Hi AWCX,
Interesting to read the items you posted there, It would appear something I have commented on before is now the case, which in turn also brings one of the largest known scammers of all time into the picture. Armand Pastrana, (AKA Ding) once quoted by time magazine as "the Henry Ford of Boiler Rooms" (google that quote and you should find 2 articles still) Ding Is Filipino, and responsible for in excess of 100 boiler room scams. Rumour has it that he has gone to the extent of a sex change, quite whether that is for his own pleasure or due to the inability to travel who knows. Anyway, Ding was rumoured to be setting up fake exchanges on the account of "paper" investments being too "transparent" for the average person to google and find out if they were real. Basically, set up an exchange website, link it correctly, make it rank well in the search engines by connecting it to real sites, then, when anyone does any checking, any complaints are way too far down the list for most people to see. The punter beleives its real, until as you found, they try to get their money out.
As to what recourse there is on claimimg funds, thats a long and painful process, usually one that the local authorities just wash under the carpet and have a habit of forgetting about. Although there is a lot of cooperation between authorites in the Vitol case, the differing of law in each jurisdiction is huge, one in particular being Malaysia, the Malays have never allowed external authorities to investigate in there country prior to invitation, this usually takes months to get, by which time the offenders have packed up and moved on. All that is likely to happen with the money there is that the banks with the money are not bound by law to tell a foregin authority who opened the account, and beings as most are opend with fake documents anyway, it still becomes impossible to track. as a result, the money sits there, either frozen by the bank or the government until its forgotten about. I cannot recall a case, where a boiler room has closed, moeny been frozen, and much returned to investors. If the room is still live when raided yes, there has been money returned in some cases. It goes to show, its not so much the scammers are clever, more the authorities need to sort their act out before issuing accounts, and organize more comunication between countries in a timely fashion.
To anyone who has sbeen scammed, as much as you can in to as much press worldwide as you can and shame the authorities and the banks in to taking responsibility for their actions, and keep the pressure up. Reporting to the police is fine, but they dont care if some guy has lost 100k here and there, the opinion tends to be "Oh well" and they forget about it.
Keep it in the press, you might stand a chance, you only need one polititon to take it up.
