Signal sellers
The signal seller scam is a scam which works by a person or a company selling information on which trades to make and claiming that this information is based on professional forecasts which are guaranteed to make the inexperienced trader money. They usually charge either a daily/weekly or monthly fee for this service but do not offer any information that helps the trader make money. They will usually have a slew of testimonials from allegedly legitimate sources in order to gain the trader’s confidence yet in reality do nothing to forecast profitable trades.
High yield investment Programs
High yield Investment programmes (HYIP) are frequently just a form of Ponzi scheme in which a high level of return is promised for a small initial investment into what is in fact a Forex fund. However in reality the initial investors are being paid back from the money generated by the current investors and a constant flow of new investors is required to keep the funds flowing, once there are no more investors in the scheme the owners usually close it down and take all money remaining.
Manipulation of bid/ask spreads
These types of scams have decreased over the years yet they are still around. This is why it is important to choose a Forex broker who is registered with a regulatory agency. These type of scams would normally involve having spreads of around 7-8 pips instead of between 2-3 pips which is the norm.
Scams through software
Forex robot scammers lure novices with the promise of big gains from little effort or knowledge. They may use of fake or misleading figures to convince customers to buy their product. Their promises are flawed as no robot can adapt and thrive in all environments and markets. Software is generally used by professionals only to analyse past performance and to identify trends. All software should be formally and independently tested but caution is required when trusting the reviews themselves as these can be paid for. If their product did exactly what they claimed then they would not be selling it but instead using it exclusively themselves.
Managed accounts
These can be a type of Forex scam and there are many examples of managed accounts. These scams often involve a trader taking your money and instead of investing it they use it to buy all sorts of luxury items for themselves. When the victim eventually asks for their money back there is not enough money left to repay.
Ponzi or pyramid schemes
This is a very common form of affinity fraud. They promise high returns from a small initial investment up front. The early investors usually do gain some sort of return on their money and motivated by this success they then recruit their friends and family into the scheme. However the truth is that the ‘investment opportunity’ does not actually exist and their initial return is being funded by money paid in by other members of the scheme. When the investor numbers start to drop the scammers close the scheme and take the money.
Boiler room scams
This type of scam involves the scammers usually getting people to buy shares in a worthless private company on the promise that when the company goes public their shares will increase substantially. They depend on using “urgency” – suggesting that an opportunity will be lost if they do not act quickly which prevents the target from being able to research the opportunity properly. However, often the company doesn’t really exist and may have a fake telephone number, office and website. Once the scammers have made all the money they can they will disappear with everyone’s investments.