Lost money following an influencer? Here is what accountable advice looks like

Did a YouTube or Telegram tip cost you money? You are not careless, and you are not alone. SEBI's own orders describe this pattern again and again. This page explains why the person you followed owed you nothing. It shows where to report what happened. And it shows how to check that the next person you listen to can actually be held responsible.

Published 6 September 2026 · Potoos Research Services

What happened to you has a documented pattern

The tips business is not a grey area that regulators have missed. SEBI has been acting against it in public for years. Its orders read like case studies of how followers lose money.

The channel that traded against its own followers

In January 2022, SEBI passed an interim order against six people. They ran a Telegram channel called bullrun2017. It had more than 35,000 subscribers when SEBI looked at it. The method set out in the order is worth reading slowly. First the operators bought a lot of shares in small companies. Then they posted messages telling the channel the price was about to jump. Then they sold their own shares to the followers who rushed in. The followers were not the audience. They were the buyers the operators needed.

SEBI's final order in that matter followed in April 2023. What matters for you is not what happened to those six people. It is this. A channel can look generous, confident and free. And the whole thing still only makes money when you buy what the operator wants to sell.

The trading school that was an advisory in disguise

In February 2025, SEBI passed an urgent interim order. It was against a well-known trading school, its owners and related firms. They sold courses and mentoring, partly through private Telegram channels. SEBI's initial finding was that this was really investment advice and research analyst work, done without registration. SEBI ordered about Rs 53.67 crore to be frozen. It treated that money as unlawful gains. SEBI also asked them to explain why more than Rs 104 crore collected in fees should not be paid back. Refunds to the students were among the steps proposed.

Notice the packaging. It was not sold as "stock tips". It was sold as education, a community and mentoring. That is exactly why the registration check matters more than the label. What something calls itself is marketing. What the register says it is allowed to do is the law.

The groups that were never about the market at all

The third kind is plain fraud. India TV's technology desk described how it works in January 2026. A 38-year-old woman in Mumbai lost about Rs 3.8 lakh to a Telegram "trading group". It began by asking for tiny amounts, Rs 120 to Rs 500. It paid out small "profits" to build her trust. It filled the group with fake profit screenshots. Then it asked for bigger and bigger transfers. The UPI IDs and bank accounts kept changing. Then it went silent. No trade was ever placed. The market was only the story.

Why the influencer owed you nothing

Here is the hard legal truth. When you followed an unregistered tipster, nobody in that arrangement had any duty to look after your money.

None of this means every influencer is a fraud. Some are honest people sharing an opinion. But you are sitting in the audience. From there, an honest opinion with nobody answerable behind it looks the same as a scheme built to take your money. Before you pay, only the register tells them apart. It is also worth seeing your loss differently. You did not fail at picking shares. You trusted someone who had set it up so your trust could never be enforced.

If you have lost money: report it, in the right place

1. Preserve everything first

   Save screenshots of the channel and the messages. Save payment records, UPI IDs, account numbers, phone numbers and links. Channels get deleted. Your records are the evidence.

2. Fraud by an unregistered person: file a cybercrime complaint

   Report it on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal at cybercrime.gov.in. The Ministry of Home Affairs runs it, and it takes financial fraud complaints. You can also call the cybercrime helpline 1930. Speed matters for any hope of freezing the money trail.

3. Conduct by a registered intermediary: use SCORES

   Is the person or firm SEBI-registered after all? Then complain through the firm's published grievance route first. After that you can escalate to SEBI SCORES or SMART ODR. That route exists precisely because registration creates obligations.

4. Be honest with yourself about recovery

   Reporting is the right thing to do. It feeds the enforcement that protects the next person. But getting back money that has already moved is slow. And it is never certain. Somebody may call and promise to recover your losses for a fee up front. Treat that as round two of the same scam. It is a common follow-up.

What to demand from anyone you follow next

You can check this in minutes. Look for five things. First, a registration number starting with INH, searched by you on SEBI's register, using our four-step guide. Second, a name and city on that register that match the website in front of you. Third, fees that stay under the legal cap. Fourth, a written way to complain. Fifth, calls that give you an entry, a stop-loss, targets and the reasoning, instead of urgency and screenshots. We have also published a ten-question checklist to put to any advisory service, ours included. And we have explained how a proper record is kept, and why none of it appears on a public page.

Run all of it on us before you pay us anything. That is what the checks are for.

Common questions