Scam Alert - Dubai Options Exchange & United Arab Emirates Commodities Futures
February 2006
The scamming offshore brokers are at it again. Seems their favourite trick right now is to invest fake Trading ‘Exchanges’ which they then use as a legitimate front to steal investors money. Two such fake and scam Exchanges are The Dubai Options Exchange and the United Arab Emirates Commodities Futures Board.
How These Scams Normally Work
- Simple, as with all of these scams you’ll receive a cold call from some brokerage company often with a fancy sounding name
- The salesman will be extremely polite and will chatter about the markets, feeling you out so to speak
- You’ll then be given a slick sounding pitch on say currency options or if Crude Oil is in the news Oil options and futures
- These guys will play on the natural greed within all of us and make it sound that making 100% over a short period of time is pretty easy – especially with their market ‘expertise and knowledge’
- But if you ‘invest’ any money with them chances are it will be stolen because stealing money is what they’re all about
- The person at the end of the phone and the ‘brokerage’ company they’re calling from are all fake – they don’t exist and never have
- And this is a critical point – If they try and tell you they are regulated by a KNOWN financial regulator such as the UKs FSA don’t believe them
- Instead call the FSA’s freephone number (0845 606 1234) and check them out – but even then make sure you call the firm in question back on their general switchboard number (which you get from the FSA) – never call them on the number the ‘broker’ gave you
- You see don’t put it past these crooks to impersonate a real FSA registered firm, it’s been known before
Note: Many of these scam firms target Australians and the Financial Regulator there is called the ASIC - Click here for their website and how to contact them.
Use The Internet – Information is Power
So how do we know that both the Dubai Options Exchange and the pathetically named United Arab Emirates Commodities Futures Board (UAE CFB) are scams?
Many clues but the best one and the one we strongly advise you to always use when checking out any investment firm that cold calls you is look for what is called "linking trust".
The Achilles heel for all these scammers is that they’re here today and gone tomorrow and that includes their websites. What this means is that the websites have no time to collect links from other websites and even if they do the links are always going to be from spammy sites which will look something like this –
Make-money-online-from-home.com
Financial-freedom-4u.com
Links-here-for-free.co.uk
As we’ve always said on the InvestorProfit.com site the way to defeat these scammers is to use Google because the internet is your best weapon – information is power, right?
What Is 'Linking Trust' Analysis
‘Linking trust’ analysis only takes a minute and is really simple –
- Go to Google and type the name of the company in making sure you use ".....", ie "Dubai Options Exchange"
- See how nobody is linking to them which is very strange, I mean the website gives us the impression that they’re a major Global Trading Exchange
- How is it possible that a legitimate global Exchange has NO legitimate websites linking to them, unless of course the website is a scam
- Go check out any proper financial exchange or indeed any website that you trust using ‘Link trust’ analysis and you’ll see that Google shows pages and pages of different links coming in
- So surely if the Dubai Options Exchange or the UAE CFB are legit some newspaper, business magazine or finance website would have written an article or two on them and hence a link
- Also, why aren’t some of their ‘member’ firm websites linking to them?
As we mentioned before these scammers quickly put up websites and then when they’re found out pull them down to replace them with some another fake company or Exchange. Therefore they have no time to develop any real links, legitimate or not.
And this therefore is why ‘link trust’ analysis’ is so powerful. Link trust analysis also can't be faked because NO proper website or company is going to link to a scammer.
Other Clues
Another big clue is when you visit a scam website and go to the ‘Contact Us’ link all they’ll usually have is a form with NO telephone contact details!
But even if they do list a number there’s a 99% chance that it will be an answering phone, not the sort of behaviour you’ve expect from a legitimate company especially a ‘Global Exchange’.
Cambridge Capital Trading
One firm that seems to be promoting the Dubai Options exchange is "Cambridge Capital Trading Ltd" - Google them yourself we don't want to give them a link :)
Mmmm, of course we may well be wrong but something just doesn't seem right to us about this Cambridge Capital firm. First they're pitching the fake Dubai Options Exchange to their clients and secondly they say via their website that they've been in business for 'over 18 years'. One would therefore expect that any brokerage firm in business for so long would have 100s if not 1,000s of links coming into their site.
But when we did some ‘link trust’ analysis on their site we found just the one Google page of search results! Just how is this possible with a firm that's been in business so long?
To us the results of who is linking to them, or in this case who isn't linking to them tells us all we need to know about this firm.
People who have done business with Cambridge Capital (also a fancy sounding name which is often another sign of a suspect firm) report that trading funds are requested to be wired to Malaysia!
Why any financial firm whose 'headquarters' are based in London (according to their website but then they don't offer an address or telephone number) would bank in Malaysia is a critical question that potential clients must ask themselves.....
Note that the majority of the cold calling bucket shops seem to do business with Far Eastern banks so if you're ever asked to wire money to one we would suggest you'll never see your money again.
Summary
Please watch yourself folks because these financial scammers are everywhere at present and they're very good at what they do. The salesman are super smooth and extremely professional but ultimately all they want to do is to steal your money.
Good luck and remember use the internet plus 'Link Trust' analysis if you want to defeat these crooks.
See Also
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