Email scam hits major forex broker
Author: Christian MacLeod
Published: 14th April, 2021.
A leading foreign exchange broker is advising its customers to take care after a wave of scam emails sent in its name were uncovered.
FXOpen, which caters to both retail clients and large institutional investors, asked its customers to always double-check that any emails it receives are from legitimate sources after the false emails circulated.
A surge in the frequency of the emails, which are believed to ask clients to pay cash towards false service fees, were first noted towards the end of last month.
In a statement, FXOpen pointed out that clients would only ever be expected to pay the fees which were published on the official FXOpen site – and that users would not be asked to pay additional fees over email.
"We are contacting you to make you aware about an increasing amount of fraudulent activity where unidentified individuals are pretending to represent FXOpen and are contacting clients asking for payment of commissions and service fees," the statement said.
"FXOpen does not have any hidden costs or charge additional commission or fees as clients pay only the commission stated on the broker's official website."
FXOpen users were advised to use the domain name from which any suspicious email was received as a way to check its legitimacy.
"Please note that we only use @fxopen.com and @fxopenasia.com mail domains for communication with our clients. If you receive an email from FXOpen but from another domain it is most likely to be fraudulent," the firm said.
It is also believed that fraudsters could be creating fake registration screens designed to mimic the operations of the official FXOpen screens – a well-known tactic among scammers.
"Also, we draw your attention to the fact that the authentic form of registration with FXOpen is only available on our main official website https://www.fxopen.com at https://my.fxopen.com/en/Registration and the domains on other languages available from the official website," the firm said.
"We advise you to keep your login details safe and not to disclose them to third parties."
Forex exchange broker scams are sadly very common, and individuals involved in the forex field are often advised to exercise both caution and common sense no matter which broker they choose to use.
Even the regulators themselves are not immune. Earlier this year, for example, a group of scammers posing as representatives of the regulatory body CySEC, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission, told traders that they had been scammed and that they needed to send large amounts of cash to lawyers as a result.
The same problem also exists in the related world of cryptocurrency. Last month, the American FTC, Federal Trade Commission, was forced to warn people of a blackmail scam in which men were approached via email and told that compromising information would be made public if they did not make a Bitcoin payment.
People who believe they may have been affected by the FXOpen scam can contact the firm's customer support team at [email protected]
About the author: Christian MacLeod
At a young age, Christian and his family relocated to New York from Florida, swapping the Sunshine State he had grown up in for the buzz of the City That Never Sleeps. Having graduated from New York University specializing in behavioural and experimental finance, Christian turned down an offer from a top financial institution to pursue his dream of working with smaller, local firms. In writing for Forex Fraud, Christian's main interest is in raising awareness of High Yield Investment Programme (HYIP) schemes and he often writes about the dangers of their appeal and how best to spot them. Christian lives by the phrase: "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is." Though he will admit that part of him still hopes to find the perfect dream investment someday. When he does, he looks forward to buying his own piece of Caribbean heaven and moving his entire family there. Among several interests, including escaping back to the beach on occasion, Christian is heavily involved in a local community outreach programme that aims to raise financial awareness in less affluent neighbourhoods.