atwoodjames.com Review

I can only agree with all the other very bitter experiences of Atwood and James.
I had dealings with them notably a Michael Kardonick, joel firestone & Marcus Mirandi.They conned me out of a considerable sum and kept trying to get more. I am glad that they have finally been caught by the authorities.Hopefully they will lock them up as they are no better than theives. The U.S should try and stamp out these banana republic countries like brazil (where no regulation allows them to steal of foriegners) from operating.

Atwood & James, is simply as scan!!!! They work out of a house, and will never invest your money and when the option out of the money they buy expire they just pocket all your money. If you have money there take it out as fast as you can because 100% sure you will lose it all!!! They should be in jail!!!!

Mansur

Atwood and James are crooks -do not touch them.They will pull you in with atale on how they can make you lots of money with futures options but have lost me a fortune in 3 deals the first one made me a little but this is all part of the scam to get you to invest more with them.The guys who I dealt with wer Marcus mirandi Michael kardonick and joel firestone The company is based in brasil (rio) so as to get around the strictter trading laws in the us and uk. They are nothing but crooks in my opinion.i could give better advise on what currencies to invest in!!

On or about 7 July I was contacted by phone by a poor English speaker from Atwood & James. I could not understand what he wanted. Later Barry Frank from A & J calledf bacvk to explain how their "weighted straddle" method of trading for a client was very safe and profitable. He e mailed me A & J customer advisory details and after some time I then sent the minimum required of

Atwood and James have been nothing but underhand, deceitful, misleading and incompetent in my experience. Being a total currency trading virgin, I was misled by a junior broker who initially tried to explain foreign currency trading to me in his pigeon English and he gave me totally the wrong impression, which no one bothered to put me straight on until the option had expired. By which time (still being under the wrong impression so was thinking that the trade was doing well) I got bullied by a total ????er (called JOEL FIRESTONE) into buying a further option as a result of their company's 'special call' (which only happens every 10 years, apparently).

I gave an instruction to sell half my options, but they then sold ALL of them costing me money, I may have 'broken even' if they had not done this.

All its information comes from Bloomberg, they don't appear to have any strategists, I only wish their 'special call' had come from Bloomberg too., Possibly the most dull and dishonest man in the world claims to be the Head Analyst - Michael Kardonick, All my trades were appaling and cost me all my money, partly through bad advice, partly through mismanagement and incompetence.

These people do not know what they are doing, they prey on those who do not know about currency trading and mislead them to get them to buy into their tin-pot tuppenny halfpenny company in Brazil with promises that are too good to be true. The truth is only discovered when it is too late..

THEY ARE INCOMPETENT COWBOYS WHO DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.

Regarding Atwood and James:

I know of three people who have had very bad experiences with Atwood and James within the last 8 months (from 10/2007). The Limited Power of Attorney form which they ask you to sign is essentially meaningless because they will and have invested money without authority from the client and have done this on 3 occasions to colleagues over the last few months. I personaly had 42k USD invested in CHF when I previously asked for the funds to be wired back to me. If I had left them in the recommended options they would have failed to hit strike price by quite some way. It also took 7 weeks from the moment of request for the funds to be wired back to me with many phone calls and subsequent excuses.

They tend not to operate as a company either so if bad advise by one employee is given then another 'analyst' will blame them personally when money is lost. This is commonplace within Atwood and once a client see's through the very tall stories the head analyst tells and pushes them for appropriate answers they can become very nasty.

I have received communications concerning their staff leaving and poaching clients, their phone lines being tapped and a dog barking noise being part of this problem and I've been told twice that 'only the hand of god could make the options a success' (July 2008) and that I should 'light a candle and pray' (March 2008). This all sounds beyond belief but I assure you this is minor compared to other problems.

Of the 6 trades I was entered into I was successful on 3 with a little gain and a lot of stress and worry with how they abused your trust. Trading with Atwood and James adds further risk to your trades which already are a risk.

I also found this article about them:
http://www.moneywise.co.uk/spending/scam-busting/article/2008/02/22/currency-trader-invites-suspicion

Atwood & James great service thats "potentially" fatal?

I'm currently trading with Atwood & James, the problem is, ive been completely unaware of the scams that go around and now im worried. Worried about how little i can find out about AJ.

I received a mail shot expecting some literature back when i sent off my details. Instead i received a phone call by someone who spent a great deal of time with me explaining how forex works. I took a step back to absorb what id learnt

I then receive a follow up call sooner than expected "nows the time, its a great opportunity, this is like taking candy from a baby" so i took the plunge.

To date the markets have swung drastically in my favour as recommended.

Call 3: "weve a scond recommendation, minimum investment $28000"

Where i may see my return this time with a small investment i feel im being groomed into larger investments as they have an idea of my financial situation. There are only a few forum comments about Atwood & James which doesnt tally with being established for nearly 30 years. Their website is over simple with not much info to gain my confidence. The fact there is concern out there is enough to raise an alarm even if it is just from the over cautious.

This is what ive found out so far:

They are NOT registered with the UK Financial Service Authority but actively seek out UK investors
They ARE registered with the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce
They are NOT listed with the National Futures Associations
They are NOT listed with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Their website was created 21st-Oct-2003 which is a good sign but doesnt necessarily mean it was active for that long. The website was last updates on Feb 2008

My question is, how do you make sure this is a legitimate broker?

Negative and Positive References:
not listed http://www.fsa.gov.uk/
dont recognise broker http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?p=1890057
recommendation http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=71037
are listed http://www.chamber.com/directory_results.asp
stinking conspiracy http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/columnists/article.html?in_article_id=425700&in_page_id=19&in_author_id=5 -
not listed - http://www.nfa.futures.org/
not listed - http://www.cftc.gov
website info - www.whois-search.com
mixed report - http://www.currencymate.com/knowledgebase/view/832/experiencewithforexforeigncurrencybrokers.html


additional useful scam info
http://www.nfa.futures.org/investor/ScamsAndSwindles/ScamsAndSwindles.pdf