that her client is not promoting Hyperfund as mayor. The site is not run by himself. He only made the video available to known partners and allegedly did not know anything about the label. The video has been online for almost half a year and is one of the first search engine hits when searching for his name and Hyperfund.

“You were a confidante, you are the mayor”

In the webinars, a woman says that she did not initially invest in Hyperfund. After a phone call with the local mayor, the system seemed logical and plausible to her. Literally she says: “You were a confidante, you are the mayor. Yes, and then I said, okay, everything I have: in!”

How he got to Hyperfund, where he gets his information from and whether he is paid for the webinars – he did not answer these and other questions when asked.

Consumer advocates advises against investment

Financial expert Thomas Beutler from the Saarland consumer center has watched a few webinars. From his point of view, a lot remains unclear, such as how the paid-in capital should double or triple. The contract that investors conclude with Hyperfund alone is extremely problematic. Because it says there is no repayment obligation. According to Beutler, the question is: “Would I give money to someone who said to me: I might give it back to you. Normally I wouldn’t.”

In addition, the contract is signed with an Australian company that has no representation in Germany. That alone is “problematic for me as a German investor,” emphasizes Beutler.

Lawyers consider Hyperfund to be dubious

The Saarbrücken specialist lawyer for capital market law, Michael Strauss, also sees it that way. The extensive exclusion of liability at Hyperfund “does not correspond to German law”. In addition, from his point of view, it is unclear how Hyperfund generates the income from which the return is paid. Munich lawyer Patrick Wilson takes the same line. Although Hyperfund lists various business models, it does not provide any reliable information. Sometimes there is not even a website. Wilson believes that anyone who has already invested should extract as much money as possible from the investment. According to the contract documents, this is due to the investors. Because for Wilson it is clear “that this system has to collapse at some point”.

The German financial supervisory authority BaFin recently started investigating. There are also corresponding warnings from the supervisory authorities in countries such as Great Britain and New Zealand. Hyperfund and the Australian company behind it voiced their opinion SR request not. Consumer advocate Beutler has now filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons. The suspicion: illegal pyramid scheme. In his view, there is a risk that investors could lose all of their money.