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Problem CAIM - Capital Alternative Investment Management

I am having an issue with a company
Legal thread from FXIM-Markets.com

There is a post by Gerhard on page 1 of this thread. In it, he makes an accusation that the group behind CAIM is also behind FXIM-Markets. It has lead to some unusual emails coming to me.

On February 14th, this came into the main FPA email box...

Mr. Chavkerov,

Please delete immediately the content from this site in which www.fxim-markets.com is mentioned :

https://www.forexpeacearmy.com/fore...apital-alternative-investment-management.html

Our company, FX International Markets, is not related to any company in Switzerland. Our company is a registered broker/dealer in Bermuda and we are approved by the Bermuda Monetary Authority.

We give you until Tuesday, February 18th, to react to this Email. Should we not see the deletion of all www.fxim-markets.com related material/content, we are forced to charge civil and criminal charges against you and your company.

Our lawyers are EDITED in Bermuda with very good ties to EDITED from Los Angeles.

Regards,

Ron Blankfein

FX International Markets

5th Floor, 61 Church Street
Hamilton HM 12
Bermuda

Phone: +1-866-571-5550

Fax: + 1-917-210 40 10

Website: www.fxim-markets.com

Normally, I'd send back the usual email demanding that the legal threat be dropped or else I'd publish it. I had that email mostly written when I reread the email from Ron and reviewed the posts from Legal CAIM. Both had the same aggressive, demanding tone. Both bragged about lawyers that would take terrible legal vengeance.

I checked the IP address of the email message. It was the same Croatian IP used by Legal CAIM.

There were two possibilities. 1. Someone at Legal CAIM's offices was trying to stir up trouble between the FPA and FXIM to distract from CAIM's issue. 2. Ron was writing from the same place as CAIM's representative. This would be strong evidence that there is some kind of connection between the two companies.

There really have been cases of someone pretending to represent a company trying to cause problems. Before taking any action, I needed to be sure. I decided to say nothing about knowing that Ron's email and the posts by Legal CAIM originated from the same IP address. If Ron really did represent FXIM, telling him about the IP address now would give him a reason to deny writing the original email message.

I erased the message I was writing and sent this instead...

Hello Ron,

Since it is possible that someone else sent the email I am replying to and forged the headers, I am emailing to verify that it really came from you.

Regards,
Bill K.

Ron had send his original message from the FXIM sales address and CCed legal at his company. The funny thing was that the legal address bounced. I was becoming more sure that he hadn't sent the message. I wanted to be 100% sure, so sent a new message on the 18th...

Hello again Ron,

Can you please let me know if that lawsuit threat really came from your company or if it was a forgery intended to cause problems?

Without confirming where the threat came from, no action will be taken.

Regards,
Bill K.

It turns out that I was wrong. Ron decided to write back and confirm that he really had sent the original mesage...

Mr. "Bill K." ( is there a valid reason why you are hiding your family name and never indicate your business address - if there ever exists something like a valid company addres for your endeavor?),

Forex Peace Army has already been reported to the relevant regulatory agencies and prosecution agencies in the US and a couple of other countries. Civil charges have also been initiated.

We have asked you to delete all content regarding our company "IMMEDIATELY". You did not comply with this request.

The reminder of this issue will be taken care by our legal division.

Ron Blankfein
Vice President

I learned a long time ago that the more aggressive someone like this is, the more likely he expects to get his way by intimidation. I explained that I and other employees don't give family names because of threats of violence. I skipped mentioning that I also don't put my name because of crazy cyber-stalkers.

I explained that the FPA sends its full postal address out by email to our lists over a dozen times every week. I then went on to say...

You failed to respond to my inquiry, so I was under no obligation to comply. Now that you have responded, I am giving you 24 hours to permanently and irrevocably withdraw all legal threats against the FPA. Otherwise, your threat will be published in that thread you are disputing. The FPA reserves the right to further publicize your threat as detailed here...

https://www.forexpeacearmy.com/fore...nies/25458-how-fpa-handles-legal-threats.html

I look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Bill

P.S. Your threat would be a little more convincing if your legal address didn't keep bouncing. ;)

Separately, I emailed one of the partners at the law firm in Bermuda that he cited. I'd already done the same to the Swiss firm that Legal CAIM claims represents his company and got no response.

I got another hostile reply from Ron I was very surprised to get a separate reply from another lawyer at the firm in Bermuda.

Dear Bill with the unknown family name and unkown company address,

your outlet is a highly dubious company with a highly dubious owner as explained here: https://www.instaforex.com/forexpeacearmy.php . The report say that " Dmitriy Chavkerov, Felix Homogratus, Forex Bastard. He has the reputation of a fraudster with the aim to make easy money from the following machinations: blackmail of developing Forex companies, and sale of false trading signals." Interesting, how your owner is using different names to present himself in the business world. Is your name really Bill?

It seems, Mr. Bill, that you are carrying forward with your tradition of extortions. You are gving me 24 hours?

I have cc'd our legal representative at NAME OF LAW FIRM IN BERMUDA EDITED

My reply to Ron was...

Hello Ron.

Insulting me and quoting libel from the Russian scam brokerage InstaForex does nothing to help your argument. Your emails look suspiciously similar to the person who posted under the username of Legal CAIM in the forums.

I don't want any money from your company. The FPA gave back unused advertising money to InstaForex when they confiscated funds from the accounts of FPA members and failed to keep promises to provide evidence. If threatening to publish the truth of your lawsuit threat is extortion, then how would you describe your attempted legal blackmail to make me remove a post from a member?

You are the one who threw out the first deadline. You then ignored my first email when I attempted to make certain that someone wasn't impersonating your company to cause trouble for your company. Is that the sort of thing someone trying committing extortion would bother to do?

Since your lawyer was kind enough to send an email with a more civilized tone, I am giving you and LAWYER NAME OMITED an additional 24 hours from now to permanently and irrevocably withdraw your legal threat. I suggest you read the post at the link I sent.

Bill

Ron skipped replying right away, probably on the advice of his lawyer. Here's what his lawyer said...

Dear Sir,

As is mentioned in the e-mail below, our firm acts as legal counsel to FX International Markets Ltd., a company incorporated in Bermuda.

We are advised that you are in control of the website mentioned in the e-mail below.

We have reviewed the content of the website and can confirm that the statements made concerning our client are factually inaccurate. We would ask that you simply remove these posts from the website as the continued inclusion on the site could harm the reputation of our client and cause financial loss.

Please would you confirm to me by e-mail that you propose to remove the postings in question.

Kind regards

Since the lawyer was acting in a calm and rational fashion throughout the conversation, I have omitted both his name and the name of his firm. At this point, I believe he probably is not aware that Ron and Legal CAIM wrote from the same IP address in Croatia and may be the same person.

I replied...

Hello LAWYER NAME OMITED,

The FPA does not negotiate while under legal threat.

I require that you and your client both email me and state that you are permanently and irrevocably removing any legal threat against the FPA over this issue. Otherwise, I will follow standard FPA procedures as outlined in the link previously sent to Ron. Your client is already past the deadline I gave, but I will extend it to 24 hours from now as a courtesy to you.

I find it to be an interesting coincidence that your client quotes the same libel that was quoted by "Legal CAIM" in the thread. Other aspects of his writing also seem very similar. Are you 100% sure your client isn't the same person who is representing CAIM in that thread?

Best regards,
Bill

I thought extending the deadline was a very good gesture. Ron certainly never offered any similar courtesies. He didn't even bother to reply to my first message after he started the conversation with threats, demands, and deadlines.

I was putting the lawyer on the spot. If he did know that Ron was the same person or was otherwise related to Legal CAIM, admitting it would harm FXIM. If he didn't know and hadn't asked, asking Ron would put him in a bad position. He was smart enough to politely ignore my question and try to get an agreement...

Please take this e-mail as our undertaking, on behalf of this firm and our client, that we are permanently and irrevocably removing the legal threat against FPA and its employees and owners over this matter, on the condition that the postings in question are removed from your website as soon as practicable.

Good, but not nearly near good enough. I replied...

That is the same as We reserve the right to sue if you do not comply with our wishes. Your client's actions are what started this.

No negotiations or discussions regarding any possibility of removal or editing will take place unless the legal threat is permanently and irrevocably removed first.

Not just smart, but also determined. He still didn't know about the IP address information I had...

Tell me what you would like me to change in the e-mail. I thought the understanding was you would remove the postings in question. I can remove the wording “on the condition …. Etc” if this is the case.

I really admire his efforts. If I get to Bermuda, I'm going to look him up and buy him a drink. What I'm not going to do is negotiate while under legal threat. I replied and CCed Ron...

I want emails from you and you Ron. Each should state that the threat of legal action by FXIM-Markets.com over the disputed post in the FPA's forums is permanently and irrevocably withdrawn.

Regarding what Ron wrote previously...

"Forex Peace Army has already been reported to the relevant regulatory agencies and prosecution agencies in the US and a couple of other countries. Civil charges have also been initiated."

I want a listing of all agencies that have been contacted so far, the contact addresses that these reports have been sent to, and copies of everything that has been sent. I want you and Ron to send followups to those agencies along with a CC to me stating that FXIM wishes to withdraw the complaints and is now attempting to engage in civilized discussions with the FPA over the issue.

After that, I will be willing to discuss the issue to determine whether or not the post made by an FPA member is in error or not.

If it is in error, then either a notation or removal may be done, depending on the exact circumstances. If there is some sort of link between CAIM and FXIM, the post will remain and I will have to decide how best to handle an incident of a company's vice president trying to hide facts with lies, legal threats, insults, and links to libel.

I am reasonably certain that Ron was bluffing about having already filed complaints. I was wondering how he could possibly answer the question if I was correct.

The lawyer didn't reply. Instead, Ron decided to take over communications again and make things worse...

Mr. Chavkerov,

interesting that you are using the wording "insulting me" when you comment about InstaForex allegations. So, Mr. Bill K. is in fact Mr. Chavkerov. This fact alone is proof that you and your "service" are highly dubious and working in an illegal framework. We will proceed with our reports to the regulatory bodies as it seems that you are higly nervous about it. And it seems, you have good reason to be nervous.

Dear LAWYER NAME OMITTED,

I will talk to our chairman about this issue, but I think it is pretty clear what Bill K. alias Dmitir Chavkerov is trying to achieve. We give him 24 hours to delete the postings - otherwise, we will commence with further legal action.

For some reason, conspiracy theorists love to accuse everyone who defends the FPA of being Felix/Dmitri. It provides them with a simple explanation that lets them build other incorrect assumptions into a house of fiction.

Funny. Ron, who already said he'd gone off an reported me for missing one deadline, was now setting a new deadline. I was done with that game.

I sent an email in 2 parts. The first addressed to Ron and the second to his lawyer...

You seem to have a bad tendency to leap to incorrect conclusions. You insulted me personally by going on more than once about me not sharing my full name.

From your email, I would guess that you can't back up your prior claim to have already reported the FPA to agencies in more than one country.

I've already given your company one extension. I see no reason to grant a second one. The amount of time before I begin to take action is now far less than 24 hours.

The part to his lawyer asked how the lawyer would react to evidence of a relationship between Ron and Legal CAIM. I also mentioned that I personally believe that there is a good chance that they are the same person.

Throughout all of this, the legal@ addres for FXIM kept bouncing. :)

Ron emailed as I was putting this together. He's married to the idea that I'm Felix/Dmitri. If he'd bothered to do some research or to ask, he'd know that's incorrect. This is what he wrote...

"Bill K." alias "Dmitri Chavkerov",

you seem to underestimate the seriosness of the situation. Of course, we have reported this highly dubios issue to the regulatory bodies in the USA. An not only in the USA like CFTC/NFA but also to the legal bar associations. Your highly dubious websites seems to be involved in legal consulting services. As far as I recall - and I am a US cititzen - you need to be licensed for legal services.

And then, there is FSA, BAFIN, AFM, CONSOB, AFM, MAS, FSA Japan, CYSEC to name a few.

We have also contacted InstaForex in order to verify your fairytales and a couple of other regulated brokers in the US, Japan and Europe to accompany our efforts.

This is how serious companies act: they don't discuss with dubious persons.

Good luck, Mr. Chavkerov

I've decided against sending an email with my answer. Instead I'll post it here and send him a link to this thread...

Hello Ron,

Get it through your head that I am not Dmitri. I work for him and handle all questions related to forums content.

Nice to see you can look up a list of regulators. I've had pleasant conversations with investigators from several of the ones you listed and some you didn't.

Please show me where and how you think the FPA offers legal services to anyone. "Not paying traders what you owe them will result in bad reviews" falls more under ethics lessons and reputation management than legal advice.

The fact that you are working with scammers like InstaForex does not help your company's reputation.

If your company was serious, you would never have written the first email. A serious company would have let a professional like your lawyer in Bermuda open up a calm discussion to try to resolve the issue in a reasonable way. Please consider this to be in the category of reputation management advice, not legal advice.

I wonder how your lawyer will take the news that your first email came from the same IP used by Legal CAIM in the forums. I feel really bad for him. It must be very unpleasant to find himself representing someone who uses legal threats and bizarre accusations to try to force a website to remove a post made by a member.

If you try to claim that you just happened to be visiting CAIM's offices even though there is no relationship, I don't think I will believe you. Why don't you sign up for a forums account and give a convincing explanation?

Bill K.

P.S. If your lawyer asks me, I'll be happy to give him a copy of the message headers from the first email you sent.



I wonder if Ron will join the discussion here or not.
 
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Here is one example of FXIM/CAIM association. The websites are run by the same person!
http://www.whois.com/whois/fxim-markets.com
http://www.whois.com/whois/capital-alternative.ch

Also, FXIM is run by the same person who used to run CAIM

FXIM incorporated in the UK in Nov 2013. Astron Susilovic profile | free company director check
FX International Markets ? best FX Brokerage and Managed Forex Accounts

This is from 2010
https://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-27-09/s72709-28.pdf
Astron Susilovic was associated with CAIM in 2010
 
This Astron Susilovic seems amazing. I wonder how many websites he owns and how many times he's used this sort of BS legal threat to try to hide the truth about those sites.

Obviously, he wouldn't dare file a report with any US regulator. The fact that CAIM has unsatisfied NFA rulings against it means they'd want to have a long chat with him if he ever had the nerve to darken their doorway.
 
Before someone from gim-invest.com decides to jump in and claim that company is unrelated to CAIM or FXIM, check the whois:

Registrant Name: Igor Pelivan
Registrant Organization: CAIM
 
After that exchanges with Assist Moderator , I suspect there will be, for the umpteen times, a barrages of hacking activities into the FPA site to shut it down.
 
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