Binary Options scams continue to rage despite dozens of regulators, governments and industry figureheads denouncing the entire industry.
Binary Options Scams Wreck Retail Traders
The Binary Options industry was all the rage at the start of the decade. A huge selling point of Binary Options trading was the simplicity and the fast paced nature of trading. These features made it an incredibly easy product to sell. The overwhelming perception of ease made it accessible to literally anyone. Binary Options made investing in complex financial instruments a simple game of high-or-low.
According to the Times of Israel, the FBI estimates that Binary Options Scams steal approximately $10 billion around the world each year. At the start of the decade, Binary Options went from being a regulated activity to being outlawed in many countries.
How Binary Options Work
A Binary Options trading platform looks like a cross between a slots game you might find in a casino and a stock trading platform. While the applications do show price charts for financial instruments like stocks or forex pairs, the experience makes you feel as though you are betting, not trading or investing.
When you place a Binary Options trade you essentially bet on whether the price of the market will be higher or lower than what the price is at the moment you place your option. If you are correct, you win a percentage of what you wagered, typically 80%. If you lose, you will have lost your entire wager.
Binary Options trades are typically short lived. Many providers offer 60-second options. Due to the volatility of markets, it’s very easy for Binary Options Brokers to manipulate the price feed in their favour. This is easy to get away with because of the lack of transparency and fast paced nature.
Binary Options Regulations
The classification of Binary Options has varied from country to country. The Mediteranian Island of Cyprus was the centre of the explosion of the electronic trading industry, becoming home to many hundreds of online trading companies. In May 2012, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) announced that Binary Options would be considered as financial instruments and companies providing this product would need to be regulated.
Since then, different counties have taken different viewpoints. In March 2013 the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) announced Binary Options would be transferred away from Malta’s Lottery and Gaming Authority. Later, in June 2013 the MFSA confirmed that Binary Options fell under the scope of the financial instruments and joined Cyprus in regulating the activity.
On the other hand, in the United Kingdom, Binary Options were regulated by the Gambling Commission rather than the financial services regulator the FCA.
Meanwhile several other countries in the EU had banned Binary Options altogether, up until 2018 when the European Securities Markets Authority introduced measures to ban the sale of the product completely.
In the United States Binary Options are regulated, except they function very differently to the gamified version upon which many Binary Options scams are based. Binary Options scams are widespread in the United States and it’s a big issue for the country.
What Binary Options Scam Victims can Do?
The activity of providing Binary Options is either completely illegal, in the process of being outlawed or highly scrutinized. Therefore, most of the Binary Options brokers operating today are unregulated. The typical complaints procedure for reporting investment fraud may yield little results. Your complaint will most probably join a pile of evidence about an offshore company which will be hard to shut down, seize assets and compensate investors.
If you have been scammed by Binary Options fraudsters have an alternative and more effective solution than relying on law enforcement procedures. As a cybersecurity company, we specialize in not just preventing attacks but also tracking down perpetrators. If you have paid money to a company, there is always a paper trail and our investigators can see where it leads.
We track down the operators of the scam and based on the intelligence we gather, we will act accordingly. Our Binary Options Recovery service will offer you a good chance of reclaiming your stolen funds. We will cooperate with law enforcement along the way to ensure that any incriminating evidence we collect can also be used to prosecute these criminals and stop them from conning even more people.
