Multiple ethical issues with three related companies

2009-01-26 UPDATE

This issue has been successfully resolved.

Discussion Thread for Resolution

Official Resolution Finding



This is a joint statement of the FPA Review Moderation Team and the FPA Scam Investigations Committee.


Two of the FPA's definitions of scam are "Serious deception in the company's advertising." and "Other behavior that would be considered to be highly unethical by a reasonable individual." Read this and see how many incidents of deception and unethical behavior you can find.


On 2008-05-07, Brian Johnston emailed the FPA and threatened to bring in his lawyer if we did not take down a review on the InterbankGroup.com review page that linked InterbankGroup.com to InterbankUSA.com. Writing on behalf of Interbank USA, he complained about a review that stated that there was a relationship between these two companies.

This is the text of the disputed review...
"I was able to do some research on these "experienced traders". I would file any complaints since they are registered under interbank usa on the nfa website. They don't have a team of traders and they always lose money. They make money when you lose. STAY AWAY FROM THESE CROOKS! Hope this helps anyone who fell for their lies."

Since there was an implied lawsuit threat, we felt obligated to have one of our investigators take a closer look at the situation. It only took a few minutes for him to find a lot of links between these supposedly unrelated companies.

Interbank USA's domain registration listed Brian Johnston as the admin and technical contact and his email address as info@[B]interbankgroup[B].com. Both companies are at the same address and have adjacent phone numbers. When asked about this on 2008-05-07, Brian said they were 2 separate and unrelated corporations. The FPA Review Moderation Team send a 2nd email to Brian telling him that he would need to provide further clarification of the relationship between the 2 companies in order to decide about removing the review. There was no response. Later the same day, InterbankUSA.com's DNS record was modified and is now listed with DomainsByProxy.com contacts.

Next, we got 5 star review for FX Trading submitted on 2008-05-07 from the same IP address that Brian's threat of legal action came from. This review claimed to be from a person in Kansas City, even though the review originated in Norwood, MA. Norwood is the home of all 3 of these companies. We then asked our investigator to spend 20 minutes doing some more research and he did not disappoint us.

FXTrading.com lists Brian Johnston (bjohnston@fxtrading.com) as its domain contact as of 2008-05-08.

All three companies list 1200 Providence Hwy, Norwood, MA 02062 as one of their addresses. The phone numbers 781-440-0092 or 0093 are listed as one of the contact numbers for all 3 companies.

As if all of this was not bad enough, FX Trading's website claims...
"Our clearing firm, Worldwide Clearing, LLC.is a licensed and registered Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)."

Worldwide Clearing is registered with the NFA, but had its membership withdrawn on 2006-08-31 and has 3 CFTC regulatory actions listed. This is all visible here.
NFA Basic Details for Worldwide Clearing
As far as we can tell, Wordwide Clearing seems to be out of business.

FX Trading also appears to be a former NFA member.
NFA Basic Details for FX Trading



As far as Interbank Group's experienced traders, there is an advertisement on Craig's List that is worth reading. We have made the most interesting parts bold.

"Investment Sales Brokers Wanted – No experience Necessary (norwood)
Reply to: resume@[B]interbankgroup[/B].com
Date: 2008-04-22, 8:10PM EDT

How would you like to work in the largest financial market in the world? The Forex (Foreign Exchange) Market trades approximately $2 trillion dollars a day. At Interbank Group you will develop the necessary sales tools to promote our services and build a portfolio of sophisticated investors.

We are searching for a few motivated sales individuals that possess excellent communication/telephone skills. You will be in charge of closing accounts of individuals who signed up for a fresh demo account with our firm. www.[B]interbankgroup[/B].com and www.[B]fxtrading[/B].com. If you feel you have the ability to "close", and are not afraid of the phone please apply.

Weak brokers usually make $50,000, while the committed brokers make generally $100,000 to 350,000 per year. Recent College Grads accepted!

please email your resume to resume@interbankgroup.com or fax to 1-617-848-0159 or CALL Brian Johnston @ 781-440-0092 x101.

Mortgage Brokers Wanted – We have hired a mortgage broker recently and he is turning out to be one of our best hires. If you were or are a mortgage broker please apply I feel you find this position very similar and lucrative.

Interbank Group
1200 Providence Hwy
Norwood, MA 02062
www.interbankgroup.com

Will train the right person!!! No experience necessary!!! Money Motivated people please apply."

We are not sure which of these we find to be the worst. The choices are

The threat to bring in a lawyer over a review, in spite of obvious relationships between these companies.
The speed at which Brian altered the DNS records of one of these supposedly unrelated companies to make it harder for others to find the relationships between them.
A fake 5 star review for a 3rd company that Brian is involved with, FX Trading, submitted just after the first two companies came to our attention.
FX Trading bragging about its NFA registered clearing firm that has not been an active member of the NFA for some time.
"Weak brokers" usually making $50k per year. Remember, no experience necessary!!!

 

Tested it and here is my findings

Great investigation fellows! You sure uncover all the dirt and lies.

This is so unfortunate for our industry though, but with time, most of the scammers I believe will be more regulated by the NFA and they will seek different scams.

Some people I talk with are associating Forex trader brokers with cheap car salesman and gamblers. Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with those professions, but it is a negative association to our industry.

Searching DNS records... Very nice touch!

 

Scammers that need the snip...

Trading is very hard work mentally and physically exhausting... These scammers/thieves should be castrated. They are nothing more then leeches and a curse to the real traders of this beautiful profession. All traders should try to be alert to their scams... Thank you for this site.

YellowCab

 

FPA - 4 Life!!!

Felix, you've got the WHOLE AFRICAN and NIGERIAN battalion of forex traders strongly behinde you in this noble objective of fighting scammers out of this business of ours!!

Its very obvious that Brain is truely unashamed of himself and his employers. With the level of facts and evidence against his claims, what more does he need to be told?

Commarades, the battle line is drawn......lets take our positions....get your arsenals ready for defence of truth and justice....this is what FOREX PEACE ARMY stands for!!!

No retreat, no surrender!!


(Jahswill- Lagos, Nigeria)

 

Come ooon

Come ooon guys, actually I deal the cross of EUR/AUSD. I got the right moves from here.

Just go go go thanx,

Shaggy

 

It Unfortunate

Its really unfortunate that people would go to this extend in propagating deceit and dishonesty. Please keep up this good investigating work and lets kick scammers out of biz.

 

Obviously, this scam complaint has been confirmed by the Scam Investigations Committee of the Forex Peace Army.

The official scam finding is here...
http://www.forexpeacearmy.com/forex...291-interbankgroup-interbankusa-fxtrader.html

 

Great Job guys! Helping to make the trading community safer for everyone.

 

Scams???

Just six months active in this industry and I've spent AS MUCH time weeding out 'trading styles' brokers subscribe too, 'slippage', and don't forget the overprice EA's out there! THANK THE HUMAN SPIRIT for Felix AND the Forex Peace Army!!!

P.S. Ohhhhh, why do you think so many forces don't want felix and the secret weapon amongst the commoners? because it's hard to twist, turn, and beat an up front method of honesty!

 

scams???

I further investigated the websites. Has anyone looked at their account documents? Click on open an account at either interbankgroup.com or fxtrading.com. They are using a Nassau Bahamas company as their clearing firm!

Who wants to bet that they own the Bahamas company as well as these 3 other companies.

My guess is they are using the registered company so they can tell people they are series 3 brokers and members of the nfa. Then they open the accts through another company and money is sent to their company in the bahamas so they can keep the money after the clients lose.

Thank God for FPA! These people should be put in jail!