Boiler Room Scams

[Gold31]

Here's a failsafe rule for you all to use -

Never send money to pay for investments to a bank that's NOT located here in the UK. Also, make sure the company name matches the bank account. For example, if you buy shares through the ABC Investment Firm only pay money to an account headed 'Abc Investment firm' (here in the UK) and not 'XYZ Productions' in Hong Kong.

Yes, you'll be told all sorts of reasons (lies) why the money needs to be paid offshore and why the name on the account does not match the 'broker' but you're dealing with crooks who only want to steal your cash.

Just common sense really but if anyone thinks it's not then why are you getting involved in things you don't understand.....

Fair point Anley !
As you know many potential investors are approached with the 'trick' of offer of a 'FREE
REPORT' on a share held and being naieve one covets something being offered 'FREE' .
Of course the freepost reply includes request for a phone number and that's where
the 'FUN' starts ! Shortly one is bombarded with offer to increase investment in writing
by 100%to 300% within 3 years. In the climate when I got SCAMMED one could find stock
that could increase by that amount. There was of course also the 'grooming' by those
smarmy smart asses who would remind you that you were 'missing the boat' . However,
I had a hunch that the guys I now consider gangsters were not 'straight' yet I did take
them in good faith , but obviously that is not one of their qualities ! So YES a moderate
loss was sustained - very moderate in comparison to some in our group of 17 who's
total loss was circa $1m !. Having followed the characters around the globe we see
that all of them have been fingered by some of the Financial Regulators so eventually
with perseverence , though we may not see our money we will have contributed to
the indictment of the criminals and maybe protected so other potential victim.

 

[EyesWideShut]

i think this is a new one, Hoffman Stanley in zurich, a guy called Walter Hayes, offering shares in a gold mining company called selva resources at $1.50, will sell at $10 in one year, aye that'll be it then,,,,,,

I was contacted today by a chap called Charles something from Hoffman & Stanley in Zurich (tel. no. 0444444444). He had got my tel. no. from the mailing list of clients of Mansion House (an FSA regulated, London company that used to push unlisted shares until they were shut down by FSA and since gone into liquidation, liquidator sold client list). Charles was saying that their company might be able to buy shares from clients in some of these unlisted companies. They want people to register with them and buy American shares from them. Mentioned Selva or it might have been Salva. I note that Hoffman & Stanley are on FSA website for unauthorised overseas firms operating in UK: http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/Regulated/Law/Alerts/overseas.shtml
I assume sensible thing to do is not part with any money in connection with Hoffman & Stanley as American shares will prove to be worthless or untradeable.

 

[pboyles]

I was contacted today by a chap called Charles something from Hoffman & Stanley in Zurich (tel. no. 0444444444). He had got my tel. no. from the mailing list of clients of Mansion House (an FSA regulated, London company that used to push unlisted shares until they were shut down by FSA and since gone into liquidation, liquidator sold client list). Charles was saying that their company might be able to buy shares from clients in some of these unlisted companies. They want people to register with them and buy American shares from them. Mentioned Selva or it might have been Salva. I note that Hoffman & Stanley are on FSA website for unauthorised overseas firms operating in UK: http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/Regulated/Law/Alerts/overseas.shtml
I assume sensible thing to do is not part with any money in connection with Hoffman & Stanley as American shares will prove to be worthless or untradeable.

You are spot on, Hoffman Stanley are a boiler room scam, they have been around a while, I cant recall when their name first came up but they are out to steal your money, dont send them a penny.

 

[pboyles]

Actually they are on this thread, the 'stock' they were pushing was Selva Resources. All part of a depressingly familiar scam.

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/brokerages/14154-boiler-room-scams-212.html

 

[pboyles]

I haven't replied to the answers I received regarding BioDefense Corp. as I'm waiting to see what transpires at end March! Then it will be my turn to eat humble pie.If not ,then you can. Regards Terry

End of March has long passed and we are now at the end of April. I wonder how long it will be until the people that have been taken in by this scam will realise they've been had.

 

[anley]

End of March has long passed and we are now at the end of April. I wonder how long it will be until the people that have been taken in by this scam will realise they've been had.

Of course nothing will have happened but I have a sneaky feeling there will be 'some news'.

And what will that be?

Same as the 'news' for the last few years, ie 'hold on everyone, we're working on something big and it looks very promising. We will keep you updated....'

My translation of the above - there's nothing happening, the company is still a shell with little or no assets but we have to keep promising something so as to keep the scam going.

Bbrains. Please don't let your company lawyers see this, I don't want to get sued

 

[MicNotScamed]

Hi Everyone
Very Happy to have checked google for ftaz scam as it bought me to you, were I have now read about the fake authenticating company.
I was for the last 3 days hassled by a guy who calls himself
Aaron Timmerman of Ferrier Partners based in Switzerland
who nearly had my $5000.00 but thanx to your forum im still the master of my fate. Keep an eye out for this guy he's very persuasive everything he says sounds like the real deal and yeah I recon he may be telling the truth about the gold options but I wont ever do anything again with an off shore person.
I asked him to authenticate himself just before coming onto your forum (a simple request I thought) just get onto Skype and lets talk face to face and then scan your drivers licence and email it to me. He couldnt do it bcoz it would break all these fair trading practices and he could lose his job. Now my problem will be that he has some of my details which I will never get back and by now are probably going worldwide but I will keep and eye out for these scammers in the future.
Cheers to you all
Here is the first time that I have found anything about
www.Ferrierpartners.com
on the net and I hope the next person who does a google search will find this forum and too be saved from losing thier hard eraned cash to a scam.

 

[pboyles]

Hi Everyone
Very Happy to have checked google for ftaz scam as it bought me to you, were I have now read about the fake authenticating company.
I was for the last 3 days hassled by a guy who calls himself
Aaron Timmerman of Ferrier Partners based in Switzerland
who nearly had my $5000.00 but thanx to your forum im still the master of my fate. Keep an eye out for this guy he's very persuasive everything he says sounds like the real deal and yeah I recon he may be telling the truth about the gold options but I wont ever do anything again with an off shore person.
I asked him to authenticate himself just before coming onto your forum (a simple request I thought) just get onto Skype and lets talk face to face and then scan your drivers licence and email it to me. He couldnt do it bcoz it would break all these fair trading practices and he could lose his job. Now my problem will be that he has some of my details which I will never get back and by now are probably going worldwide but I will keep and eye out for these scammers in the future.
Cheers to you all
Here is the first time that I have found anything about
www.Ferrierpartners.com
on the net and I hope the next person who does a google search will find this forum and too be saved from losing thier hard eraned cash to a scam.

Well done for not getting scammed, given the fact that you didnt fall for it you may find that you never hear from a boiler room scam again. In any case you now know that anyone who cold calls you selling shares (or anything else) is a scammer so you are at no risk of falling for it.

Just to confirm, did the boiler room scam refer you to the Futures Trading Authority of Zurich as their 'regulatory body'. My guess is that's what you are referring to when you say ftaz.

ps It seems they call themselves Ferrier and Partners, according to the website.

 

[pboyles]

Its probably been mentioned already but there is also a fake Futures Trading Authority of London, same scam as the Zurich version. www.ftal.org

 

[javert]

MICNOTSCAMED: Please report this on-line to the proper authorities. Not sure what country your in but in the US we have a site to report this type of scam to the Securities & Exchange Commission. Often times if they get enough complaints about a particular company they'll issue an alert on their site.

Also, don't know exactly how much personal information you gave him but it might not be a bad Idea to file a police report in your local jurisdiction if some of it was that sensitive. This way you'll have something on file should an identity theft case concerning your info. come about in the future.

 

[MicNotScamed]

Thanx for your replies
Just a quick bit of background on it.
He first contacted me a year ago said he got me off a list which was probably from someone like Forex (dont know how true it is but I did do alot of signing up with sites like that).
I told him my cash was tied up in a business purchase I was making and he left it at that.

Hence when he contacted me this time he had history with me as he must have written everything down we spoke of on the fone back then, since he recalled everything that was happening back then.

He sounded like the real deal I could hear other people in the background calling out as stocks were supposively being traded.
I did fill in an application form which gave him my residential and postal addresses, fax, landline, mobile numbers and email address. Stuff which is pretty easy to get I recon if ya wanted it anyway, so Im not really worried about the id theft part. He then assigned me an ID and password so I could log in to my account on ferriers then showed me around the trading platform (by now I was nearly hook line and sinker).

I got an email from a third party based in Honk Kong, a clearing member called Holy Traders (obviously another scam company) who set up an account for me. I asked questions and needed to authenticate this new business so he had me check the registry on www.ftaz.org where I found all supposively legit info (same place I was told to check out his company ferrier and partners).

Everything was going on he was talking to me on the fone trying now to get me to wire the funds accross to the clearing member and my left hand was typing in google search. I then discovered this forum and bloodly glad I did another couple minutes and I would have been a sucker.

Should have heard him splutter when I mentioned the find I had here, how he then try to downgrade how much I needed to put in and that he was going to his manager to findout exactly what has happened with ftaz.

Phew that was close.. 5 more calls later in the next 30mins and he hasnt rang me back anymore (trying to get that one last ditched effort in I spose) but I wasnt going to answer.

Just wish there was more ways to bring up hits on scammers like this guy?
I spose they setup a fresh website over night nearly so its always an ongoing job
to keep on top of them. Mighty Glad you guys are hear and I hope you stay ontop of the google searches so others can read and save themselves too.

Finally I did report him to ACCC and Scamwatch.com.au but will now also report him to ASX however from what I was hearing from the first 2 governing bodies is they really cant do much about it as it happened overseas not in Australia. Stupid I think??

Thanx alot to the administrators and the members of this site wish you all the best in your futures.

 

[MicNotScamed]

Just quickly I should have also done a search on whois.com would have seen that these sites have only been around since 17/jan/2010. So others should keep that in mind too.
If its too good to be true IT IS remember that.

 

[anley]

Mic

He was bull****ting to you about the Gold options.

If you had deposited money with him, he wouldn't have traded any options but would tell you he had, and they would appear on a fake statememnt.

And guess what?

The options would have made you money!

Then he would recomend another trade and yes, that one would make money as well.

You'd then be pressured to depositing more money and going for it big time. But of course ALL the money would be stolen.

But what if you'd tried to withdraw some or all of the first trades profit? All sorts of excuses why you couldn't (there is no profit remember).

Well done anyway and it proves what I and others have been saying for years -

DO YOU OWN RESEARCH INTO WHO YOU'RE DEALING WITH - IT'S NOT HARD.....

 

[pboyles]

Mic,

Do you anything more on Holy Traders? You mentioned them briefly but do you have a website or more details for them? As they are part of the scam the more we post about them the better.

 

[anley]

Futures Trading Authority of Zurich

www.ftaz.org

Is a FAKE regulator.

Any 'broker' (offshore scammer) that points you towards them is setting you up to steal your money.

USE THIS BOARD TO ASK ANY QUESTIONS - WE WILL HELP YOU SPOT THE SCAMMERS.

 

[anley]

The Futures Trading Authority of London

www.ftal.org

Is a FAKE regulator.

Any 'broker' (offshore scammer) that points you towards them is setting you up to steal your money.

USE THIS BOARD TO ASK ANY QUESTIONS - WE WILL HELP YOU SPOT THE SCAMMERS.

 

[anley]

I just wanted to get those 2 posts in as Google will pick them up within a few days and hopefully some people will have the nouce to Google and check who they're dealing with.

 

[javert]

Thanx for your replies
Just a quick bit of background on it.
He first contacted me a year ago said he got me off a list which was probably from someone like Forex (dont know how true it is but I did do alot of signing up with sites like that).
I told him my cash was tied up in a business purchase I was making and he left it at that.

Hence when he contacted me this time he had history with me as he must have written everything down we spoke of on the fone back then, since he recalled everything that was happening back then.

He sounded like the real deal I could hear other people in the background calling out as stocks were supposively being traded.
I did fill in an application form which gave him my residential and postal addresses, fax, landline, mobile numbers and email address. Stuff which is pretty easy to get I recon if ya wanted it anyway, so Im not really worried about the id theft part. He then assigned me an ID and password so I could log in to my account on ferriers then showed me around the trading platform (by now I was nearly hook line and sinker).

I got an email from a third party based in Honk Kong, a clearing member called Holy Traders (obviously another scam company) who set up an account for me. I asked questions and needed to authenticate this new business so he had me check the registry on www.ftaz.org where I found all supposively legit info (same place I was told to check out his company ferrier and partners).

Everything was going on he was talking to me on the fone trying now to get me to wire the funds accross to the clearing member and my left hand was typing in google search. I then discovered this forum and bloodly glad I did another couple minutes and I would have been a sucker.

Should have heard him splutter when I mentioned the find I had here, how he then try to downgrade how much I needed to put in and that he was going to his manager to findout exactly what has happened with ftaz.

Phew that was close.. 5 more calls later in the next 30mins and he hasnt rang me back anymore (trying to get that one last ditched effort in I spose) but I wasnt going to answer.

Just wish there was more ways to bring up hits on scammers like this guy?
I spose they setup a fresh website over night nearly so its always an ongoing job
to keep on top of them. Mighty Glad you guys are hear and I hope you stay ontop of the google searches so others can read and save themselves too.

Finally I did report him to ACCC and Scamwatch.com.au but will now also report him to ASX however from what I was hearing from the first 2 governing bodies is they really cant do much about it as it happened overseas not in Australia. Stupid I think??

Thanx alot to the administrators and the members of this site wish you all the best in your futures.

Again: Just thrilled that these animals didn't get any of your money. Part of the problem in trying to catch them is finding out where they are actually located. They'll tell you China, Bulgaria or maybe even the Caymans. You'll see it on their web-sites, their paperwork sent to you etc. But the fact is they could be anywhere in the world just bouncing their calls through forwarding services (dating services are often used), and other means. Temporary p/o boxes rented under false names, the whole 9 yards. These people are very skilled (as you wrote " background calling out stocks ", taped or rehearsed and timed as they call. At any minute there could be potentially a dozen scams being operated under a dozen names at the same location. WHAT YOU AND OTHERS HAVE DONE IS CORRECT IN FINDING OUT WHEN THE DOMAIN NAMES WERE REGISTERED. A simple safeguard. Ask the caller how long they've been in business and then check the domain registrations of any company they mention. 99.9% of the time a new registration means fraud.
BOL- in any future trading activities.

 

[anley]

Javert

Yes, you're right and we've long been highlighting the importance of the domain registration.

Check on this link everyone -

http://whois.domaintools.com/

Anything less than 3 years is a MASSIVE RED LIGHT, and less than 1 year there's a 99% chance of your money being stolen.

And if anyone wants to get technical another thing they can't fake is legitimate back links to their sites. For example, a proper brokerage company should have many links to their site from all sorts of other legit sites. But a scammers site can only have 1 of 2 things -

1. No links, or very few, and/or
2. Many links but none of them from proper websites so the links will all be from directory sites or press release sites, ie easy to get.

RESEARCH IS THE ONLY WAY FORWARD SO THE INTERNET (including this board) IS YOUR BEST FRIEND.

PS. What's the update on BioDiesel? We haven't heard from BigBrains recently nor have I had a letter from their lawyers

 

[javert]

Javert

Yes, you're right and we've long been highlighting the importance of the domain registration.

Check on this link everyone -

http://whois.domaintools.com/

Anything less than 3 years is a MASSIVE RED LIGHT, and less than 1 year there's a 99% chance of your money being stolen.

And if anyone wants to get technical another thing they can't fake is legitimate back links to their sites. For example, a proper brokerage company should have many links to their site from all sorts of other legit sites. But a scammers site can only have 1 of 2 things -

1. No links, or very few, and/or
2. Many links but none of them from proper websites so the links will all be from directory sites or press release sites, ie easy to get.

RESEARCH IS THE ONLY WAY FORWARD SO THE INTERNET (including this board) IS YOUR BEST FRIEND.

PS. What's the update on BioDiesel? We haven't heard from BigBrains recently nor have I had a letter from their lawyers

ANLEY: Thank you for your response and posting of the Domaintools site. I'm rather new to the board so I'm not yet familiar with many members or everything this board has to offer.
Glad to see there are so many members willing to offer advice to the unknowing potential victims of the numerous fraudsters out there. Best of luck with all your trading activities.