Financial influencer barred from selling in Colorado
A financial influencer who owns a company based in Colorado is barred from selling securities to Coloradans for three years.
Last year, the Colorado Division of Securities received an anonymous tip about a financial influencer who goes by Dr. Connor Robertson. Investigators were able to quickly find him on YouTube where he was heavily marketing his investment companies, like the “My BnB Accelerator” and “Syntacz” channels on YouTube.
“You give him $25,000 and then he’s going to give you 22% in returns by running these Airbnbs, managing them and getting all this money because he has so many properties,” said Tung Chan, Colorado securities commissioner.
Chan said investigators then went undercover, calling Robertson on the phone on Feb. 21, 2023. A consent order laid out what Robertson said while on the phone with investigators.
First, he said that he ran a syndication more than a true fund, which allows him to
allegedly avoid major securities laws under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“He said something like he makes something like $3.9 million a year through this Airbnb scheme,” Chan said.
The consent order said he also mentioned he has “102 properties between Colorado and Florida” and “32 guys on his management team.”
“Just a lot of numbers that he threw out that made the investment seem really lucrative,” Chan said.
This, plus the fact that he promised a high return on investment, presented many red flags for investigators.
“We then put out subpoenas to his banks and to him,” Chan said.
In an interview with him and his lawyer, they began to spot several different contradictions.
The consent order said first of all, subpoenaed documents and Robertson’s interview showed he “partially owned approximately 30 to 40 properties.”
Next, a subpoena response from Airbnb showed the total gross amount paid to Robertson was nearly $330,000, which was nowhere near the $3.9M he claimed to receive for the year.
To the statement on the 32 employees, he said during an interview with his lawyer present that he only had one.
“He was making a lot of misrepresentations and omissions to make it more attractive to get investors, and that is not legal,” Chan said.
Securities division settles with Colorado influencer
The Colorado Division of Securities reached a settlement with Robertson where he cannot sell or offer provisions in Colorado for three years. Since then, he has taken down the videos from his YouTube page.
“We don’t know for sure how many Coloradans were affected because we were able to get in before there were a lot of complaints coming in on this,” Chan said. “In fact, I think this is a really great example of how we’re out there proactively protecting consumers.”
In the meantime, Chan said she is warning consumers to be cautious while investing, especially if it comes from social media. If they believe they have been scammed, or see something that looks a little bit off, Chan said you can report it on the Colorado Division of Securities website. You can also look up investment companies to see if there has been any legal or administrative action taken against them.
“We see more and more of this on YouTube and in social media. People are using it to, you know, to let people know about these amazing investments,” Chan said, “and a lot of the times if it’s really too good to be true, it is.”
