Ponzi Scheme Anybody heard of TIRN www.mytirn.com ?

[Pharaoh]

There's so much I'd like to see in terms of evidence. I'll stick to something they should have no trouble providing if they are real:

Read-only access to a live account showing at least 6 months of trading with returns toward the high end of the range they promise. Considering the amount of money they claim to have, this should show an initial balance of at least 1 million Euros.

A reasons they may give to not show this to you could be that it might give away their proprietary trading strategy. Counter that with an offer to view it from one of their computers and they get to type in the password.

Do not accept a printout of a trading statement, except as a supplement to getting to view a live account. CRECapCorp provided trading records generated as Word documents. These proved to be worth slightly less than the paper they were printed on.

If they refuse to ever display a live trading account and let you look at it for at least a few minutes, the only conclusion is that there is no live trading account. If you can look at a live trading account, check and see how much leverage they are using and what sort of risk management style is involved. If they risk 30-60% of the account per trade, they only have to be wrong a few times to not only wipe out all the profits, but also to destroy most of the initial balance. Also, be on the lookout for any sort of Martingale methods. Those can really up the success ratio - until that one big move causes a margin call.

Another thing I would want would be to see external proof that they have a business license and are registered with the correct regulators. If they have this much money under management, there is no acceptable excuse for not being able to provide you with links to licensing and regulation websites. Naturally, I'd prefer for these to be with groups like the NFA, CFTC, SEC, FSA, etc., but anything above some of the Caribbean "looter's licenses" would provide at least some reassurance. They seem to operate in the USA and Europe. Are they registered with ANY agency in those places? If not, you need to ask why a legitimate company raising millions to invest isn't properly licensed in the places they are soliciting investment funds from. The only reasons I can think of for them not to have these licenses aren't reassuring.

The names of their "great traders" who can get this level of return would be helpful. Truly great traders should have at least a some background that you can look up on google. CRE Capital Corporation had nice people, great offices, and generated good returns and a lot of trust, but never would name any of their great traders - since they had no great traders. What trading they did lost a lot of money. All those great returns were compliments of new investors joining the Ponzi. No great traders means the odds are that no successful trading is happening.

I really want to believe that there's someone out there I can place my money with and get 10, 20, even 30% per month with only moderate risk and no laws being broken. So far, experience has shown that returns like this are either accomplished through scams or else through extraordinarily high levels of risk that will wipe out all the equity fairly quickly.

 

[hcooc]

Thanks so much. I will try to get to a meeting in Orlando this Wednesday 8/19. I will corner one of the gurus after the meeting to see exactly what kind of info he will share, and will gladly share it with the forum here.
hcooc

 

[Pharaoh]

Too bad I'm tied up all day today. I'd love to go to that meeting.

I wonder what they'll say to you. Probably some excuse about not being able to access the accounts from their laptops or only the "secret" traders having access to passwords.

 

[hcooc]

OK, I went to another meeting tonight and gathered some information. Please don't shoot the messenger.
I spoke with a lot of people tonight and a lot of new people attended and asked most of the questions I wanted to ask.
1.The company is registered in Panama City. I spoke to a very outspoken woman that dug as deep as she could, then hired an investigator to check out the company. I asked if she would be willing to share the report. She declined with reason that she paid too much for the investigation to just give it away. She did offer to show me her back office to reveal the money she invested and the return she was getting, after the investigation was over. She also had all of the executives home addresses and personal info on file.
4 of 5 of the executives live in the Orlando area and have been business people and raised their families here.

2.The company now has 28000 investors with 80 mil to operate with. They have offices in Panama, Switzerland, Belize and Malaysia. They have 75 customer service employees in 12 countries of the 165 countries that they service.

3. There are 3 ways to invest in the company. Currency markets are the high risk areas, Commodities are the medium risk areas and are registered in the U.S. and deals in U.S. dollars instead of euros like the Forex market. They did say I could see a Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) from a private firm. Then you have Precious metals market with very low risk and is also registered in the U.S. Then there is Real estate investment trusts (REITS). In September, the gold will be available that will also be registered in the U.S. Gold mine is in Guam btw. You can take your money in a certificate or in gold coins.

4. The software they use took over 2 years to develop They would not or could not show me their trading account as I figured they would not, nor would I do that with my business. I did speak to some of the people that met the actual traders at the conference in Antigua. They gave them their names, phone #s and email addresses. One of the guys I spoke with spent 6 days trying to tear them down in Antigua and just couldn't find anything. He is just an everyday person that worked hard for his money. Again, I am just the messenger.

5. I also saw one of the ways they disperse money to your account. It is a Master card from Anres Technologies and can get transferred up to 20,000. Anything more than that and it has to be wire transferred to your bank. One of the people there had 73,000 transferred last month with no problems.

6. They deal in 7 forms of currency only. American dollars, Euros,Japanese yen, Pound sterling, Swiss franc, Australian dollar and Canadian dollar. Some of the initial investors went to Panama to check out the company as they wanted to see the actual setup. There were actual offices with employees, their families, and many other people from other countries. The last conference was in Antigua in July I think, and the next will be in Dominican Republic in September.

7. Their reason for not having a securities license in the U.S. is just to avoid the hassle from the banks for the pay out they are giving and the SEC.

I don't know what more to say. I am a fairly good judgment of people and the people I have met are just everyday hard working people. Some of the investors are pillars of the community. Some are entertainers, bankers, attorneys, and restaurant owners. Some are so confident that they took their churches money and invested in TIRN. I hope it's not a scam or these guys have a lot of explaining to do.

Pharaoh, I would like to hear your response to this. The only other thing I can do is to invite you to one of the meetings and let you be the judge, I see you live here in Florida so I will meet you in any location you want, Orlando, Tampa, or the others I will find out. You can only attend a meeting by invitation only so I am extending an invitation. You have a lot of followers on the forum here, so if it is legit, it would be nice if you told it like it was. I know you guys expose scammers and it seems that is the purpose of this forum. Why not let the people know if it's the real deal so we can all make some money. Let me know and I will PM you my name, phone # and e-mail addy.
hcooc

PS We could also probably listen to a conference call. They are on Tuesdays @ 9:00 PM if that would do any good. The call is from the corporate executives with projections and what they have done in the last few weeks. I have not listened to one yet.

 

[clem699]

TIRN

Well,you fill that your have done a good job because you already have good feelings for the company and again,you may have heard what you wanted to hear.I think it will be nice if Pharaoh can find time out to attend the meeting,at least to confirm your findings.

 

[Pharaoh]

My schedule is pretty tight now. When and where are these meetings?

I can think of a guy in New York who was a true pillar of the community and was trading billions of dollars at the very reasonable rate of 10% return per year. He had offices, employees with families, and all the proper licenses and registrations. He'll be out of jail in a few hundred years. When this much money is on the table, even the most upright citizen can be tempted into doing very bad things. It's up to the investor to do major due diligence. Some people had suspicions of Madoff's methods and managed to avoid losing anything to his scam. The ones who relied on his good reputation and their ability to judge his character lost it all.

If you've got the names of the traders, it's time to google them and see what you can find out. The same for the names of these pillars of the community. If they are great traders, there should be some real references to them out there, not just stuff they've posted about themselves. Keep this in mind - no bad news does not necessarily equal good news. I could start "Pharaoh's Forex Investments" tomorrow with "Tutankhamun Smith" as the chief trader and there wouldn't be anything bad about the firm or the trader on the web. If I hired a truly great trader for the company, there should be some good info about that person dating back to long before my company was created.

Selling forex investments in the USA, but considers SEC registration to be too much of a hassle? Those registrations are there to help protect investors, not for the convenience of the company. I definitely suggest you call the SEC, CFTC, and NFA to get their opinions of all of this before placing a cent with the company.

A trading method so proprietary that they can't even give you a moment's glance at a live trading account. Madoff also couldn't show any live trading and claimed to have a proprietary method. His statements were all done in a word processor. Hmmmmnn. . . . .

Can they show any real proof of live trading at all? 80 million and not one verifiable statement from a single brokerage? If not, that alone is more than enough reason to use the one guaranteed way to double your money - fold it over and put it back in your pocket.

 

[hcooc]

I will find out when the next couple of meetings are. They are usually and hour or so at 7:00 PM on Wednesdays at the Crown Plaza on Colonial dr, but I will find out for sure and let you know. I would like to see someone there that can ask the proper questions. I don't know enough about it to do so. And , they feed you.
hcooc

 

[hcooc]

seems there was a meeting Wednesday night that I didn't attend, tied up doing the work thing. The Vice President was there so I was told. Guess he answered a lot of questions for everyone. As of Sept 1st, the back office will change and have of your investment will be secured with gold. I was told you could take a certificate or gold coins or bars. I will find out more about it and post when I can. Like I say, I wasn't there so I.m just repeating what I was told. Any pitfalls here?
hcooc

 

[Pharaoh]

Having an investment secured with gold is a nice sounding concept. Then again, where is the gold stored and what proof is there that the gold:

a. truly exists
b. can be claimed by individual investors in case something goes wrong

Then again, let's say someone invests $10k with this company and the company really does run down to the local gold mine and purchase a gold bar weighing the right amount to be worth exactly $10k at the current spot price, stamps the investor's name and account number on the bar, and shoves it into a secured vault. In order to do any trading with that $10k, the company will have to use that gold bar as collateral, so the investor no longer has an unhindered claim to the gold.

The only 100% security in gold or silver is direct, physical possession of the metal by the owner of the metal. Other forms of indirect possession may or may not provide some partial security, depending on how the deal works.

Without a LOT more information about exactly how this works, it sounds a lot more like a brilliant plan to build up the confidence of potential investors without providing anything real to back it up.

 

[Stony]

By the way, don´t forget: Gold is a very volatile commodity itself, so why should one take exactly this commodity as a backup security?