FX Brokers Feedback

Bonzodog

Dear Mr Kumar
Your post raises more questions than it answers.

For example, why was the "buffer" you refer to deployed elsewhere. Given the current economic situation, surely it would have been prudent to ringfence clients money intended for FX dealings.

Secondly, given the nature of the business in that commission on FX dealing must form the bulk of your trade and that no huge capital outlay is strictly necessary, how could you have allowed such a mess to have come about. As I understand (and as you explain on your site) dealings are between your members with FXA merely acting as intermediary between the parties, what possible excuse can there be for withholding/non-payment of monies already paid by each party for payment to the other?

Thirdly, you may be experiencing difficulties with your account at Barclays now, but as I understand from Trading Standards and the Police, this is a relatively recent development. What possible excuse can you offer someone like myself (and doubtless numerous other members like me) who purchased his Euros back in May who still have not received their money.

For your post to be given credence, may I suggest that you co-operate with the Economic Crimes Unit of Amersham Police and Trading Standards to bring a satisfactory outcome to the current situation.

kamen_2

has anybody received an e-mail from Jacqueline.Bartlett@thamesvalley.pnn.police.uk
and should we trust in it's authenticity ?
I couldn't find it on the police web site...so not sure whether to provide all the personal information that person requests
from me.

mhancock_2

Kamen, Like you I was sceptical at first of the Jacqueline Bartlett contact details (as I trust very little I normally see in these forums) so instead I called the central Thames Valley Police Department (their number is on their website) and just asking to speak with the person looking into the FXA World matter. I was indeed put through to Jacquie and spoke with her myself this morning and she advised that she had just sent out an email to those conatcts she already had appealing for more details to assist her investigation.

Hope this helps.

starlig12

Good to see a response from Mr Kumar. I also had an email from Riswan a couple of weeks ago saying that they were having bank payment system difficulties.

Given this has taken so long and the police are involved I dont have much confidence in these answers though.

I understand it is firmly with the police after trading standards passing this onto them. The account where our money was sent to was supposed to be escrow (ring fenced) but that is not the case and there are no funds left in the account. The police are speaking to Barclays to work out what has happened. Why would you freeze an account with no money in?

We were considering going down the small claims route but we were steered in the direction of waiting and seeing what happens. I agree with Andrew24310 good advice here.

Trying to be upbeat here - at least our account at FX World is still operational and showing a balance?

petepart

This whole thing has gone very quiet, and I don't like quiet!

I have found Thames Valley Police (TVP) and Trading Standards very helpful, indeed as helpful as they could possibly be without violating any privacy constraints. Perhaps I should give Barclays the benefit of the doubt since their definition of fraud is so very narrow and introverted that it has not allowed me to have a very productive telephone conversation with its fraud team.

I was given to understand from one source, which for the present should remain nameless, that FXA World has been acting as an FX trader. This appears in direct contradiction to the statement on its web site "At fxaworld.com, we make our money from annual subscription fees paid by Privileged members and the small transaction fees paid by Regular members."

I was also told that although customers' money appears to be held in a protected escrow account, these words do not mean what they might appear to mean to a layman. Again, I refer to the words on its website "Settlements of trade done worldwide are conducted independently through a client escrow account service within a very secure infrastructure provided at Barclays bank in London and transactions audited by independent accountants" and "Each transaction is then securely settled, against the signed contracts and within two working days of the contract date , via segregated escrow accounts at Barclays Bank".

I understand that TVP is investigating whether the missing money has been used for legitimate business purposes, in which case we have a straightforward business failure, or whether the missing money has been used for non-business purposes, in which case we may have a case of theft and/or fraud.

Unless the statement on the FXA World website is entirely fraudulent I think we must ask Barclays to explain their role as escrow agents.

If FXA World has been acting as an FX trader then it is acting outside of the statement on its own website, which must surely be fraudulent?

I am literate and numerate, but not a trained lawyer. Many other victims have taken the time and trouble on this excellent forum to share their experiences and to seek justice.

This isn't rocket science and it should not take so much time to answer such simple questions.

I shall be writing to everyone concerned to put the key questions outlined above and I shall harass until I get acceptable answers. Anyone who has contributed to this thread is very welcome to steal any of this post and fire off letters to generate a tsunami of protest.

Just for the record, this isn't spam, I am a victim, I am newbie, but everyone has to start somewhere!

Andrew24310

Petepart, I entirely agree with your sentiments. Everything has certainly gone worryingly quiet. Steve Dalton has proposed that we take legal steps to put FXA World into administration. This would involve further costs to us all, which I fear may be throwing good money after bad. In the meantime, the FXA World web site is still live, and as far as I can see, there is nothing to stop more people transferring their hard earned money into the black hole that FXA World has become, and joining the list of victims. It beggars belief that this company can still be presenting a facade as a reputable company.

I agree that we need to continue with whatever action we can, but I wish I knew what we could do. If anyone has any more information from the police or Trading Standards perhaps they could post it on the forum? And if anyone has any other suggestions as to what we can do, please let me know.

john52

I received the following from Jacqui Bartlett of the Economic Crime Unit as it seems if you lodged money with FXA after Barclays froze their account, you may be able to get it back. Following this I wrote to Barclays and within four working days the money was back in my account. What a relief, so if this helps anyone else then good luck.
"I am writing to advise that following a meeting between the Economic Crime Unit and Barclays Commercial Investigation team, Barclays Bank have indicated that a number of people affected by FXA may be entitled to a refund. This relates to those persons, of which you are one, who paid monies into the FXA account after Barclays had become concerned over the way the account was being run and withdrew FXAs’ online banking facilities, preventing the latter from making outgoing payments. This refund will only be considered in respect of the monies owed and will not include compensation.

In order to explore obtaining a settlement please writes to Barclays Corporate Team, Barclays Commercial Bank, 22-24 Upper Marlborough Road, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL1 3AL. This correspondence should be clearly headed up ‘FXA World’. You will need to outline the date that the funds arrived in the FXA account along with the exact amount, the currency and the account number (not membership number) to which the payment was made. Barclays Bank does not have access to all the accounting records held by FXA, so you will need to provide documentation, to evidence this payment (such as your receipt/ confirmation email from FXA)"


Regards,


John

UKMTA_Vice_Chair

As Vice-Chairman of the UK Money Transmitter's Association, I am very sorry to hear of the apparent failure of this business. The UKMTA was set up as an industry body to act, initially, as voice of the industry when dealing with Government and, latterly, regulators. I need to point out that FXA World is not a member of the UKMTA and until I came across this thread, I had not heard of the company.

We have been working at an EU and National level to introduce regulation that will, in time, protect consumers from potentially fraudulent/unstable companies - and the first step towards this is the introduction of the Payment Services Regulations this November. The regulations means that companies such as FXA World will be regulated by the FSA for the first time and there will be some form of protection for consumers (though nothing that extends as far as guaranteeing client funds). Companies will have to hold a certain amount of funds of their own (capital adequacy) and the management/owners of the business will have to pass a 'fit and proper' test. Having said that, there is a 'transition period' that means that companies in this market are not compelled to be regulated until 2011. As with much legislation, the original concept has been watered down and there are loopholes (particularly in the holding of client money which would be highly relevant in this case) The FSA is also slightly hampered by the resources they have available. I predict that there will be considerable confusion in the minds of consuers as to how safe their money is for a few years to come.

From our perspective, we are encouraging regulators to make it as hard as possible for fraudulent/unstable companies to exist and to see consumers protected to the highest level possible.

Until all companies in this market are regulated, consumers are at some considerable risk of losing their money. And of course, even after regulation comes in, there are still risks.

Consumers, sadly, need to be very wary of sending money through companies that claim to hold money safely – the terms ringfenced, escrow, client accounts, client money accounts, or guarantee have no meaning in law since there is currently no legal framework. They don't offer any safety and they can't because the current legislation covering these payments actually prevents them from doing so. If you send them money, you run genuine the risk of losing all of it. At the moment, unscrupulous companies in this market can and do say anything to persuade you to send your money through them. They can tell you whatever you want to hear but at the end of the day they are just salesmen's words.

You may wonder why, as a representative of an industry association, I appear to be warning people not to use our services. The UKMTA is a body that only wants legitimate, trustworthy businesses in the market - the reputation of the industry is of highest importance in ensuring it's continued success. Under no circumstances do we want consumers to be using rogue businesses that drag the overall reputation down. There are many stable, trustworthy companies that will take very good care of your money - we encourage you to use them. Personal recommendation is one thing but will not truly reflect the state of the company. As this thread demonstrates, just because your friend used them last year, doesn't mean they won't fail at the wrong moment. I know of a number of companies that I would personally never send money to, yet they continue to trade and may well continue to do so. However, I will not be surprised if/when they fail.



In particular, I suspect we will see an increase in business failures in this market over the coming months. Being regulated by the FSA is, whatever opinion you may hold, not an easy affair and the entrance requirements to this legislation are strict. Unscrupulous business owners may chose to fold rather than face the FSA.



For your own sake, please understand the risks – be wary of using companies that claim to offer safety and/or appear to be offering better rates than others in the market. You will find some of these companies mentioned on this forum in other threads. And of course, if anything looks too good.........

Andrew24310

Re the message from John52, does anyone know when Barclays froze their account? I'm afraid it was after I sent my money, but worth checking.

mhancock_2

Andrew - according to the post on page 3 of this thread it was 11 June. I put a large deposit in just before this and a small one in after (June 12 as it happens) and have been advised that only my small deposit may be refunded by Barclays so that date seems to be credible.

Unfortunately it seems that it will be a case of waiting to see if TVP come up with anything through their investgation and if not, seeing what other legal routes there are to recover the money (poss via Mr Dalton).

I have been in conatct with the FSA and there is some interesting wording about what is and is not covered. Whilst FXA itself does not appear to be covered per say, if they are involved in so called 'speculative trading' there may well be some cover and thus some protection from the asscoiated compensation scheme. I can forward you the email I had from them if you want.

I was also wondering if, following his posting to this forum, anyone had received a reply from Vijay Kumar or Riswan Ali on the matter? I was emailed a copy of the statement that appeared on this forum by Riswan and he invited me to submit any further questions to him and have heard nothing since despite me sending a reply.

We might also want to be careful about what is posted to this forum as the matter is subject to an ongoing police enquiry and as such, comments made in public on the matter should be considered carefully so as not to jepordise any aspect of the investigation.