Apple Investment Company - Fx Calibre

[Nerdie]

FXCM treatment of the AU with FxCalibre

This post is from another site FXCM Discussion - Page 75 @ Forex Factory - (look for #1119) - regarding an AIC FxCalibre demo and what looks like the devaluation of the AU by 4 cents, if I'm reading this correctly.

I can imagine that would impact on the trader's ability to make money using this software.

:nerd:

 

[Nerdie]

Do you want to get your money back?

ASIC are investigating the Apple Investment Company FxCalibre Scam.

It looks like this scam is just one of many investment scams done by the same guys over the years, sucking investment money out of people to live it up openly on the Gold Coast and on overseas holidays.

Why are they getting away with it?

Because the regulators need a lot more complaints registered to be effective in stopping these guys.

We need to have enough people registering their complaints online now to make them understand that this is a real SCAM. They have broken the law. They are criminals.

Otherwise Apple get away with their answer to all the adverse publicity on forums by telling investors that we're just traders who lost their money on Forex trading and are trying to blame Apple.

Every time I hear that I get as mad as hell. How dare they!

Don't let these arrogant, smooth talking con artists get away with this @#^%& !!

Register your complaint now so this will be investigated properly - at last

https://www.edge.asic.gov.au/008/co...nt/t=a6897b74e6ecf14d1ee917cba7d9de38534bf96c

Applescam victims of crime need your support now.

Pass it on !!

BTW does anyone have a complete copy of the Australian Apple Investment Company website, with all the FxCalibre information, as they had it before it was reduced to three pages?

:nerd:

 

[Nerdie]

“I have received a refund from the Company and the matter has been fully resolved amicably and professionally”.

Well mate, you were just one of the lucky ones!

 

[Nerdie]

Apple PR exercise?

“I have received a refund from the Company and the matter has been fully resolved amicably and professionally”.

That's nice! Glad you had some success. :shocked:

Most of us didn't even get responses. :hissyfit:

Sounds like an Apple PR exercise to me!

They're at it again with KPI - probably the same PR advisor!

On balance compare the number of complainants with the number who have something good to say about their treatment by Apple staff. :hissyfit:

QED: The answer is obvious to me, as it is to a lot of other people on the internet sites everywhere now. :nerd:

= trying to make Apple look good and neutralise the criticism.

 

[Nerdie]

FxCalibre Software

:nerd:

December 2011 I was told that I couldn't get my refund had something to do with the software or software people. Yeah, right .... But I got curious about the software...

I've fished up some information on the Fx Calibre software.

The developers were FXCM LLC, which is part of FXCM Holdings.

Some sites show the owners of Fx Calibre software as Apple Investment Company.

I also watched what seems to be a recent video by Robert Henley on Apple Investment Company's education package.

http://article.wn.com/view/2011/06/03/Traders_Are_Too_Easily_Distracted/
Length 4:24 Date 3 June 2001
Alternatively:


It's interesting that he still seems to believe that people can be earning money trading (presumably automatically) while learning alongside an experienced trader. He makes it sound so easy and nice - still. I gather from their website they're still using FxCailbre.

Is there a difference between internet services/systems/speeds in the US and Australia?

Was FxCalibre first trialled in the US and then in Australia?

Did FXCM finance the development of Fx Calibre and then licence it to Apple Invesment Company to onsell?

Whose idea was it to bring the Fx Calibre/Apple Investment Company to Australia?

How did FXCM test the FxCalibre to get the advertised trading figures? ie what type of computer, operating system, firewall to internet gateway, ISP connection speed?

Someone had to say it: does HAARP affect Forex Trading transmissions?

I have read elsewhere that Brian Kelly was involved in some way. Beyond association and track record, plus local knowledge, I don't have more evidence to support this idea. Not that it matters: Brian is already facing $1.4 m fraud charges for investment, trading and sport arbitrage activities both here and in Melbourne from the newspaper reports.

Could someone from Apple Investment Company (or one of their fans) please explain why they were still selling their software in August 2010 when they knew it was obviously faulty and was not performing to their advertised expectations?

Tech trader question: If a trader has to use manual stop losses on automated software to prevent the robot from inhumanly spending the gains, is that really a push button, set and go to bed proposition for wealth creation?

BTW... The same Australian Financial Services Licence and Representative Licence numbers are still on the US site for Apple Investment Company....interesting....

If we asked FXCM would they give us statistics on the percentage of "winners" vs "losers" from the client accounts from the Apple Investment Company AUS site?

Furthermore, as we have to comply with privacy restrictions, would FXCM be prepared to contact all of these clients for us to give them the link to the ASIC investor complaints form - just in case the client wants to register a complaint over this matter?

After all, if the losing traders are such a small minority compared to all the AIC/FXCM/FxCalibre raving fans that wouldn't be a problem, would it?

 

[Pharaoh]

Excellent info Nerdie. Now the hard part is convincing everyone to quit complaining quietly online and to start complaining LOUDLY, both online and to ASIC.

I'd like everyone who's had a problem with this company to perform a quick thought experiment:

Imagine for a moment that you are the "desk sergeant" who goes through the complaints to hand out new cases to the "regulatory police".

If only one person complains about a company, and that complaint doesn't come with a lot of evidence, then you won't be sure if it's a real issue or just another person who likes to complain. You'll mark it as lowest priority and send it to some rookie cop who may not even know what to do about it.

On the other hand, if you get complaints from 10 different people, the complaints come with evidence, and those complaining leave followups with more evidence as they gather it, and a few more new complaints come in during the week, then you'll know there's a real issue that's affecting quite a few people. You'll turn it over to a skilled detective to have it checked out and, if necessary, shut down as quickly as possible.


So people, get your collective acts together and use all the great info that Nerdie has provided you with! Use the forums here to communicate with each other. Scour the web for other people complaining in other places and try to make contact.

Or, you can just sit there quietly, licking your wounds, and hoping that some nice regulator magically learns that there's a problem, fixes it, and send you a nice big refund check. That's exactly what the scammers want you to do, since it gives them plenty of time to scam other people and to laugh at you while spending your money.

The choice is yours.

 

[Nerdie]

Let's work together on this one

:nerd:

Thankyou, Pharoah.

I've sent through further information to ASIC based on my post above in ASIC language.

I tied it back to the other letters, submissions and complaints that I have lodged with regulators in Australia for the last few months. I tied it "forward" to further applications and claims that are sitting on someone's desk waiting for some other complaints to join them.

If anyone is feeling like putting in a complaint is useless, hopeless or not their thing for some reason (I know how that felt for me) here are some suggestions:

1. If reading and understanding the ASIC form is a problem please shoot me a message. I'm happy to fill it out for you. (PM me) If it's any help if you have problems with following the word maze on the ASIC site you're in the majority

2. If putting in a claim form makes you feel really angry or upset, I can certainly relate to that one - as you might have guessed from my posts. :hissyfit:

Being that chewed out can make it hard for me to organise my thoughts and write something that makes sense to others, especially people who don't know the history of why I feel like this. (After this long, who wouldn't??)

So I slammed it down on the computer, took a break and then organised my full on rant into something that sounded rational.

BTW if you feel ticked off by the experience put that down too: ASIC are doing a lot of work with scam victims and this is covered in their latest research papers online. It's a hot topic - they'll hear you.

Once again, I'm willing to assist you if I can.

You know trading: I'm not fast but at least I'm used to government forms. (I've got 3 inches of paper waiting to be filled out for a Government department!)

3. What if dobbing in brings negative attention to me. I worked through this one. It comes from my school days (ancient history). Time to lose it.
We're all grown ups now... sort of ... well some of the time.... :err:

Seriously, I wish I'd had someone to help me do this especially as I just wanted to forget the whole damn mess. I felt like trash as that was how Apple Investment Company were treating me, in my opinion, by ignoring me. I didn't deserve that sort of abuse - nor did you. It's rude and ignorant

BTW you never know what positives might come out of this ASIC complaint. Like Pharoah says if we all complain to ASIC en masse now AIC can't just dismiss us as a few sore losers.

We are already contributing to changes: just look at the Australian AIC website! :cute:

I'm pretty sure that the work we have done to date has reminded the regulators that just sticking a gambling warning on their home page is totally inadequate when intelligent adults like us get caught up in cleverly disguised investment scams by polished sales staff using social engineering and hypnotic language techniques. That's why our contracts are supposed to have cooling off clauses - for when the trance wears off.

The regulators know they must be seen enforcing the law. Bringing down the AIC FXCM advertising is proof in my opinion that AIC broke the law with their promotional material and they know it.

Re the indemnity clauses in contracts, PDS etc: remember they will have a hard time defending themselves against a breach of law with these flimsy efforts. In general terms it is not legal to create an instrument of law where it contains an effort to indemnify a party against the results of an illegal activity... legal speak for ignore it: it's a furphy.

Finally each one of us might be going for our individual claim against Apple Investment Company, but on the bigger scale we're working together to do our bit to change the way it's been that led to all this confusion over AFS licences etc. In taking the time to write in with all our evidence we are giving ASIC the heads up that someone had better be cleaning up Australia's financial services industry right now or there will be a Royal Commission into Financial Services rather soon. This is for the good of the country, and I certainly felt better when I'd actually put it in and saw that several people had read it.

So .... go get them in!!


PS ... has anyone heard anything more of the AIC in the US lately? Where are IC3 on this?

 

[Nerdie]

AFSL for Apple Investment Company? Can I have one too?

A Royal Commission is a major cry for help. In actuality it's also a very expensive legal media event involving a lot of time and paper. An enquiry is similar, just not as pricey, but doesn't have the hoopla and spectacular visuals. A senate enquiry might be the trick - we already pay the politicians so it might be more cost effective.

If you're wondering why there is a call for some form of enquiry into the Australian financial services sector this news item reporting on FOS can provide more data.
Push to name and shame bad banks | Herald Sun

It's not just banks - that's just to get the reader's attention - it's a list of top non-achievers from the thousands of complaints lodged with Financial Ombudsman Service. And as Choice magazine add this is only the tip of the iceberg. Until I saw what Steve posted I'd never heard of the FOS.

From the report it sounds like there are some really hard hearted financial institutions in Australia. I've had some experience with FOS and an investment company around this subject in the last few days. Surely it would be commonsense where financial hardship exists that people with investments could have the money released to them to solve the problem in the short term? Apparently commonsense needs to be enshrined in legal speak and issued by ASIC before the financial sector is willing to practice it as a mainstream thought process. So we can forget about real customer service: these guys and girls are in the grip of the firm legals and say they can't break the rules for one person. Be in the look out for more reports on this as ever increasing numbers of working poor register for financial hardship assistance from their financiers. It's a disgrace IMHO. And the law is inadequate in solving the situation. The majority of mainstream Australians have long memories and will avoid all inhumane and unethical financial institutions.

All of these complaints were against those who held either AFS licences or representative licences. The licencing system is clearly inadequate.

The case for the existing AFS licencing system is that having a driver's licence doesn't mean you won't have a crash or break the road rules. Try leasing out your driver's licence and see how well that works!

It is unlawful for a builder to rent or lend his/her builder's licence. If they are caught there are penalties in place. Seems the financial sector have quite a way to go in order to catch up with the building industry, and from our experience, that's not really a recommended industry either, although it has had a few good clean ups over the years, Royal Commission included.

ASIC, on the other hand, sanction the process by allowing representative licences. Isn't it time that the licences were harder to get, more rigorously checked, the holders vetted for prior incidents and that having a current AFSL actually did imply a high standard of ethical conduct? Or is the financial sector so riddled with borderline corruption, shored up by legal indemnity clauses and "contracts", that very few current licencees would qualify? That would be rather unpopular politically, but in the interests of the rest of us it might help us make intelligent choices and avoid the ratbags.

And finally, if you want to see how lunatic this whole AFS is check this out:
Apple | Investing Australia

it seems our friends at Apple Investment Company are back in the money - complete with their own AFSL!! Hope they've had a change of staffing in their customer service department. Maybe someone good has bought them out, complete with outstanding liabilities, including the clients they owe money to?

I couldn't find a record of it on the ASIC AFSL page....well at least we can go back to FOS and get them to investigate the scam all over again. We'd better add FXCM to that as well, as they seem to have gotten away with your trading money and having some responsibility in supplying FX Calibre software that didn't perform according to the promotional literature. Of course if Apple Investment Company, both in Australia and the US, were on their customer service and PR game they would be exonerating themselves by taking FXCM to court over their software and helping us. Clearly they don't give a fig about their traders.

Mind you, they'd better be snappy about it as there's a queue building up of other companies, action groups and individuals wanting to do the same. http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=8683962

Take a ticket and stand in line. Better bring your sleeping bag - it could be a long wait.

What were we saying in the Callaway vs AIC case about grand larceny across international boundaries?

Incidentally you might find the FXCM Gibraltar case interesting - a lot of similarities to the FXCM Apple Investment Company case.
No.?06-14270. - COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION v. GIBRALTAR MONETARY CORP INC LLC - US 11th Circuit

It seems that some are destined to repeat history even while they are still creating it the first time around.

:nerd:

 

[Nerdie]

Apple Investment Company: Scammers or Victims?

:nerd:

My primary grievance was with Apple Investment Company Pty Ltd for:

1. Failure of their salesman, Aaron East, to read, listen and agree to my request to invest money with their MDA program.

2. As representative of AIC his insistence that I spend 6 months acquiring forex training and live trading prior to my being allowed to invest with them, an impossible quest as I did not have access to a suitable ISP.

3. His acceptance of my payment and continuing reference to the MDA "carrot" to get me to participate in activation of my software and FXCM account despite his agreement that I couldn't trade thus couldn't qualify for MDA.

4. The inducement to trading or gambling as provided through the compelling of all trainees to set up a live account before having access to the non-live trading platform in what purported to be an forex training.

5. The absolute failure of AIC to inspire me to learn forex from them and their total failure to deliver a training manual or other recognisable training efforts, including their refusal to allow me to observe the setting up and operation of the trading platform despite my request to do this at their offices. This was not a competent training business and I did not receive what I paid for. As such and as a dissatisfied client it was fair and reasonable for me to request and expect a refund as is considered normal practice in contemporary Australian business practice.

6. The refusal of AIC staff to reply to my emails and faxes requesting a refund from that time onward, behaviour that I experienced as abusive, manipulative and psychologically damaging.

7. The only successful contact I had with AIC staff after this was a three way phone conference where I learned that it was because of the software people or problems that I was unable to get a refund.

8. Subsequent efforts to obtain my refund or further explanations by email and fax, both general and addressed to specific people at AIC both in Australia and the US have been met with further silence.

This treatment is completely unacceptable to me.

After studying all the evidence, and as confirmed by the PDS, I believe the following stakeholders stood to gain from both the investment (MDA) and the Fx Calibre sales,training and trading:

Apple Investment Company Pty Ltd (Australia)
- Software sales, rebates on each trade placed with FXCM, management fees from MDA, coaching & educational fees; also possible kickbacks from computer sales and high speed ISP referrals

Apple Investment Company Ltd (US)
- Software sales and other prorata licencing arrangements for software development and training courses as parent company

Mark Power Financial Pty Ltd
- Leasing of AFSL to representative; rebates on trades and possibly other financial activities

FXCM (Forex Capital Markets)
- percentage from each trade placed, receipts and profits from losing trades, licencing arrangements as software developers

Owing to the differences between each trader's experience in this venture there are too many unknowns to be able to estimate the amount of money involved in this matter.

I have many questions that I would like answers to at this time as regards due diligence, the competency and supervision of the AFSL representative company (AIC), the failure of regulators to adequately warn the public about this product specifically, what "irregularities" prompted Mark Power to stop the leasing of his AFSL to AIC, what modifications were made to create Fx Calibre AUS and why, and so on.

As to who was "behind" this venture: the evidence points to FXCM as the developers of the original Fx Calibre software for automated trading who would have overstated trading figures and other features to entice buyers. AIC US saw an opportunity to hard sell forex trading software by misrepresenting the products capabilities to a naive Australian market, using an AFSL to imply credibility as an investment product when in fact automated forex software was regarded as gambling by the ACCC. From the marketing, disrespectful sales techniques, contracts and indemnity clauses followed by the poor to non-existent after sales service and refusal to give refunds, this does look a lot like the work of experienced scammers.

FXCM are further implicated by the failure of traders who used the prescribed settings to come anywhere close to the promoted figures and indeed to lose all their money to FXCM. I have only read of two successful traders using FXCalibre from AIC. Maybe there are more somewhere.

Past and current court cases against FXCM suggest there may be more to the trading losses.

Is it possible that AIC believed that what they were selling should actually produce the trading figures in the US AIC promotional literature, obtained from FXCM? Were they also "set up" by FXCM to market and sell software designed to generate as much income for FXCM as possible - and more - through the subtle manipulation of trades? Did FXCM instruct AIC that losses were the trader's fault and condemn them to suffer in silence while all around them pointed the finger and hurled abuse at AIC in Australia?

As I have no experience of live trading using FXCM my views are based on all my own reading of the experiences of others. There are so many unanswered questions.

In the Australian context it is clear that our regulators failed to protect consumers adequately from this kind of situation occurring in the first place and the onus is on us, as consumers, to thoroughly inform ourselves from reliable sources before choosing to hand our money to anyone. It is our responsibility, as is warning others and giving the regulators - FOS, OFT, ACCC and ASIC - our formal complaints asap and our feedback when we believe they have failed in what we perceive as their duty of care. In future we must act more promptly when we suspect the actions of a company or individual. As it stands we are often on our own and as always expected to accept that we are legally responsible for our own actions. Action is needed now to bring this matter to light, and to a conclusion.

Where do we go from here?

 

[Pharaoh]

Nerdie, did you notice it's possible to leave comments on that article at InvestingAustralia?

Apple Investment Company receive AFSL | Investing Australia

Perhaps a short form of your grievances, plus a link back to this thread?

Anyone else who has an issue with Apple Investment Co might also want to post there.