With the boom in social media and online advertising, there’s no stopping the scammers. More recently, an Instagram influencer in the UK operating through a shady broker made many lose their savings to forex trading. It’s not surprising considering the lavish lifestyle and shenanigans on display by such influencers, who then reveal how so and so trading options have made them millions.
If you’re also a victim of a Forex Scam, you must be wondering how to make forex scam money recovery. There are specialized service providers that help scam victims recover money from a forex broker. These recovery companies analyze their case, gather evidence, confront the broker, and recover their money for a fee.
However, before hiring a recovery company, there are a few steps you can take to try and recover the lost fund on your own. Below are the five steps to recover the lost money.
Try to Engage With Your Broker and Understand What Went Wrong
Often, new forex traders lose their investment owing to a poorly planned trading strategy and failure to understand how the forex market works. While the fault might be their own, angry traders might blame the broker for their loss.
In such cases, it’s advisable to keep your anger in check and have a conversation with the broker. More often than not, it’s a case of miscommunication, and an amicable solution is close at hand.
Before approaching your broker, gather all evidence like trading screenshots, trade logs, transaction statements from the bank, and other such paper trails. This step will help you put forth your argument as to why you think you are a fraud victim.
After having collected all evidence, contact your broker in writing via email or letter. Not only will this help the broker understand your complaint better and give a further explanation with evidence, but it will act as proof if required in the future.
Try coming to an understanding with the broker about what went wrong and why. If the broker’s response seems convincing to you, you can work out a solution together. However, if you are still confident about the fraud and the dispute remains unresolved, inform your broker that you may escalate the complaint. Fraudulent brokers can’t afford this and, in most cases, refund your money.
In some cases, brokers might hold their ground and cut all communications with you. In such a case, you can move on to the next step.
Name and Shame Them on Public Trading Forums
The next step is to take the matter to famous and influential trading forex forums like Forex Peace Army. These forums are accessed by almost every forex trader and mean a great deal for brokers and traders. Many fraud brokers have shut shop because of negative reviews and ratings on such portals.
Most forex brokers worth their salt have dedicated managers on payroll to manage their reputation on such portals. This means the ratings and reviews on such forums are of utmost importance to forex brokers.
In case someone posts about a possible forex scam with all evidence and that forum post gains traction, it’s bound to cause stress to the broker in question. It’s entirely possible in this case for the broker to reach out to you and offer the fund back or some settlement to take the post down.
File a Chargeback Request With Your Credit Card Provider
The third option is to file for a chargeback if you have made your transaction using a debit or credit card. The card chargeback is the most effective method to get your money back from forex scams.
You can directly file a dispute with the issuing bank on the concerned transaction. The bank will then review the claim and determine its validity in the next few weeks. If the dispute is found valid, the issuing bank will pass on the claim to the broker’s bank, who will notify the broker.
The broker will then get a notification about the dispute received and that the bank has removed funds from the broker’s account to reimburse the victim for the transaction and the chargeback investigation fee.
You can either file chargeback on your own or take the help of a professional chargeback company.
Register a Complaint With Financial Institution Used by the Broker to Receive Funds
Setting up a business account or payment gateway is a lengthy process and takes months at a time. And once closed, they won’t be able to accept funds anymore, and opening a new account will take even longer.
Why are we telling you this? Because banks and financial institutions take their reputation and goodwill too seriously. To that extent, they have a strict policy to block individuals or entities engaging in fraud or financial crimes.
You can directly reach out to the broker’s bank or any financial institution they have employed for transactions and file a complaint about fraud. This step will result in the bank reaching out to the broker, which might force them to agree with you and return the money.
Approach the Trading Regulatory Body in Your Region
Trading regulatory bodies supervise all brokers in their region and take all complaints seriously into consideration. If you have all the necessary evidence in place, then you can reach out to the regulatory body in your country and claim compensation.
In the US, NFA is the regulatory authority and has a dedicated website for trading fraud complaints. Once you file a complaint with the regulatory body, they contact the broker regarding the same. The matter then gets difficult for the broker to close, and they might lose their licenses or incur a massive penalty. Considering the high risk associated, the broker usually agrees and returns the money.
So, these were the top 5 methods to recover your money from a forex trading fraud. Remember, it’s always better to be safe than sorry, so choose your forex trading broker with due diligence, to begin with.
