I was contacted by a 'broker' in January, they said they're based in Switzerland (I'm based in the UK), and asked to invest. First they've asked for few thousand Euros, then over 5000, then when they earn some trust, after a month they are now asking for 20000 on top of it. The difference between...
Contact them and ask to withdraw your funds and close your account. If they resist, it's probably a scam, and the chances of getting your money back are slim.
did you check the FCA register before "investing"? register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_HomePage - note: I did a little due diligence on your behalf but not enough to create an answer and I'm still not sure how they are related to Sun Capital LTD
Having a broker choose binary options on your behalf sounds to me like asking a casino employee to choose whether you bet on red or black. I am not convinced that this 'service' would be a good reason to choose a foreign advisor instead of a local one that you can confirm is real. All signs here point to this being a scam. If you tripled your money based on their advice in a few weeks, why would they even need your money to trade??? Why wouldn't they make the money themselves if they had a perfect 'system' [which doesn't exist]??
"They've tripled my money in 4 weeks so far", no, they have not. Everything single thing they have told you is a pack of lies designed to extract more of your money from you. It's not your money anymore; you gave it to con men.
You say "when they gained some trust" -- from whom did they gain trust? From you? How did they do so?
@EricLippert I can download their MT4 client (MetaQuotes installer), login to their servers using MT4 and I can verify my balance/equity on the real account, so it's not based on the lies. They gained the trust in terms, that they've tripped the money balance within 4 weeks, so they know what they're doing and they're trying to prove they're not scammers, but real deal. But I can't any record of their LTD company anywhere.
@kenorb Based on your profile you're an IT engineer – surely you realize that if you download software from them and their software receives data from their own servers, they can make it show you whatever they want?
@Moyli It's not entirely their software, it's shipped by MetaQuotes. Each broker needs to pay expensive license to have their own version of the MT4 wizard (AFAIK). Their setup wizards are enough secured from the hackers, so it's almost not possible to hack it. Most of the files are enough encrypted. And having own MT4 servers is really a big deal. I'm the author of few tools aiming at reading these files, but cracking the whole wizard would be too sophisticated. Easier is just to go and rob the bank, than fake it.
And MetaQuotes also guarantees that the data coming from the scammer's server is correct and actually represents the money they've made for you? I know it's hard to accept that the money is lost but come on...
@Moyli In this cause they would have to reverse-engineer and hack the entire protocol and communication between the official client and their fake server where their server and its API is closed code. I'm not sure if that's the case.
If they can triple an investment in 4 weeks, then what are they doing contacting random foreigners? Why not just toss in 3 bucks and have half a million after a year of investing? And if they already asked for 5000, what do they need 20000 for? They can just wait a month and a half and have more than enough.
@Ethan Extra 5k they wanted for DAX market as they cost ~12k (btw. for each deposit they give 100% credit), now extra 20k for NFP in USA market to lower the risk. They need enough free margin, as they're opening the whole lots. According to them, they've over 100 clients, so 15-20% profit commission + 6% withdrawal fee from all of them (while doubling their money), it's a big profit for them at the end.
@kenorb If they can triple your money after commission in a month AFTER commissions, then they don't need your money. At that rate, if they put in just 5k of their own cash, they'd be billionaires within a year. Do not give them another dollar. This is a scam. Everything about it screams scam. Mark their emails as spam, report them to the authorities, and try to get your money back. If you really want to verify, ask for just your initial investment back. If it's really tripled, you're leaving plenty invested still, and you'll be a billionaire soon.
Even supposing that the balance in your account is legitimate, which it isn't, where did it come from? The easiest way to triple your money in four weeks is by depositing money from suckers that joined this scam later than you did: that is, a Ponzi scheme. If by some miracle you manage to withdraw that money, expect to have regulators confiscate it from you to pay back the people it was stolen from.
@EricLippert The balance and transactions are legit as per transaction history, I don't question them (also it's a live account, not demo). The balance was 8.5k, tripped to 31k in 4 weeks. If I add extra 20k, I was told I would see 120-150k in the next month.
Today would be a good day to start questioning them. You seem very eager to be taken by this scam; if you're so convinced that they're legitimate then why are you asking us if it's a scam and then ignoring everyone who says "yeah, obviously"?
That transaction history makes absolutely no sense. Someone is mucking with those numbers hard. You are "making profit" from both buying and selling. And market swings of less than $200/share is generating $10k/share in profit?
People who can magically triple any amount of money in a month wouldn't waste their time doing so for a small fee, they'd be taking out and paying off bigger and bigger loans/investments until they were trillionaires. They'd also be unicorn-riding leprechauns or something, because humans don't have magical powers.
the last germany30.m buy/sell was for a net $130.59 profit and that transaction history shows it generated $18874.76 in profit. these books are doctored
I would rather imagine that the scam is not about transactions, but about taking money from as many clients possible, then the company go bankrupt/dissolved in a year. So I'm trying to understand where is the scam.
Who cares what the mechanism of the scam is? You're not law enforcement, you don't have to prove in court that it was a scam or how it worked. Your goal here should be to think hard about how it was that you got taken, and make sure it doesn't happen again.
"Their certificate has been authorized by Let's Encrypt" I have 8 SSL certificates from Let's Encrypt, and I'm just a random nobody. You can get one yourself, for free, right now, in 2 minutes, and as an IT engineer you should already know that this means absolutely nothing about the recipient's trustworthiness in some arbitrary financial dealings.
Anyway, yeah, I stopped reading after "I was contacted by this broker in January, they said they're based in Switzerland (I'm based in the UK), and asked to invest. First they've asked for few thousand Euros" No further details necessary. Sorry to be blunt but I can't fathom why you went along with this.
@LightnessRacesinOrbit: Indeed. We can go further; the original poster notes in a comment that "most of the files are enough encrypted". I don't know what this means, but I do know that encryption and certificates are not magic pixie dust that you sprinkle on software and it makes the authors of that software trustworthy and the application secure from attack. Encryption works extremely well to solve some very narrowly defined problems.
About the certificates from Let's Encrypt: from infoworld.com, emphasis mine: "Once issued, Let's Encrypt does not monitor the certificates or take any action afterward. Even if Google later flags the domain as malicious, Let's Encrypt will not revoke certificates.". Also, remember: If a site uses HTTPS it means that you are talking to that site, and no one else can see or alter the data you exchange with them; it doesn't mean that the site is honest!.
Even if you assume they're legit there's still absolutely no reason to put more money into a system that's already generating money! At this rate it will take about two weeks for the balance to grow the extra 20k. You're on a fast track to become a millionaire, why risk the 20k just so that you can become a millionaire two weeks earlier? (Disclaimer: you're not on a fast track to become a millionaire.)
OP stated "There is one complaint on them online here, but it's not clear whether they lost money, or they're scammers." I just read the same complaint, and it's VERY clear that they are scammers.
@TheMathemagician do you need me to help you transfer that money around in a series of mutual transactions that are reversible for you but irreversible for me?
Discussion on question by kenorb: Is …
Discussion on question by kenorb: Is …