Here at binaryoptionswire.com we have blatantly expressed our opinion in favour of trading forex, binary options or any other financial product through licensed, regulated brokers as opposed to unlicensed, unregulated entities and have advised our readers and all potential investors and traders accordingly. Moreover, we have also repeatedly dismissed the proposition put forward by other writers on the industry that regulation is of real little significance to traders. We feel that rightly so, investors do trust better and do prefer to trade through regulated, licensed firms.
Proof of our position is the documented rise in clone or imposter websites, through which crooks mimic existing regulated brokers, falsify certain details, such as their contact info and try to deceive potential clients, luring them and making them believe that they are in fact dealing with an established, reliable, regulated firm.
Scammers go to great lengths in order to be able to attract the unsuspecting investor and often resort to copying the website of an authorised firm, making only subtle changes that are not visible to the eye at first glance, such as to the phone number listed.
The repeated incidents of cloned firms have caused considerable alarm to the regulated brokers who fall victim of such practices, since having someone out there impostering their site damages their company’s image and good reputation. Moreover, and rightly so, they have come under the scrutiny of the various local regulators in each jurisdiction, who are obliged to issue warnings to the public about such sites when they locate them, in order to protect investors from fraud.
Consistent with this outlook and within this framework, the UK regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a warning on 26 March 2014 warning potential investors that the website www.fxttcm.co.uk is in fact a clone website, which mimics to be the TTCM.com website, which is a genuine brand of the EEA and CySEC authorised firm TTCM Traders Trust Capital Markets Ltd. Moreover, in its warning the FCA clarifies that the fraudsters are This FCA Authorised Firm that fraudsters are claiming to work for the FCA Authorised Firm EDF Trading Markets Limited, which however has no association with the ‘clone firm’.
It is reminded that the Cypriot regulator CySEC has also recently issued a warning against this imposter website, since the firm they are mimicking comes under its own jurisdiction. It is hoped that with regulators toughening up their act and with investors becoming more suspicious and careful when choosing who to trade through, the problem with clone sites and imposters will be combatted effectively.
This is not the first time that a regulator has warned against this con-artist, barely two weeks ago the Cyprus Securities & Exchange Commission (CySEC) also had warned about FXTTCM.co.uk.
