I received a call today from 03 9077 1873 claiming to be from Financials Trading Online with a pitch exactly the same as HQ Brokers. I’m not sure if H Q Brokers have pivoted to a new name or a different scammer driving this call. It’s a different scammer from H Q Brokers.
It was obviously a Filipino boiler shop, but they claimed to be located in London. The caller stuck to the script like glue. I could trade “forex, commodities, stocks like Apple and Coke and even bitcoin.” Every interruption saw him back up to the top of the paragraph and continue reading like nothing happened.
I asked how they got my details and he said:
Surfing the internet you get popups for bitcoin or forex. You’ve seen them right? Well you accidentally click on them and we have your name, email and phone number.
Now I don’t accidentally click on popups or pop-unders because my browser is locked up so tight that I never see that stuff anymore. So that’s a lie but I don’t doubt they actively remarket and retarget anyone with investing interests (hello Facebook and Google). I also think they’ve got the BitCoinTalk forum user database and other hacked forums’ user-lists and cross-referenced emails to phone numbers. Plus a bot could do Facebook phone number lookups until two weeks ago to match numbers to names.
FTO Capital’s script really focuses on confirming past trading experience. I think this is supposed to get me nodding in agreement with what they are saying as well as reinforce their expertise (?) as a trading platform. I could open an account with a deposit of $200USD. Aha! Now I see the reward the boiler-room is working for.
Their website is at FTOCapital[dot]com and they try to get you to create an account and make an opening deposit straight away.
Asking about regulatory compliance and licensing, I was quickly escalated to the Senior Account Manager Dale Davis. Dale promised me that my very own Senior Account Manager would teach me how to trade using their MetaTrader 4 platform to trade forex, commodities, stocks and even bitcoin.
But Dale is a Senior Account Manager right, why do I need another? It turns out Dale is only for onboarding new accounts. What sort of things will I learn at FTO Capital from my personal Senior Account Manager? I’d learn “How to read price and signals”. Really?!?!
By now I was bored, but I persevered for you, dear reader.
I asked Dale, If I have a trading account why would I change to FTOCapital? He says I “May want to give it a shot”, which is the most low-pressure answer I’ve ever heard in a high-pressure sales call.
Back to basics. Are they regulated, and in what jurisdictions? Dale says FTO Capital are physically located in London, operating in Australia & New Zealand for two years, South Africa longer, some Asian and some European countries too.
That didn’t answer my regulation question. Dale said Financials Trading Online are regulated in Canada, USA, France and Cyprus. And despite being located in London, FTO Capital is not regulated in the UK. In what jurisdictions is FTOCapital actually licensed? Dale said he’ll send all that info to my email address right now, put me on hold and 60 seconds later the call dropped out.
I didn’t believe any of that for a second but I wasn’t challenging anything FTO claimed on this call. Normally if I have the time to string these guys along I play hardball. Today I played coy for 19 minutes so they weren’t trying to scam someone else.
FTO Capital are listed on ASIC’s MoneySmart website. ASIC advises this company could be involved in a scam. Do not deal with this business as it is unlicensed in Australia.
The FTOCapital website mentions other company and brand names
- Nona Marketing Ltd,
- Financials Trading Online, and
- Albius Ltd.
Red Flags from the website:
- All references to companies and brands are pictures of text facilitating the easy swapping out of corporate entities and making it hard for search engines to link the context of the text.
- The privacy policy does not name the company it applies to merely (“The Company”) hereafter the “Company”,
- Terms & Conditions does not name the company or incorporation jurisdiction. It merely states The Company is a brand owned and operated by(“The Company”) incorporated in the; and it peters out there.
- Anti Money Laundering (AML) policy of for Nona Marketing Ltd with no reference to brands, subsidiaries or related entities. It is also a generic cut and paste AML that offers broad responsibilities of “the board” and “senior staff”
Addresses for this group are
- Nona Marketing Ltd Ajeltake Road, Ajeltake Island, Majuro, Republic of Marshall Islands
- Albius Ltd, 53-55 Totlben Blvd. Sophia, Bulgaria
- 4th Floor, Holden House, 57 Rathbone Place, WIT IJU, London UK
- Lincoln House 296-302 High Holborn WC1V 7JH, UK
Phone numbers
+44 208 068 2565
Share your experiences in the comments below.
Update: 13 June 2018
As police raid Israeli-operated boiler rooms in Asia and Eastern Europe, local law enforcement has yet to indict a single operative from an industry that has stolen billions. – https://www.timesofisrael.com/israelis-nabbed-in-philippines-are-tip-of-iceberg-in-alleged-fraud-gone-global/
There are international news reports that Philippine Anti-Cybercrime Group raided the offices of IBD Marketing on 6 June 2018 arresting 8 Israeli citizens and 474 Filipinos. According to Philippine police, IBD Marketing operated as a call centre on behalf FTOCapital.com. Hopefully that puts an end to this particular scam, but it seems the scourge of Israeli-citizen operated boiler rooms continues.
18 responses to “FTOCapital.com Scam”
They just called again from 03 9071 1891. I told them to remove me from their list and stop calling me. I don’t think they’ll do that. But you never know your luck.
Top effort Paul. Little doubt that FTO is a scam. I had a brief poke around on their website. The “articles” they have under “education” are laughable. Clearly constructed by somebody with minimal industry knowledge to give a veneer of respectability.
Can’t wait for these turkeys to call me, as they surely shall. I have a couple of little surprises stored up for them. To be continued…
Also, check out the many, many negative reviews of FTO capital at:
https://www.forexbrokerz.com/brokers/fto-capital-review
Unfortunately many of these are from people FTO managed to scam who have lost all their investment
Update: 13 June 2018
As police raid Israeli-operated boiler rooms in Asia and Eastern Europe, local law enforcement has yet to indict a single operative from an industry that has stolen billions. – https://www.timesofisrael.com/israelis-nabbed-in-philippines-are-tip-of-iceberg-in-alleged-fraud-gone-global/
There are international news reports that Philippine Anti-Cybercrime Group raided the offices of IBD Marketing on 6 June 2018 arresting 8 Israeli citizens and 474 Filipinos people. According to Philippine police, IBD Marketing operated as a call centre on behalf of an online trading site called FTOCapital.com. Hopefully that puts an end to this particular scam, but it seems the scourge of Israeli-citizen operated boiler rooms continues.
GMA News report on 7 June that IBD Marketing had been aided by Police and was reaping $1M USD per day http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/656020/8-israelis-474-pinoys-nabbed-in-pampanga-for-alleged-online-stock-trading-scam/story/
On 8 June they reported that Police released the Pines (not the Israelis) who were subject to further investigation. http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/regions/656159/police-release-over-400-pinoys-nabbed-for-alleged-online-stock-trading-scam
I lost a lot of money to FTO capital. I thought I would make more money with them but I ended up loosing more money. I reached out to them and they never responded. I had to reach out to a recovery expert [redacted]@consultant,com to help me recover my money and she did.
WealthEsteem edit This message is spam and a scam too.
Hi Ted
Your comment is spam, but worse it is also a scam. I’m responding to tell others that all messages like this are scams.
Legitimate recovery experts have websites not generic email addresses.
I got scammed by a bogus broker recently, it was difficult to get a withdrawal after several failed attempts. I had to hire a recovery solution company to get my funds back.
Please tell me who you hired to recover your funds. I have been scammed big time!
Please tell me who you hired to recover your funds. I have been advised that some of the recovery companies are also scammers. Thank you.
I also lost about $75,000 to an IQ option broker and 2 fake binary option website as well but I am sharing my experience here so as to enlighten and educate everyone that is losing money or has lost money to a scam including binary options, dating scams and fake ICOs.
However , I have been able to recover all the money I lost to the scammers with the help of a recovery professional and I am pleased to inform you that there is hope for everyone that has lost money to scam.
you can reach out to them here : [redacted] . recovery @ gmail . com or admin @ [redacted] . com
Wealthesteem.org edit: no email addresses allowed in comments until the legitimacy of the recovery agent is determined. Please provide more info.
yes !! most of those recovery experts are scams but i was able to get my money back with the help of certified ethical hackers .
feel free to reach out to me and i will be happy to share my story
This company is a scam company.A friend of mine fell victim to their scam, he was lucky [redacted] recovered his funds for him. Stay away from this broker at all costs to avoid getting scammed. Invest responsibly.
Wealthesteem.org edit: David please provide additional information to support your claim of a charge back company recovered funds. Lots of scammers out there.
I am open to share my experience on how i was able to recover my money from a scam binary options broker .
I lost £63,000 to FTO capital and IQ options, after months of calls and emails with no reply I finally came across an Ad on tv talking about this firm that specializes in recovery of funds from binary options and the likes.
Within 2 weeks I was able to recover my entire money and extra for damages as well.
Reach out to [redacted] @ gmail. com
Wealthesteem.org Edit: Email address removed because we get so much spam from these type of recovery companies. Why would they use gmail addresses if they were legitimate?
Sadly, I have been a victim of binary option scams, that almost ruined my life till i was able to recover some of my lost funds with the help of a company with a good reputation.Do not ever trade with TiltBinary. I am more than happy to share my story on my road to recovery with as many people that need help out there.
I read about a lot of bad and life shattering comments. I just want to implore people to be careful. There are a lot of fake brokers out there and real ones to. There are also fake recovery agents and real ones. Most are out to get your money while some are really out to help you get back on your feet. I am a living witness. You can reach me on my gmail at [redacted] or on Facebook or Quora as [redacted].
Wealthesteem.org edit: Hi Joe, please provide more information to support your claim.
Do not take any Bonus offer from your broker or your manager, do not allow your broker manager trade on your behalf. That is how they manipulate traders funds. If you need assistance with retrieving your lost fund from your broker or Your account has been manipulated by your broker manager or maybe you are having challenges with withdrawals due to your account been manipulated. Kindly get in touch with me on [redacted] and I will guide you on simple and effective steps to take in getting your entire fund back.