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Forexoma
Where Is The Money You Took From Traders?
Where Is The Money You Took From Traders?
Forexoma didn't start out as a forex broker. It was a forex education, signals, and trading systems site owned by Vahid Chaychi.
I got to know Vahid by email. He seemed like a nice guy, but he'd get very upset any time someone criticized him or his service. Sometimes he'd threaten to quit the industry, but he kept running the site.
Sometime in late 2010 or early 2011, Vahid added broker services to his site. I suggested that he open the broker under a different domain name. That way the reviews for broker and non-broker services wouldn't be mixed. He seemed confident that there would be no problems.
Later, Vahid contacted me and told me he was selling the company. I never found out who it was who was supposed to be taking control. The reviews continued to be good, so no alarm bells went off. Vahid later contacted me and asked for all mentions of Vahid and Vahid Chaychi to be removed from the review page. I told him this wasn't possible, since many of the older reviews were specifically about client dealings with Vahid.
I don't know if Vahid retained any financial interest or a position in the company or not. I do know that he no longer emailed me when a negative review came in.
The only other strange thing was the new owners not giving clear answers on whether or not Forexoma accepted US clients for its broker services. Once, they said that Forexoma does not accept US clients to its broker services. Later, I contacted them about a new review from a US client who spoke of have a broker account with them. They again said no, but quickly changed that to yes. This communication was using a very annoying helpdesk function that required visiting the site to see answers. I tried to get an email address, but they would not provide one.
There were no other warning signs. The reviews weren't perfect, but were well above average for a broker. In July 2013, all of that changed. Forexoma went from being a broker to being a scam.
The FPA began getting emails, Scam Alert threads, and reviews about withdrawals not being processed. There were mixed reports about parts of the website being down. I tried to contact Forexoma by their trouble ticket system and by email addresses provided by clients. There was no response. I tried Vahid's personal email address. There was no response.
Then the website went down and the complaints increased. Shortly after that, the MT4 server went down and the complaints skyrocketed.
At least one reviewer blamed the FPA for not sounding the warning. Other than being unregulated, there was nothing to warn about. Many brokers that run off with client funds start getting complaints months in advance. Those who complain early can often get their money. Forexoma was different. One day, withdrawals were processed. The next day, all withdrawal attempts were ignored.
There are hundreds of unregulated brokers. Some keep running for years without any major trouble. If a trader wants to know if a broker is regulated or not, it is easy to check or to ask. I think regulation is a good thing, but being unregulated does not make a broker an automatic scam.
I do have some useful information for clients.
Some people have successfully gotten their initial deposits back by complaining to their banks, credit card companies, and to PayPal. FPA member Bates posted this...
I deposited $550 at the end of April this year in order to use FCAR. At the beginning of August I sent in a support ticket because my Forexoma platform was down. Received no response. So I went to FPA and saw the warning sign banner. Good grief! Did I just lose my money?
I contacted Paypal to inform them that this Paypal seller was a fraud and would like to submit a dispute with them. The lady told me to hold that she would be right back. When she got back she told me even though this has been over 45 days, that they would make a one time exception. If after 10 days they don't get a response from the seller, they would credit my account for the full amount.
My Paypal account was credited after 10 days and I made a transfer to my bank account and just received the funds today. I know from reading other FPA comments, that some people were only able to retrieve partial amounts that were within the 45 days.
The Paypal email said that they were able to recover these funds, from Forexoma I'm assuming. Not too familiar with Paypal's Seller's terms and conditions, but I'm guessing that the seller can only withdraw so much a month. But of course these thieves were withdrawing their funds beforehand.
Note: If your able to file a dispute with Paypal, make sure that you get a Item/Case ID from them and that it's posted on their website. The first time I called in, the lady forgot to do this. So I called in a week later and Paypal said that they would honor this, which they did.
I hope this information helps out others. I learned a valuable lesson. Stay clear of unregulated brokers. Stick with regulated brokers from USA and England.
If you deposited by bank wire, contact the fraud department at your bank. If you deposited by credit card, contact the fraud department at the bank which issued the card. You may be able to force a return of your funds. Don't wait for deadlines to pass. Do it now.
There are other thing you can do...
People from anywhere in the world can file a complaint at econsumer.gov
If you are in the USA, complain to IC3.gov and www.CFTC.gov
If you are anywhere else in the world, ask your bank and police about where to complaint.
I'm asking anyone who has information about Forexoma's bank accounts to post that in this thread. I've seen a few posts scattered around Scam Alerts.
If you have any other information that can help track down the people behind Forexoma, please share it here.
Putting those all in one place will make it easier for clients to add this information to their complaints to the authorities. Work together with your fellow traders and the chances of finding the people who did this gets better.
FPA Scam Finding Against Forexoma.com
Discussion Thread for this Scam Finding
FPA Traders Court Case 1
[Original Complaint Thread for Case 1
FPA Traders Court Case 2
Original Complaint Thread for Case 2
FPA Traders Court Case 3
Original Complaint Thread for Case 3
FPA Traders Court Case 4
Original Complaint Thread for Case 4
FPA Review Page for Forexoma.com
P.S. This is an FPA Scam Finding discussion thread. I know many of you are looking for a new broker. Please do not ask for broker recommendations here. No good broker wants to be linked to Forexoma's scam. If you need a broker, click here for links you can use.
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