Another day, another scam-tastic broker operating out of the Marshall Islands. This time it's the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) that has flagged the firm, FxTrade777, and added it to its warnings list.
In its statement, the British regulator said that people from the broker have been claiming that they represent FINSA Europe. Unlike FxTrade777, FINSA Europe is actually regulated by the FCA.
Like every other boring unregulated broker, FxTrade777 says it is based somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, but its owners are likely huddled around sitting out the cold eastern European winter somewhere in Kiev, Minsk or Moscow.
According to its own terms and conditions, all of the technological and financial sides of FxTrade777's business is carried out by an Estonian company called Blond Bear OU.
That company is itself listed on European regulator warning lists for running unregulated brokerage and investment companies. Thus, there is a good chance that, if they aren't living it up in Mother Russia or Ukraine, the people behind FxTrade777 are hanging out in the Baltics.
Just another scam
Geographical concerns aside, reviews of FxTrade777 indicate that it is running the archetypal foreign Exchange brokerage scam.
Reviews on various websites, that haven't just been written by shills working FxTrade777, are replete with tails of stolen deposits, cold-calling salespeople and a less than savory trading experience.
Will the FCA's warning do anything? I fear not, dear Finance Magnates reader. There seems to be an endless supply of suckers in the world and, as a result, there is an endless supply of hucksters to take advantage of them.
Determining who actually runs such websites is usually no mean feat. Fraudsters hide behind waves of shell companies and mailbox addresses. On top of this, the Marshall Islands financial services department does not make company information publicly available, making it hard to figure out who has even registered a specific company in a particular place.
