Yesterday we again received mail from WorldMarkets (World Markets). In it, a certain Zhang Wei accused us of unfairly calling the scheme a scam and even made a connection to the Blue Trading scam. Wei pointed out to us that WorldMarkets would be “fully regulated in Seychelles.” No further explanation, no evidence or facts were provided. Moreover, he did not address the problems pointed out by FinTelegram at all. Tim Armstrong, the alleged WorldMarkets VP has not yet connected with us.
Read more on Tim Armstrong and WorldMarkets.
Mr. Wei did not offer a reasonable explanation why customers are instructed to make bank wires to third-party bank accounts without reference to WorldMarkets. A regulated broker must hold client funds in segregated accounts in the first place. Mr. Wei, on the other hand, explained that customers would just buy cryptocurrencies through these third-party bank accounts.
The payment processors clients send bank wires to are used to fund Crypto trading accounts. Therefore, we do NOT collect client payments directly. So obviously, these entities are not connected to us directly. They are connected to 3rd party trading exchanges used for liquidity.
Zhang Wei, WorldMarkets statemen
But clients could acquire cryptocurrencies on reputable and regulated exchanges like Kraken or Coinbase. Why should customers transfer funds to construction companies, consulting firms or art firms to buy cryptocurrencies which are evidently not having licenses to act as a payment processor or crypto exchange? This has a very distinct scam smell, hasn’t it?
Threats and Intimidation
Zhang Wei made a few direct threats. They would have taken pictures of us that would be published and they would send all clients a link to an article in which FinTelegram News and its co-founder Werner Boehm would be bad-mouthed. In this article on finleaks, our reports about the Israeli scammer Gal Barak and his German partner Uwe Lenhoff and their organizations are called defamation and qualified as a personal vendetta. Finleaks is one of the websites created by Gal Barak and his organization a few months before he got jailed in Vienna, Austria. He wanted to fight FinTelegram with these sites.
Arrests after FinTelegram Reports
For Zhang Wei, the problem with this article is that the people mentioned in it have actually been arrested as scammers and are currently awaiting their indictments in various EU countries. All of FinTelegram’s reports about these people and their organizations have turned out to be correct.
We are convinced that our reports and conclusions on WorldMarkets are also based solely on facts and that the scheme can be qualified as a scam on the basis of these facts. We would not hesitate to reconsider our conclusion based on new facts. But so far the WorldMarkets people have not been able to present such facts.
TrustPilot critics
On the review platform Trustpilot, the WorldMarkets scheme receives 3.4 stars based on 19 reviews in the period December 2019 to May 2020 – an oddly short period for a scheme that claims to have been in existence since 2003. WorldMarkets has reported at least seven bad reviews to Trustpilot for alleged breaching of the guideline. These reports are therefore currently not readable. Trustpilot is currently investigating the allegations.
Insofar the 3.4 stars at Trustpilot are not impressive to be honest. 30% of the reviews have given the worst possible rating, but are currently not shown.
The Trustpilot case is just another piece in the puzzle to get the big picture. It shows us that WorldMarkets is taking very targeted action against critics and is apparently trying to suppress criticism for as long as possible.
Protect Investors
It is the mission of FinTelegram News to protect investors from potential scams through critical reports. We have explicitly pointed out in several articles that there are also positive reviews of WorldMarkets. We respect these reviews but do not share their opinion. In our view, the website WorldMarkets shows a lot of similarities with the big scam Blue Trading.
As with other scams, we submit the necessary documentation and the results of our analyses to the relevant law enforcement agencies and authorities.
