I’m highlighting the portion of the letter which is shocking to me. Apparently the FCA have never heard of FPA.
Thanks for contacting the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
I understand from your query that the broker
XTB Ltd (X-trade Brokers) has not returned your money in a timely fashion and are now ignoring your requests. You've also mentioned the firm
ForexPeaceArmy. I appreciate this has caused concerns so I’ve provided information below which you may find useful.
XTB Ltd (X-trade Brokers) and ForexPeaceArmy
I’ve conducted a search on the
Financial Services Register (the register) which is a public database of the firms we authorise and regulate and it also shows warning pages for unauthorised firms.
Whilst I've located a firm called
XTB Limited on our register, based on the information you've provided I'm concerned that you've been dealing with a cloned firm. A ‘
cloned firm’ is when individuals use details of a firm to suggest they work for the genuine firm. We call this a cloned firm and it is typically part of a scam.
You may wish to contact the genuine firm directly using the details on our register, as they may have further information they can provide you with. Please note that it's important to use contact details for firms from the register to ensure you're contacting the genuine firm.
Furthermore, I’ve been unable to locate a firm called ForexPeaceArmy which means they’re not authorised by us - this sounds like a scam.
If a firm is offering certain investments or financial services in the UK or if they have any affiliation to the UK, then they should be authorised by the FCA to do this. If they're not authorised then they may be operating a scam and you wouldn’t have any protections in place if anything went wrong.
Your next steps
I’m sorry to say, if you’ve dealt with a scam firm, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to get your funds back. I appreciate that this must be really difficult to hear, but if you haven’t already done so, I’d urge you to report this matter to
Action Fraud if you’re based in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, as they’re the UK’s national fraud and cyber-crime reporting centre. If you’re based in Scotland, I would suggest you report this to
Police Scotland. If you don’t reside in the UK, then I suggest you report this to your local police. Please note that the FCA is unable to assist in recovering funds that have been invested.
Furthermore, if you're based outside of the UK, you may benefit in contacting your Home State Regulator, as they may have further information they can provide you with. You can find their contact details
on this page. Please note it is important you confirm with them directly if they're the appropriate regulator for the activity this relates to.
Protecting yourself from scams
Our
Scam Smart tool has information which can help protect you from scammers. We also have information on our website about
forex trading scams which you may find useful.
Please note that if you’ve been a victim of a scam then you’re more likely to be targeted by other scammers possibly as part of a
recovery room scam. A recovery room scammer will pose as a reputable firm that will help you recover the money you've lost from a previous
Further information from you
As the regulator, whilst we don’t look into or investigate individual cases of scams we're interested in any information. Therefore, if you could provide me with the following information this would be greatly appreciated:
- How did you initially find out about XTB Ltd (X-trade Brokers) and ForexPeaceArmy?
- Do you have any other contact details for them i.e. website, contact number, email address, postal address?
- Do you know the names of any individuals that you’ve dealt with?
- What product / service / investment did they offer you?
- What were you told about the product / service / investment they offered?
- How much did you pay in total?
- Do you have the account details of where they wanted payments to be made to?
- If you have any paperwork regarding this, please send this to me.
- Were you asked to download any screensharing software such as AnyDesk?
- Do you reside in the UK? If not, in which country are you based?
Once I receive this information I will pass it on to the team who collect intelligence on firms that appear to be providing regulated financial products and services without our authorisation. Just to set expectations, we’re unable to provide feedback regarding what action is taken as a result of the information that’s shared with us. We understand that this can be frustrating but you can read more about these restrictions and why they exist
here.
How was your experience with us
Lastly, to help us improve our service, I'm interested in finding out about your experience with the Supervision Hub today. I'll send you a link to a survey and I'd appreciate it if you could take a few moments to share your feedback on the service you've received from me.
Yours sincerely
Ayobami
Supervisor / Supervision Hub
Supervision – Retail and Authorisations
12 Endeavour Square
London
E20 1JN
www.fca.org.uk
