Securities commission warns of Facebook fraud
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/01/2016 (3882 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
FACEBOOK is great for catching up with friends, posting funny videos, seeing too many pictures of somebody else’s food and ripping you off.
Wait, what?
The Manitoba Securities Commission is warning people in the province to be wary of advertisements on the popular social-media network for forex trading, a type of investment where two currency pairs are traded against one another. (Forex is short for “foreign exchange.”)
One Manitoba man is out $25,000 after he provided his credit card information to a company called UFX.com. What started out as taking a $100 chance on what seemed like a good idea turned into throwing thousands of dollars of good money after bad.
Forex is a risky and highly leveraged form of investing at the best of times, said senior MSC investigator Jason Roy, and it’s a recipe for losing your money when the perpetrators are located off-shore.
“They kept pressuring him, saying, ‘If you put in more, you’ll be able to get back some of your losses.’ (Scams such as this) are always about chasing your losses,” he said.
Before you engage in any kind of investment activity, the first thing you should do is ensure the business is legally permitted to operate in the province, he said.
“This company is not registered to sell investments to Manitoba residents. There are protections when dealing with firms that have a presence here (and are licensed) in the form of a vast safety net, including compliance officers, regulation and insurance,” Roy said.
In this investor’s case, the losses are certain to exceed $25,000 as he not only has to replace the original amount but cover the double-digit interest he’ll pay to his credit card company.
“The problem in dealing with firms that are off-shore is there is no bricks and mortar, no local people, no registration and no regulation. I can’t stress how important that is,” Roy said.
Not only has the man been unable to recoup any of his money, he isn’t able to access funds he supposedly had sitting in a trading account with UFX.com.
Roy recommends investors visit recognizeinvestmentfraud.com to learn what to avoid with potential investments and check whether a particular company is registered in Manitoba or anywhere else in Canada.
geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca