Boiler Room Scams

I too have been scammed by this company, very similar circumstances to yours, I would be interested in knowing if you get your money back. I have reported the circumstances to the police


Hi sfind12252: I have not yet reported APEX to the police, simply because until they fail to return my investment, no crime has been committed. Obviously, if I don't get my money back, then the police will certainly figure on the list of people to talk to. Did you find them helpful? Did they listen and seem likely to take action. Did they give you a crime number. It seems to me that if we can assemble a group of people, all reporting the same incident, then we are more likely to get some kind of proactive response from them than if we approach them individually. Which area of the UK are you in?
 
Hi csmikeb

I do not as yet have a crime no as until I am absolutely sure that I am not getting my money back then strictly speaking a crime has not been committed. The police undertook to investigate Apex informally to see if they actually exist and can be tracked down. If that is successfull then I will be making a formal statement and complaint. I agree that if we can assemble a group of people similarly affected then that will carry more weight. I am in the Edinburgh area

sfind12252
 
Hi Guys,

Sorry to put a bit of a downer in here, but from experience, having tried a number of times, going to the police sounds like a good idea, it in reality wont get you all that far under the current legislation in force in the UK, I will explain why before everyone shoots me down in flames here!

The international business and jurisdiction laws, along with cross boarder trade agreements (even though we are in Europe now) prevent several key things from happening, also, the fact of the physical time it takes to collate the information and so on to progress with cases.

Until recently, lets say investment firm A, is selling stock B to you, you are based in country C, and you send your money to bank D.
To make this clear,

Company A is based in Switzerland (finance capital of Europe for offshore)

Stock B is a company in the USA (usually Boca raton, or Delaware)

Country C is where you are. (which would be none of the other countries mentioned)

Bank D is in Hong Kong (for example)

Now first, you will find that A isn´t actually in Switzerland, they are in Thailand, Philippines, Spain, France, Czech Republic and so on.
You will find reporters or even local police (not your Police, they would have no jurisdiction there) will go there to find a service office that diverts calls for a fee, they hide behind the data protection act.
Even if your Police were to want to go there, they would need an invitation from the government to obtain jurisdiction powers of arrest and deportation.
Now, lets say you have found even the most amatuer of boiler rooms, the stock you bought is receiving the money, or, a clearing agent, that also isnt in that country, this means more government invitations, to go and find someone who isn´t there either!
Then, you persue the bank, now if enough pressure is applied, you might get the account closed, but thats it, they too can and do hide behind the data protection act.
Usually, by the time all the authorities have done this, these theiving gits have long gone.
What has changed in recent years is some governing finance bodies are now opening there doors a bit more, the cnmv for example (Spanish equivilent of the FSA) has basically said come on in, arrest who you like as long as you have some proof. This has been primairily down to the Spantel scam run by Jerome Schnyder, who was recently deported to Germany I beleive for these sorts of things.

As a point of advice, do get people together, with as much paperwork as you can, if you have cellfone records, see if anyone has an actual number that one of these people have called you from, it´s a major start, because these people are rarely where they say they are! but from experience, dont expect much from the police, they aren´t able to help you in a lot of cases, even if they wanted to. There have been cases in the past where the press have done most of the work, for example when the australian press filmed boiler room workers in night clubs in Bangkok, thats how Brinton got closed.
Befriend a reporter, get as much press as you can, you will get there quicker!
Good luck.
 
Recent Scam

http://boards.thisismoney.co.uk/tim/threadnonInd.jsp?forum=109&thread=74634&message=207846


www.ormondcommodities.com (Boiler room)

http://www.ftoborse.com/ (This is the fake exchange by all accounts)

Global ExchangesURL: http://www.ftoborse.com. Germany, Dusseldorf Stock Exchange (Rheinisch-Westfalische Borse zu Dusseldorf), Ernst-Schneider-Platz 1, Dusseldorf ...
www.sftc.hk/exchanges/ - 106k - Cached - Similar pages

The Above is from google, when you put in "ftoborse" If you go to the link displayed, ERROR404.

Below is the registration for the german "bourse", usual 1 year site job.

Address Marktstrasse 27
Address 65183
Address Wiesbaden
Address Germany
Domain
Name ftoborse.com
AdminHandle CH1198-GANDI
TechHandle CH1198-GANDI
BillingHandle CH1198-GANDI
NameServer ns1.visagehosting.com
NameServer ns2.visagehosting.com
NameServerAddress 72.21.41.132
NameServerAddress 72.21.41.133
CreatedDate 2007-03-07 03:38:20
ExpiresDate 2008-03-07 03:38:20
UpdatedDate 2007-03-07 04:36:42
Status clientTransferProhibited
AdminContact
Name Claudia Huber
Person Claudia Huber
Handle CH1198-GANDI
Address Marktstrasse 27
Address 65183
Address Wiesbaden
Address Germany
Phone +49.611374074
Email [email protected]

What is perhaps more alarming is the following registration for the "regulatory site" www.sftc.hk (which has no contact details on the site at all!)

Domain Name: SFTC.HK
Contract Version: HKDNR latest version
Registrant Contact Information:
Holder English Name (It should be the same as your legal name on your HKID card or other relevant documents): OLAF WAGNER
Holder Chinese Name:
Email: [email protected]
Domain Name Commencement Date: 15-05-2006
Country: Australia
Expiry Date: 16-05-2007
Re-registration Status: Complete
Name of Registrar: HKDNR
Account Name: HK1636392T

As usual, a 1 year registration, about to expire this month, to the very chinese sounding Mr Wagner, This site does list many exchanges, some are real, but many potentially fake and being used for the attempted verification of boiler rooms to get you to send more money down holes.
 
Apex scam

Hi csmikeb

I do not as yet have a crime no as until I am absolutely sure that I am not getting my money back then strictly speaking a crime has not been committed. The police undertook to investigate Apex informally to see if they actually exist and can be tracked down. If that is successfull then I will be making a formal statement and complaint. I agree that if we can assemble a group of people similarly affected then that will carry more weight. I am in the Edinburgh area

sfind12252

I have now come to the conclusion that the money will now not be returned and am willing to cooperate and furnish the police or any suitable entity with any evidence required
to bring these thieves to justice.I appreciate this may be of no use but if they have
any way of performing internet searches in cooperation with other police forces
as they do with child porn and the fact there are at least 3 of us who have been robbed
it may be worth it.
 
As stated before, the authorities are slowly catching on to collaborating with each other, and filling out FSA forms will help as a form of registration of complaint, speed is of the essence to catch these people though, as I said before, befriend the press, Tony Hetherington at the Mail is a good start, www.thisismoney.co.uk And also pressure the banks that you sent the money to, If they feel that their name will be bought into contention or under investigation, they are more likely to hand over details to the authorities.
 
Apex management

I have already emailed the bank in Hong Kong.
They say they cannot close or freeze accounts on 3rd party info.
Only on a court order from HK or HK police.
Fair enough but I told them to keep an eye on the account anyway
as it was being used for fraudulent activity.
 
Hi Revenge,

Good start, the response the bank gave you is of course correct and normal, and complaints by foreigners do go on record, and are reported by law to the HK police, which also gives the uk the ability to put pressure on them. the more complaints about the account you can get made, the quicker it will get shut down, the banks really dont want the possibilty of handling bad money, and the HK police in particular like to freeze accounts and ask questions later.
When you think about it, these scam merchants attack people from all angles, with info from all sources, as you can see from the post about the fake regulatory site i put on here the other day, So best way to deal with them is in the same fashion, with out a website, or banking, and a load of complaints, sure, they can start up with a new name, but eventually it just isnt cost effective, and eventually they get caught. Its sites like this, which rank well on the search engines when checking companies that help spread the word and stop people falling into these traps. Good luck with everything, any questions I can help with I will.
 
Apex management scam

I have now been in contact with the police who are collecting intelligence on this and other scams.
I would suggest in the first instance contacting them by e-mail as I have sent them details of the transactions I have done with Apex.
Officer DS132F David Robertson
[email protected]
If anyone has any further news or developments perhaps they could let me know
this will obviously be a hard nut to crack but I also have other people working on it.
 
Just found this on the Oxbridge International webiste

"NOTICE OF ATTENTION OF ALL:
OXBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL LIMITED IS NOT DOING BUSINESS IN OR FROM NEVIS IN ANY WAY AT ALL SINCE 2006.
WE HAVE CEASED ALL ACTIVITIES IN THAT JURISDICTION.
OXBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL IS NO LONGER REGISTERED IN THAT JURISDICTION.
PLEAS FEEL FREE TO CONTACT US AT OUR DETAILS ANYTIME"

i Sent them an email for someone to contact me as i want to invest an additional £20,000 on top of my current investment in ATS specialist. Lets see if they go for the carrott......
 
I have lost a lot of money with Apex Management, they are very , very good.

I have reported them to my local police who will be taking a statement from me this Saturday.

I would be very grateful for any information that anybody could share with me about these con men.
 
Hi All,

As stated before, apart from making statements, if everybody can post what they have insofar as websites, banks, bank details, names of brokers and so on and so on, it will make it harder for apex to continue, and half the battle is tracking these people down, so, if you know how to extract ip addresses form e-mails, you stand a chance of finding out where they are and so on. From experience, it takes the fraud squad a while to get enough info together to make any kind of case for an investigation, let alone an overseas investigation. Post all the detail you can here, if I am able to get more detailed info from it, I will do so and post it, many of these boiler rooms are linked in some way or another, just phoning the police and filling in a form stating "you beleive you may be a fraud victim" is a start, but no-where near enough to go even half way getting your money back. Post what you know, and track these f"·$%kers down!
 
Hi PrintMan,

Focus-aim who may well have once been Apex are still currently chasing me to invest... They are very good... the website www.focus-aim.com is referenced by the false regulatory body.. I have started a thread about them on this page...http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=10546347

and am happy to give you all the info I can printman... I last spoke to "David Wilkinson" on Monday morning and believe he may have tried to phone me on Wednesday.
let me know..i will keep an eye on this and the fool website to see if you reply.
 
Not an easy domain to find data on from the normal sources (www.raoim.org), however, after much hunting, this is what there is. See the comments below and other links.


Domain ID:D140286518-LROR
Domain Name:RAOIM.ORG
Created On:24-Feb-2007 00:22:00 UTC
Last Updated On:25-Apr-2007 03:51:48 UTC
Expiration Date:24-Feb-2008 00:22:00 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Web Commerce Communications Limited (R140-LROR)
Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:wn-r6471701051
Registrant Name:privacy Protected Domain Katz Global Domain Name Trust
Registrant Organization:Katz Global Domain Name Trust
Registrant Street1:32 Maxwell Road #03-07
Registrant Street2:c/0 raoim.org
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:SC
Registrant State/Province:SC
Registrant Postal Code:069115
Registrant Country:SG
Registrant Phone:+65.67228356
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:+65.67258021
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:[email protected]
Admin ID:wn-a6471701051
Admin Name:privacy Protected Domain Katz Global Domain Name Trust
Admin Organization:Katz Global Domain Name Trust
Admin Street1:32 Maxwell Road #03-07
Admin Street2:c/0 raoim.org
Admin Street3:
Admin City:SC
Admin State/Province:SC
Admin Postal Code:069115
Admin Country:SG
Admin Phone:+65.67228356
Admin Phone Ext.:
Admin FAX:+65.67258021
Admin FAX Ext.:
Admin Email:[email protected]
Tech ID:wn-t6471701051
Tech Name:privacy Protected Domain Katz Global Domain Name Trust
Tech Organization:Katz Global Domain Name Trust
Tech Street1:32 Maxwell Road #03-07
Tech Street2:c/0 raoim.org
Tech Street3:
Tech City:SC
Tech State/Province:SC
Tech Postal Code:069115
Tech Country:SG
Tech Phone:+65.67228356
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech FAX:+65.67258021
Tech FAX Ext.:
Tech Email:[email protected]
Name Server:NS1.HONGKONG-SERVERS.COM
Name Server:NS2.HONGKONG-SERVERS.COM

As you can see, the usual 1 year registration again, but, if you look deeper as to who "Katz Global Domain Name Trust" is, look at this forum link below,

http://www.talkgold.com/forum/r155531-.html

And then their site themselves,

http://www.katzglobal.com/hosting/anonymous-domains.html

If you look at the Katzglobal site, an interesting array of anonimity possibilities are presented, money transfer included! (quite likely in breach of the money laundering act)

Lastly though, back to raoim site, look on the search page, type in another offshore entity in the company search box. No records at all for any other banking or investment institution, barclays, abbey national, morgan stanley, and so on.

This is some clever hosting, not new, and not technically illegal, but very dodgy. The fact is, there is no such thing as an offshore regulatory board, and never has been, nor is there likely to be. It would defeat the point of offshore in the first place. Think about it, who the hell would govern it?
I hope the data supplied helps, I do read the fool from time to time, although I dont post there, it is easier i find to stick to one forum, then I dont lose track of where I am! but feel free to paste links from other boards here if they contain info you want researching.
 
On "You and Yours", BBC4 , today. It was reported that a company called "Atlantic" something was raided by British and German police.

They want to hear from anyone who has bought shares from this company.

"You and Yours" is archived and can be heard again, if anyone is interested. It is near the beginning of the programme.

Split
 
Hey greedie,

Post some detail, what you bought, the websites, banks countries, listings and so on. So many company names are similar its difficult to tell sometimes!
 
Hi Looker1 with regards to J S Knight (you can find them via google)

It is a firm trading from Grandada, cold calling, recently have been selling 'totaltrak global' which the say is in the process of being floated on the nasdaq. After investing some money in totoaltak shares they explained that a mutual fund would like to buy at list 40% of the shares for 4 times the price of the shares I bought. They said that because of some American regulation, and as the mutual fund insists on buying in chunks of 5000 at list, as a member (As I already own shares) they have to give me the option on investing the additional amount to reach 5000, and the mutual fund will be sending into the bank account I specify 4 times of that amount and the amount I invested already. Example if I bought 1000 shares for £5 they say it would float at £15 and the mutual fund agreed to buy it all for £24. So trying to rais the money for this investment seems to make sense but I am wondering if this wonderfulness in possible or am I just 'throwing good money after bad?
 
It is a firm trading from Grandada, cold calling, recently have been selling 'totaltrak global' which the say is in the process of being floated on the nasdaq. After investing some money in totoaltak shares they explained that a mutual fund would like to buy at list 40% of the shares for 4 times the price of the shares I bought. They said that because of some American regulation, and as the mutual fund insists on buying in chunks of 5000 at list, as a member (As I already own shares) they have to give me the option on investing the additional amount to reach 5000, and the mutual fund will be sending into the bank account I specify 4 times of that amount and the amount I invested already. Example if I bought 1000 shares for £5 they say it would float at £15 and the mutual fund agreed to buy it all for £24. So trying to rais the money for this investment seems to make sense but I am wondering if this wonderfulness in possible or am I just 'throwing good money after bad?

You're being spun a load of crap. Invest and you'll lose the money.

Sorry to sound so harsh but people MUST realise that doing business a) in things they don't understand and b) from people that cold call you (who are also located offshore) is a very easy way to lose money.

Why for example would a) the mutual fund by shares that are 4x the amount that they're trading at and b) more importantly why would they offer you, a stranger such a sweet deal?

Would you offer me the same deal or would you keep it either to yourself or your friends/family/top clients of the firm? That's how the fnancial markets work, the people at the bottom of the food chain (ie, you and I) NEVER get offered the great deals, in fact we tend to get sold the crap, yes, even from proper regulated firms (but they do it legally so there's little if any comeback etc).

My advice to you is simple - try first to sell the shares you've already bought because if you think about it there must be plenty of buyers from what they've told you. Then when the money is safely in your bank account you can always buy some more..........
 
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