Focus on an Overseas Scam Part 1

Recently I had the honour of being completely fooled by an overseas group of scam artists based in the UK. It cost me a lot of money.
So here it is in case anyone comes across it.

1/ First of all a gentleman from London phones and asks if you are interested in Futures Trading as his company Scope Cash Management specialises in buying and selling Futures Trades in unleaded Petrol in the US over the US Driving Season (Xmas Holidays). He says it always goes up and their clients make a neat profit on it. While in the winter they concentrate on trades on the price of Heating Oil in the US. I say ‘I might be interested later on I will see how they go this year’.

2/ He phones again months later and again I put him him off. Then one year after the original call he phones again and I say OK I will talk to one of your brokers. So Francis (call me Frank) Griffin rings and he tells me about Scope Cash Management, shows me its website etc and tells me about his family and goals in life and that he aims to be the no.1 trader of the company  this year. The website looks OK and I say how do I know you can be trusted…you could be anybody.  He says ….good question…and takes me to an Government Website called Futures Trading Securities Commission.. FTSC UK.. which is the watchdog company over all the trading companies in England. Now he says ‘just put my name in the Company Search Section…Francis Griffin…. and you will see that some figures and comments come up and you will see that I am licensed and employed with Scope CM and  have never had a black mark against my name. Sure enough Franks name came up duly licensed an honorable person and a cleanskin. I said ‘you could still run off with my investment Frank’… and Frank said ‘good question Bob….but no I cant you see because the money is held by an independent holding company called Imperial Trade Management which is also endorsed on the Government website.

3/ So I agree to a small trade on unleaded petrol but Frank has to talk to the bosses as the amount I agree to trade is below their minimum. Frank calls back an hour later with good news… the bosses agree to this trade just to get me started. So I fill out several forms to  Scope & Imperial and everything is approved. The trade is put on in advance of my paying as ‘my word is my bond’ and they trust I will pay. Frank then calls back and says the Companys wiz and very experienced trader would like to call and pass on some of his  experience  to me as I was just starting out. His name is Dan Thompson a Canadian. I am thinking this is very nice of him to go out of his way like that.

4/ That night as Frank had said I had a call from the Scope Compliance Officer and recorded the details of the trade with an official recording. All I had to do was to pay the value of the trade into a Hong Kong Bank after I received the official paperwork for the trade.

5/ I check the trade on various trade websites and there it all is so I can follow my trade in Unleaded petrol. I pay the money.

6/ All official and straight forward…no outlandish promises. Nothing that was too good to be true….to be continued.

Click here for Part 2 >>…The amazing Dan Thompson…and the final disaster!