A few days ago, the leading German magazine SPIEGEL published a major report on the fraud perpetrated on retail investors by broker scams. Since the binary options hype, this form of online investment fraud has unfortunately not decreased. On the contrary! Now consumers and retail investors are being lured with cryptocurrencies or CFDs and high yield promises. The basic pattern, however, has not changed – in the end, the investor always loses because it is a scam.
Fraudulent platforms such as HandelFX attract risk-seeking investors and promise them unrealistic returns because of the unique “special” experience or the very “special” algorithms they supposedly have. The SPIEGEL report also refers in detail to the activities of the European Funds Recovery Initiative (EFRI), which was co-founded by FinTelegram. As of mid-May 2020, approximately 1,500 defrauded retail investors have already registered with EFRI and almost 800 of them have the power of attorney to recover their losses (Funds Recovery).
The dangerous thing about these scams is the boiler room agents. They are psychologically well trained and work with scripts that have been developed by experts. The agents work with fake names and fake CVs and try to establish an emotional relationship with their client victims. They usually succeed and the money is gone. The nice agent then as well.
