Month: March 2018

Categories
binary options online trading scam

FCA Flags Binary Options Broker

Binary options broker PlusOption caught by FCA

A few weeks ago on the 12th of March, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) provided the public with information pertaining to an unregulated ‎binary options broker, Plusoption, operating under several brands, which have been providing professional ‎investment services to UK residents without regulatory authorization.‎

No FCA License

The ombudsman warned that Plusoption has no association of any kind with any FCA-licensed entity. Additionally, they mentioned that it specifically operated and targeted UK citizens without a license.

Plusoption runs through www.plusoption.com and has implemented numerous associated brands including Redfield Markets, Tradeplus Solutions Ltd and ACV Operations S.R.L. The FCA cautions that this is a prototypical move for a fraudulent company to gain the confidence of unsuspecting consumers.

The FCA has been very active in cracking down on binary options and in addition to issuing regular warnings, it published in January a list of 94 firms that offer trading to UK investors without approval.

In step with practices across most of the European Union, the FCA has incorporated certain kinds of binary options within its regulatory perimeter together with the implementation of the MiFID II, which came into play back on January 3, 2018.

The binary options blacklist

The watchdog keeps a “blacklist” of binary option brokers based upon evidence received from customers, various partner agencies and from monitoring the online market.

Further action implemented

It is important to note the FCA is not the only government agency to move against binary options. In what the UK police categorized as the largest operation of its kind, officers pounced on the headquarters of 20 binary options brokers in order to examine their compliance forms and gather intelligence on various forms of investment fraud.

More than 80k Pounds a day lost to binary options

The ombudsman’s research in this area discovered the majority of investors who trade in binary options lose their funds and that traders lost an average of £87,410 per day over the duration of 2017.

Broker Complaint Registry has received numerous complaints pertaining to this broker If you are the victim of a binary options or any online trading scam be sure to file a complaint today.

Categories
binary options cryptocurrency Forex online trading

Google to Ban Binary Options Ads

Google is ready to ban binary option and cryptocurrency ads

Well, it’s about time, Google is next in line to pose a stiff challenge to the largely fraudulent online trading industry. The world’s largest search engine has just announced that it plans to ban all cryptocurrencies and binary options advertisements, and it is cracking down on ads for various other speculative financial products.

Say goodbye to binary options & cryptocurrency ads

The new rules, which are scheduled to take effect in June, will flat out ban adverts for binary options, cryptocurrencies and all related content (including initial coin offerings, cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets, and cryptocurrency trading advice. Cryptocurrencies have surged in popularity over the last year thanks to a boom in the price of bitcoin towards the end of fiscal 2017. This coincided with a surge in initial coin offerings (ICOs), where numerous startups have issued their own cryptocurrency in exchange for money to construct their businesses.

Taking Facebook’s lead

Google’s hard-line approach follows a similar ban that Facebook enacted earlier in the year in banning cryptocurrency related advertising on its platform. Scott Spencer, Google’s Director of Sustainable Ads said in a recent blog post that the clampdown is part of Google’s efforts to shield consumers from online trading scams.

However, much of the online trading world is unregulated, which in turn has attracted scammers looking to make quick money. Last year myriads of “pump and dump” filled the market, while this year bogus ICO projects have become routine.

Forex & CFD Crackdown

Google is additionally coming down on ads for contracts for difference (CFD), spread betting, and foreign exchange (forex) instruments on its platform.

These products carry a high level of risk and the entire industry is under increasing regulatory scrutiny across Europe over the past year thanks to severe investment fraud sweeping through the continent. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a warning in November that cryptocurrency CFDs are incredibly high-risk, speculative products that risk the investor suffering significant losses. Research conducted by the FCA showed 82% of people who use the products lose money, implying CFDs are more similar to gambling than investing.

Affiliate marketing for online trading takes a hit

Google additionally announced it is banning ads from affiliates and aggregators who traffic leads to online trading brokers. These websites earn a commission for referring new clients to these products that are lightly regulated.

The search giant will require CFD, spread bet, and forex websites to register with it if they want to advertise on its platform and all brokers must be licensed in the country they are looking to advertise in.

Pressure getting to Google

Google’s financial marketing crackdown arises among continued pressure on the search giant, which additionally owns YouTube, regarding the way it runs its advertising procedure. Google has been heavily criticized by the media and politicians for permitting everything from radicalization to binary options trading on its advertising platform due to careless controlling of content and advertising.

Spencer did state in his blog post that Google removed 3.2 billion “bad” ads last year and announced, “Improving the ads experience across the web, whether that’s removing harmful ads or intrusive ads, will continue to be a top priority for us.” We shall see. However, there is a pretty good chance that these fraudulent brokers will just simply change the name of their product in order to get around Google’s ban and deceive an unsuspecting user.

What you can do

If you see any ads pertaining to binary options, cryptocurrencies etc., be sure to inform them here so they can ultimately remove them. If you were the victim of a scam please be sure to fill out our contact form and we will do our best to get back to you as soon as we can.

Categories
binary options online trading scam

Sweden Tackles Binary Options

Online trading schemes are rampant in Sweden

Binary options fraud was among the top concerns of the Swedish financial regulator Finansinspektionen in 2017 (FI). According to its annual report for 2017 binary options were among the primary reasons for issuing warnings in Sweden over the past year and a bit.

In 2017, the FI published warnings pertaining to approximately 1,129 financial companies that conduct their operations in the Swedish market without proper regulation and oversight. Although these warnings primarily targeted equity-related fraud, they additionally included numerous binary options  schemes. FI made a decision after receiving 18 cases. Most of the warnings were came from foreign agencies.

Binary Options, a problem across Europe

The numbers are in line with recent data provided by other regulators in Europe. For instance, Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) reported in February that it received 1,710 notifications from consumers about various financial matters in 2017, up 13% compared to 2016. Nearly half of the inquiries were questions or complaints relating to fraud and unlawful offers of financial products and services. There were 792 such messages in 2017, up by 45% compared to the previous year.

The messages reporting fraud or unlawful offers primarily concerned binary options, boiler rooms, pyramid and Ponzi schemes and ‘phishing’. New issues in 2017 included credit fraud, virtual currencies, and diamond investment fraud. The FSMA released over 115 warnings last year, a 70% increase from 2016. Additionally, the FSMA put out 46 warnings concerning boiler rooms, and 42 about fraud related to binary options.

Although the Swedish watchdog does not layout any specific plans pertaining to binary options, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) is strongly considering banning these instruments. ESMA wants to pass a law prohibiting anyone or company from promoting, distributing or selling binary options to retail clientele.

Other countries are taking action

Even Norway, which is not a member of the European Union but is a part of the EEA, is planning to enact strict procedures pertaining to binary options. The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway (Finanstilsynet) demands that advertising, selling and distribution of binary options to non-professional clients in Norway or from Norway is forbidden. The watchdog stresses that on several occasions, it has investigated foreign binary options providers that have targeted Norwegian investors without a proper license. Finanstilsynet notes that these companies employ ultra-aggressive marketing approaches and fail to mention the necessary risk warnings.

Contact us

If you have been scammed by an online trading broker, be sure to file a complaint here and we will do our best to get back to you as quickly as we can.

Categories
chargeback online trading

Chargeback, a way to fight back

What is a chargeback?

Chargebacks represent a method of consumer protection, enabling credit card or debit card holders to dispute a transaction and to reclaim their money. However, this only potentially works if the chargeback claim is accepted. An online trading chargeback can, in essence, cancel the transaction through which the investor made his/her deposit with the broker. Assuming it is successful, the chargeback forcibly confiscates the money from the broker’s account and returns it to the balance of the credit card/debit card carrier.

How it started

Chargebacks, which were first introduced in 1974 under the Fair Credit Billing Act were meant to shield customers from duplicitous transactions committed by crooks, as well as from shoddy services and exploitation of numerous corrupt merchants. Because of this, traders can use this to recover their funds from online trading companies, who they believe took advantage of them. Inferior services and flat out fraud is unfortunately rampant in the online trading world, which is why having the ability to execute chargebacks is such a powerful tool that traders can use when needed

Chargebacks offer a numerous of advantages to investors – in the short-term – and to all market partakers over the long-term. Their sheer presence can theoretically keep merchants (online traders) honest and always striving to offer their consumers the best possible services and products.

Recover your deposits

The first thing you must understand is that if invested with an unregulated broker and you made profits, you will usually not be able to withdraw your returns. You focus should only be on recovering the money you deposited.

How to go about it

Before you try to initiate a chargeback, assuming you still have a balance, try to extract the money in the traditional way. First send the required documents to your broker so you can ensure your account is entirely verified. These documents may comprise of a copy of your credit card, a bank statement, a government-issued ID and proof of address, such as a recent bill. In addition to submitting your withdrawal request to the broker’s website, send them a formal email, and try calling them. Explicitly inform them that you will take necessary legal steps if they fail to return your funds. You can tell them you will do a chargeback which can be very damaging to them or complain to the local police authority such as the FBI or the UK Action Fraud Police.

If you have nothing remaining in your balance because your broker traded it away without your permission, demand a compensation. As was mentioned before you should do so in the form of an email or even a letter. You can additionally try calling them and threatening them.

If your broker continues to ignore you or downright refuses you request, the next step is to get in touch with your bank, credit card company or the e-wallet you used to deposit the money and check if they are able or even willing to help you initiate a chargeback. Most times they will refuse, especially if more than 120 days have passed since you’ve made the deposit.

Is it possible to do the chargeback dispute by yourself?

It’s certainly possible, however, you must understand that there are a number challenges up ahead. If you fail on your first chargeback attempt, banks will not let you re-file the dispute. Even if you make a mere technical error in the filing procedure the banks will not issue second change.

Additionally, these online trading brokers often anticipate potential disputes by their clientele and will, therefore, try to do everything in their power to manipulate the banks and the credit card companies into believing that the scheme was entirely legitimate. Successful chargeback cases can potentially result in the broker losing their merchant account along with the ability to process credit cards. This is why you can fully be sure that they will fight back with everything at their disposal to ensure your loss.

If you were scammed by an online trading broker via your credit or debit card be sure to make a complaint here and we will assess if for you entirely free of charge. Depending on the case at hand we can refer you to numerous service providers that can potentially recover your money.