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I am new to Forex Peace Army but have been contributing comments to 'www.sharetrader.co.nz'. The Herald reporters have also been referring some angry people to us as well. There is a group of 7 of us who are all concerned and are taking definite action against the Phoenix Forex and its directors. This may end up being a class action if there are enough of us to carry the legal costs. I am aware of at least 4 of us who have lost between $30 - $40k each.
Commerce Commission can and may be investigating this operation - according to Mark Cubitt at FMA (ex Fraud Police) - Mark.Cubitt@fma.govt.nz he is sympathetic and its best to complain to him as the guy I originally was directed to was HOPELESS! Mark told me that Comcom are empowered to charge and award damages against party's like Phoenix Forex. I have complained to both and have heard there are about 6 other parties complaining - contact at Comcom is Anneliese.Mills@comcom.govt.nz - tell her about your case and she will send you a questionnaire to complete.
After Phoenix's parent company's Restaurant Ltd investment went wrong with liquidation losses of $5m feelings are that subsidiary company Phoenix Forex and its parent company will eventually liquidate themselves as they will run out of money. You will then have to sue the directors - who that will be will be determined on who was a director when you purchased the program. If you want more information leave your email address and we will contact you.
 
We lost $30k and have spoken with several other punters who have lost similar amounts even up to $40k, and an ever growing number have complained to Commercial Affairs - Comcom - who have the power to charge, fine and award damages for activities like this. Micro trading (they were not all micro trades) without stop losses in place will which causes big blow outs. Also FMA is worth chasing as well. As shareholders of Restaurant Ltd (see weekend papers - who recently went broke owing about $5m after Phoenix stopped paying their commitments according to the papers), Phoenix Group Ventures (Kendall Twigden and David Mc Ewen) also own Phoenix FX, will not be that flush with funds. Anyone interested in discussing their options of recovery just reply to this thread.
 
How to proceed from here

Hi There ,

Yes would be very interested in pursuing this as have invested 30 k myself and pulled out of trading account with synergy when i began noticing balance plumeting. Any latest information would be much appreciated . Have emailed Anneliese.Mills@comcom.govt.nz . this evening. Awaiting reply. Would be much appreciated if you could get back and give me update or anything else i may need to know about how to proceed from here .

Thanks
 
Is OakFX a scam? Let's see...

Let’s say, hypothetically, that we wanted to write a scam forex trading tool. Something that offered 50-65% returns per annum.

Well trades are easy to make, like bets on black or red at roulette. Let's let the software pick at random. Hell, what do we know about future movements in the market anyhow? Some days you win, some days you lose, right?

Then we'll set the tool up so that it starts out by releasing its positive trades as early as it can but make it hang on to negative trades for longer. That way the impression of a more positive return would be given. It could even make a bad day into a positive day with such an approach.

If it got some really bad trades let's program it to keep them open indefinitely in fact - or as long as the margin call permitted.

Then the software would show good returns and for quite some time while the capital held out it would be positive more often than not.

When selling it to folks, we could offer a 3 month guarantee of returns when using it from the outset with a full bank balance. While the closed positive trades show up as a return and the capital outbalances the uncommitted negative trades we'd feel comfortable giving a guarantee that it would be positive for at least 3 months.

We could even offer a Gold version that would outperform the Silver variant too, but at a higher licence fee. It would do exactly the same thing of course but it would look better simply because it was permitted to work with more capital. It would see positive returns for longer too – while the negative trades built up anyway.

Eventually the earnings, which are really just the plowed under capital - a la Ponzi, would start to dry up as the capital gets locked up by loss making trades that are "stuck" in the system.

Towards the end it would inevitably start to get unstable from the chaos effect of those earlier trades escalating in their long term impact and losses would appear more often. Returns would become more volatile.

Then one day the losses look to exceed the remaining capital and the forex trading house rejects the final trade and automatically shuts down the account and crystallises the position to ensure it stays out of the red.

It would appear to work for a year or so and then self-destruct. But it would ALWAYS self-destruct. It's built in from the beginning with a half-life of around 18 months.

We'd feel pretty full of ourselves for coming up with the idea though. It’s even better than Ponzi. Each individual investor is the one that is fuelling his returns by burning their capital. You don’t need to have new investors coming in to keep paying the old ones their return. New investors get to start from scratch in fact, as the old ones are silently falling away one by one.

And what market would we pick for such a tool, I wonder? How about unsuspecting pensioners with little understanding of forex trading, P&Ls or even how to read tabular reports.

Relatives of mine went for the OakFX systems and lost their capital. I have reviewed their daily trade confirmations and the pattern of behaviour with their investment follows this model above perfectly.

Let me take the first day of trading as an example, the system reported a profit of NZ$26. It did this whilst hanging on to open trades of -$6 and margin requirements of $77. Let’s see that again, net loss for the day was in fact -$57 but the tool reported a gain of $6.

By the end of the first week after reporting a profit EVERY DAY, it was in reality down nearly $300.

After 2 years of this the entire capital was wiped out in a single day’s losses of $-33,657 leaving $10 in the account. In reality, this was just all of the old negative trades coming home to roost at once.

Mark Raymond Brewer is the mastermind beyond OakFX. He’s now left the country to start up a similar product overseas. Mark calls his new venture paymarkautotrader.com.

Really! Can’t he do better than “Pay Mark Auto Trader”? Surely that’s just too cheeky.

Mark will get his just desserts. The man who has financed his exit from the country to start this up again is still in NZ though and should be brought to account for his actions. David McEwen, the "respected investment counsellor", has put up the money for Mark to exit his bankruptcy commitments and leave NZ to start this all up again somewhere new.

David McEwen is the one who claims to have overseen this software running successfully for his clients. Really! For David McEwen not to recognise the behaviour of this software and see that false profits are being reported he would have to be monumentally incompetent.

So now we come to the real question. Is David McEwen culpable of gross incompetence or is he covering for his profiteering from a scam and, furthermore, providing support to extend that same scam to other countries now that it has been rightly shut down in NZ?

You must come to your own decision about David McEwen based on the facts.

Either way, how does it make you feel about following his advice in the future?
 
Finally joined a forum with info about these crooks!

I tried to find that scumbag and his mrs. but they'd high-tailed it! Luckily I didn't get burnt by them before even opening the account or depositing!!!
I'm yet to hear back from them or my mates who tried to find them... I know they wound up trying to keep peddling out of Ireland.
My demo trading with the broker in Sydney is going well. Hopefully I don't need an automated system by the end of my learning.
 
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