Account Managed to Death

Scam Investigations Committee · (#1 (**permalink**))

FPA Member Carol Day had what she thought was a great account manager. Her account with 4xMaster went from about $48,000 up to around $110,000. At this point, she was happy to pay a performance fee of just under $19,000.

Then something went terribly wrong. In 2 trading days, her account balance plunged to only about $14,000. No stop losses were used. Email requests to reduce leverage after the first day were ignored.

After this trading catastrophe, Carol attempted to contact the company to see if she could at least get her performance fee back. Just like the emails about reducing leverage, these were also ignored.

Finally, Carol complained to the FPA. Emails from both Carol and FPA Investigator Gerard were never replied to.

We are not yet ready to declare a managed accounts company to be a scam for failing to return performance fees after a huge loss. We would be tempted to declare them to be a scam for failing to even bother to speak with a trader about such an issue.

There are some issues that we do unanimously consider to be a scam in this case. Continuing to trade in an unsafe manner after the account owner asked for more caution is extremely unethical in our eyes. Having information still displayed on the company website a month after this incident declaring the maximum hypothetical intramonth drawdown is 20.4% is definitely not true advertising considering what happened to Carol's account. This makes us sincerely doubt the honesty of the performance table on the site claiming a 52.3% gain for that same month.

Under these circumstances, we feel there is no choice but to declare 4xMaster to be a scam and to blacklist that company.

Link to FPA Scam Finding

Brian Penberthy · (#2 (**permalink**))

WOW! Thank you soooooooooooooooo much for posting!

ChrisEccles · (#3 (**permalink**))

This FPA report shows just how intrinsically unsafe it is to allow another
party to "manage" your money. Addressing a market-maker or broker
through your own trading station is one thing - if you goof up, you learn,
and you can control the size of each goof. Providing the broker is above
board and regulated, the mistakes will be yours and yours alone.
-
Carol may have had neither the time, the patience, nor the necessary
character traits to become a trader herself. Who knows ? But handing
over 48k to an account management setup is a bit like giving the guy
next to you in the bar the keys to your Ferrari. He MIGHT return it in
one piece but, unless you know how good a driver he is, there is a strong
likelihood he'll stuff it into a bridge pier in under five minutes.
-
FPA do sterling service pointing up the dangers of dealing with these
people.

-
Chris

fxtender · (#4 (**permalink**))

great info, you folks are about the best I've encountered in over a year. Keep up the good work. Recently, I purchased a 'robot' that was, as usual, to do everything. After awhile I started to read 'thier' guide where I needed to decide the value and size of lots. O.K. Than when I got into huge downside I read/told something to the effect that I still needed to use my own judgements. THIS info isn't eactly standing out on 'thier' web/advertising 'stuff'???

Pharaoh · (#5 (**permalink**))

I've checked this bozo's website. His alleged returns are far to high for any sort of safe trading. My suspicion is that he only has a few clients and trades a different high-risk strategy on each. Then he reports the best results and ignores the accounts he kills.

SAMMYFX · (#6 (**permalink**))

Thanks for this info but what a terrible loss for Carol!

jephthah · (#7 (**permalink**))

its just unfortunate how innocent and hardworking traders loose their money to some unscrupulous brokers. thanks for the info.

jephthah · (#8 (**permalink**))

what a lose. thanks for the info

spinvin · (#9 (**permalink**))

Hi everyone! Nice to meet you all

)

I was about to rant the anguish im feeling about making my final choice for my broker account in the newbie area when i got the link e-mail from this post from FPA.

Well! to make a long story short im reading 100's of forums posts about wich broker to use and i always see* the using ECN brokers his the only way to avoid getting literally getting riped off by brokers using dealing desks messing with the spreads and stuff! im a nub but been doing my homeworks about forex for 1 year *including extensive manual trading courses and ect ect..

but the broker side of things freak the hell outta me , im going live with 3 accounts but wondering if the big boys here would have a suggestion for a good broker that allows scalping and micro accounts trading with EA's that one of you uses ? sorry for the big reply i might just post that in newbie area too i think,lol

just dont want to end up with a Carol situation

(

dabella · (#10 (**permalink**))

Hi all

Unfortunately I have this t-shirt… I’ve also been scammed by 4xmaster.

The short version of my story is I found the website, I request for statements.. the trader delivered different account size statements but not a single one with a lot of months of history…
I go through it with a 3k investment… he tripled-it in a month or so.. I withdraw to cover his expenses and save 1k in my bank for risk management porpoises (glad I did).
Next trading cycle started and my account went from 7k or so to 1k with 2 big losers. I received an email from him stating that he has connection problems with FXCM trading software and that as the drawdown was so big it will be impossible to recover. So, he recommend me to close my account and save the balance..
I send him emails requesting part of what I have paid in commissions to put in the account and make recovery more straight-forward… - you know, having tripled my account in a month It would have been easy for him- but no reply….
I propose to change broker and recover in oanda… no reply…
I closed my account and withdraw the remaining 1k
Was not so bad… out of 3k I loss 1k, so, -33% for me.

Cheers,
Dan.-