So, a chap I know is doing the hard sell on Forex. Sure, I'm interested to learn, but almost everything he says sounds scripted. The link to the video says to get back to the person who referred you. Something doesn't seem right to me. I'm not going to join them, but have any of you come across this and what are your experiences or comments?

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Author: piper22212

Hi. So I like to call myself a big skeptic of all things “get rich quick”. I’ve always hated MLM’s and other sorts of marketing businesses. I’ve seen many people and heard many stories of people losing thousands and I’ve always been super skeptical about them. However, my boyfriend, let’s call him Cody, has become interested in Forex. He has been a partner with Primerica for a while now but hasn’t done anything with that. He is a manager at a gym here and makes decent money from that. He was approached by a friend to start working with Forex. When I heard about this, I was shocked, just because I’ve heard horror stories about Forex. When I look up reviews online, all I see is people losing money. When I spoke to his friend to see what this is all about, all I got was attacked and hated on for being a “non-believer”. He essentially just said that people who lose money are lazy and don’t even try. I am genuinely curious in learning more and want to be more educated in this. From what I’ve read, it depends a lot on gambling and knowing a lot about the craft. Cody is convinced he will earn $40,000 (approximately) by February doing 6% everyday excluding weekends (I have no clue what that means but I know that’s what he’s doing). I want to know if and how this is actually a legit endeavor or if he’s just delusional. Please, no attacks, I want serious, informative answers. Thanks so much.
TL;DR: my bf is starting Forex and I think it’s a scam, how legit is it?
Edit: I told him that if he actually does make that $40,000, I’ll apologize for my skepticism and not question this typa shit anymore. We’ll see 🤷🏼‍♀️
Edit: He works all day with no break and gets home at 11-12 and gets EXHAUSTED. He goes to sleep at like 1 every night and spends that free time watching tv. Nothing wrong with that I just don’t see how he has time to do this stuff. From what I’ve gathered, this has to be done in the afternoon and takes a while.
Update: So I spoke to him and mentioned all the advice y’all have given me here. He said he is already doing research but he’s down to join an MLM. He says “everything is an MLM, college, businesses, everything”, which is ridiculous to me but ok. I’m scared for him but I guess there’s not much I can do. He’s writing all this advice off as idiots that had a bad experience even though most people here have said that they have had ups and downs. He also says I’m being super negative and the least bit supportive. Idk what to do😕

Hey,
I'm a journalist at Vice, currently writing about influencer forex scams. I tried forex myself and wrote about encountering some scammers earlier this year - https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgexk3/forex-trading-help-tips-make-money-online. I'm now writing another piece specifically about influencers and reality celebrities offering signals/ trading groups etc on Instagram and I'm looking to speak to people who have been caught out by them. I'm hoping that sharing these stories can stop other people losing out and also put some pressure to stop unscrupulous behaviour by certain celebrities who should know better! Get in touch if you're interested in chatting - either reply here or feel free to message me if you'd prefer.
Cheers!
Hayden

Its a bit lengthy and I tried to condense it as much as I can. So take everything at a high level as each subject is has a lot more depth but fundamentally if you distill it down its just taking simple things and applying your experience using them to add nuance and better deploy them.
There are exceptions to everything that you will learn with experience or have already learned. If you know something extra or something to add to it to implement it better or more accurately. Then great! However, my intention of this post is just a high level overview. Trading can be far too nuanced to go into in this post and would take forever to type up every exception (not to mention the traders individual personality). If you take the general information as a starting point, hopefully you will learn the edge cases long the way and learn how to use the more effectively if you end up using them. I apologize in advice for any errors or typos.
Introduction After reflecting on my fun (cough) trading journey that was more akin to rolling around on broken glass and wondering if brown glass will help me predict market direction better than green glass. Buying a $100 indicator at 2 am when I was acting a fool, looking at it and going at and going "This is a piece of lagging crap, I miss out on a large part of the fundamental move and never using it for even one trade". All while struggling with massive over trading and bad habits because I would get bored watching a single well placed trade on fold for the day. Also, I wanted to get rich quick.
On top all of that I had a terminal Stage 4 case of FOMO on every time the price would move up and then down then back up. Just think about all those extra pips I could have trading both directions as it moves across the chart! I can just sell right when it goes down, then buy right before it goes up again. Its so easy right? Well, turns out it was not as easy as I thought and I lost a fair chunk of change and hit my head against the wall a lot until it clicked. Which is how I came up with a mixed bag of things that I now call "Trade the Trade" which helped support how I wanted to trade so I can still trade intra day price action like a rabid money without throwing away all my bananas.
Why Make This Post? - Core Topic of Discussion I wish to share a concept I came up with that helped me become a reliable trader. Support the weakness of how I like to trade. Also, explaining what I do helps reinforce my understanding of the information I share as I have to put words to it and not just use internalized processes. I came up with a method that helped me get my head straight when trading intra day.
I call it "Trade the Trade" as I am making mini trades inside of a trade setup I make from analysis on a higher timeframe that would take multiple days to unfold or longer. I will share information, principles, techniques I used and learned from others I talked to on the internet (mixed bag of folks from armatures to professionals, and random internet people) that helped me form a trading style that worked for me. Even people who are not good at trading can say something that might make it click in your head so I would absorbed all the information I could get.I will share the details of how I approach the methodology and the tools in my trading belt that I picked up by filtering through many tools, indicators strategies and witchcraft. Hopefully you read something that ends up helping you be a better trader. I learned a lot from people who make community posts so I wanted to give back now that I got my ducks in a row.
General Trading Advice If your struggling finding your own trading style, fixing weakness's in it, getting started, being reliably profitable or have no framework to build yourself higher with, hopefully you can use the below advice to help provide some direction or clarity to moving forward to be a better trader.

1. KEEP IT SIMPLE. Do not throw a million things on your chart from the get go or over analyzing what the market is doing while trying to learn the basics. Tons of stuff on your chart can actually slow your learning by distracting your focus on all your bells and whistles and not the price action.
2. PRICE ACTION. Learn how to read price action. Not just the common formations, but larger groups of bars that form the market structure. Those formations carry more weight the higher the time frame they form on. If struggle to understand what is going on or what your looking at, move to a higher time frame.
3. INDICATORS. If you do use them you should try to understand how every indicator you use calculates its values. Many indicators are lagging indicators, understanding how it calculates the values can help you learn how to identify the market structure before the indicator would trigger a signal . This will help you understand why the signal is a lagged signal. If you understand that you can easily learn to look at the price action right before the signal and learn to watch for that price action on top of it almost trigging a signal so you can get in at a better position and assume less downside risk. I recommend using no more than 1-2 indicators for simplicity, but your free to use as many as you think you think you need or works for your strategy/trading style.
4. PSYCOLOGY. First, FOMO is real, don't feed the beast. When you trade you should always have an entry and exit. If you miss your entry do not chase it, wait for a new entry. At its core trading is gambling and your looking for an edge against the house (the other market participants). With that in mind, treat as such. Do not risk more than you can afford to lose. If you are afraid to lose it will negatively effect your trade decisions. Finally, be honest with your self and bad trading happens. No one is going to play trade cop and keep you in line, that's your job.
5. TRADE DECISION MARKING: Before you enter any trade you should have an entry and exit area. As you learn price action you will get better entries and better exits. Use a larger zone and stop loss at the start while learning. Then you can tighten it up as you gain experience. If you do not have a area you wish to exit, or you are entering because "the markets looking like its gonna go up". Do not enter the trade. Have a reason for everything you do, if you cannot logically explain why then you probably should not be doing it.
6. ROBOTS/ALGOS: Loved by some, hated by many who lost it all to one, and surrounded by scams on the internet. If you make your own, find a legit one that works and paid for it or lost it all on a crappy one, more power to ya. I do not use robots because I do not like having a robot in control of my money. There is too many edge cases for me to be ok with it.However, the best piece of advice about algos was that the guy had a algo/robot for each market condition (trending/ranging) and would make personalized versions of each for currency pairs as each one has its own personality and can make the same type of movement along side another currency pair but the price action can look way different or the move can be lagged or leading. So whenever he does his own analysis and he sees a trend, he turns the trend trading robot on. If the trend stops, and it starts to range he turns the range trading robot on. He uses robots to trade the market types that he is bad at trading. For example, I suck at trend trading because I just suck at sitting on my hands and letting my trade do its thing.

Trade the Trade - The Methodology

Base Principles These are the base principles I use behind "Trade the Trade". Its called that because you are technically trading inside your larger high time frame trade as it hopefully goes as you have analyzed with the trade setup. It allows you to scratch that intraday trading itch, while not being blind to the bigger market at play. It can help make sense of why the price respects, rejects or flat out ignores support/resistance/pivots.

1. Trade Setup: Find a trade setup using high level time frames (daily, 4hr, or 1hr time frames). The trade setup will be used as a base for starting to figure out a bias for the markets direction for that day.
2. Indicator Data: Check any indicators you use (I use Stochastic RSI and Relative Vigor Index) for any useful information on higher timeframes.
3. Support Resistance: See if any support/resistance/pivot points are in currently being tested/resisted by the price. Also check for any that are within reach so they might become in play through out the day throughout the day (which can influence your bias at least until the price reaches it if it was already moving that direction from previous days/weeks price action).
4. Currency Strength/Weakness: I use the TradeVision currency strength/weakness dashboard to see if the strength/weakness supports the narrative of my trade and as an early indicator when to keep a closer eye for signs of the price reversing.Without the tool, the same concept can be someone accomplished with fundamentals and checking for higher level trends and checking cross currency pairs for trends as well to indicate strength/weakness, ranging (and where it is in that range) or try to get some general bias from a higher level chart that may help you out. However, it wont help you intra day unless your monitoring the currency's index or a bunch of charts related to the currency.
5. Watch For Trading Opportunities: Personally I make a mental short list and alerts on TradingView of currency pairs that are close to key levels and so I get a notification if it reaches there so I can check it out. I am not against trading both directions, I just try to trade my bias before the market tries to commit to a direction. Then if I get out of that trade I will scalp against the trend of the day and hold trades longer that are with it.Then when you see a opportunity assume the directional bias you made up earlier (unless the market solidly confirms with price action the direction while waiting for an entry) by trying to look for additional confirmation via indicators, price action on support/resistances etc on the low level time frame or higher level ones like hourly/4hr as the day goes on when the price reaches key areas or makes new market structures to get a good spot to enter a trade in the direction of your bias.Then enter your trade and use the market structures to determine how much of a stop you need. Once your in the trade just monitor it and watch the price action/indicators/tools you use to see if its at risk of going against you. If you really believe the market wont reach your TP and looks like its going to turn against you, then close the trade. Don't just hold on to it for principle and let it draw down on principle or the hope it does not hit your stop loss.
6. Trade Duration Hold your trades as long or little as you want that fits your personality and trading style/trade analysis. Personally I do not hold trades past the end of the day (I do in some cases when a strong trend folds) and I do not hold trades over the weekends. My TP targets are always places I think it can reach within the day. Typically I try to be flat before I sleep and trade intra day price movements only. Just depends on the higher level outlook, I have to get in at really good prices for me to want to hold a trade and it has to be going strong. Then I will set a slightly aggressive stop on it before I leave. I do know several people that swing trade and hold trades for a long period of time. That is just not a trading style that works for me.

Enhance Your Success Rate Below is information I picked up over the years that helped me enhance my success rate with not only guessing intra day market bias (even if it has not broken into the trend for the day yet (aka pre London open when the end of Asia likes to act funny sometimes), but also with trading price action intra day.
People always say "When you enter a trade have an entry and exits. I am of the belief that most people do not have problem with the entry, its the exit. They either hold too long, or don't hold long enough. With the below tools, drawings, or instruments, hopefully you can increase your individual probability of a successful trade.
**P.S.*\* Your mileage will vary depending on your ability to correctly draw, implement and interpret the below items. They take time and practice to implement with a high degree of proficiency. If you have any questions about how to do that with anything listed, comment below and I will reply as I can. I don't want to answer the same question a million times in a pm.
Tools and Methods Used This is just a high level overview of what I use. Each one of the actions I could go way more in-depth on but I would be here for a week typing something up of I did that. So take the information as a base level understanding of how I use the method or tool. There is always nuance and edge cases that you learn from experience.

• Fundamentals
  • I keep a general high level Macro outlook for currencies. I dont get too deep into Fundamentals and just keep an eye out for news. If I am already in a trade I will hold it if its far enough away from my entry. However, I wont enter right before/during news as it can invalidate your setup.
• Price Action
  • I started with the basics of learning the standard price action formations/patterns and candles. You can find tons of free info on that online, google is your friend. Then I stared at charts and said "why did the price do that or do this etc" then after a while I started to understand what's happening without having to think about it and I can see the market structure without having to look as closely as I did in the past.
  • After many many hours of staring at 5 min charts for 15 hours a day 5 days a week I learned how to look at 5 min charts and be like "Oh that's a hammer on the 15 min etc. If you keep track of time you can do the same for hourly candles as well and you will start to see market structure naturally. However I typically trade in a two chart panel window so I have a 15 min and 5 min chart up when trading intra day so I dont have to think too hard about it.
• Support/Resistance Lines
  • Draw support resistance lines on Daily/4hr timeframes. I prefer to use body of the candle instead of the wick for support/resistance.
  • You can find support/resistance liquidity levels through out the day as well and trade those if the price retraces back through levels its already been through that same day.
  • It would be a bit length to explain exactly the best place to draw them. If your unsure there is plenty of free resources on the internet. Just try to use your head and look for price levels where the price was "Supported" or it "Resisted" that price level then slap a line on it. Draw as few or as many lines as you feel helps you and your style. I tend to lean on the side of fewer. I typically do about 6 lines main support/resistances (3 of each).
• Fibonacci Extensions
  • Draw two Fibonacci Extensions. One on the daily timeframe, and then one on the 4hr time frame. Then you can trade the Fibonacci levels and use them for TP targets or entry zones if price action respects the level. Also you can use it along with support/resistance and pivots if they happen to line up or are very close.
  • I cannot really figure out how to put it into words how to draw a Fib if you dont know how. I will have to make a picture to demonstrate it. If your interested post below and I will draw one up and post a link. Probably the easiest way to understand. Just keep in mind the Fib you draw on the 4hr time frame will be inside the daily timeframe one.
• Currency Strength/Weakness
  • The TradeVision2020 dashboard that I use just helps me keep a tab on the current market post plus any swing strength/momentum a currency might have on higher time frames. Helps me look for shifts in the market or confirmation that the bias it already has in momentum is continuing. I have found that often currencies when they get really/weak or strong might continue for several days or even longer like a full week or more. We recently had what felt like 1 week or so of flat out Yen weakness which was making some things wonky. All it does is allow me to look at the dashboard instead of a million other charts.
• Indicators
  • I use two that work well for my intra day style. The Stochastic RSI is just like a RSI but its faster. The second is the Relative Vigor Index which I use to detect swings in momentum and divergences in bullish/bearish momentum. I have used many others in the past, but as I have grown and got better as a trader I have found making my analysis simpler has improved my trading.I dont like the whole idea of have 43 different indicators on 32 different time frames light up a dashboard to be green for me to enter a trade. With how I do it now, I have a clear understanding of what I expect to happen and why. That way when it does happen I understand the move and dont get freaked out if the market moves funny after I am in the trade.

Conclusion
I use the above tools/indicators/resources/philosophy's to trade intra day price action that sometimes ends up as noise in the grand scheme of the markets movement.use that method until the price action for the day proves the bias assumption wrong. Also you can couple that with things like Stoch RSI + Relative Vigor Index to find divergences which can increase the probability of your targeted guesses.
​
Trade Example from Yesterday This is an example of a trade I took today and why I took it. I used the following core areas to make my trade decision.

• Fundamental Bias: I already had a bullish fundamental outlook on EUUSD with expecting the markets to price in future similes due a higher an higher chance of Biden winning on paper as the election closed in and a "Blue wave" coming which would lead to a weaker dollar. Also, the Euro Zone is getting hammered with COVID pretty hard plus Brexit drama so I had a strong Euro bias.NOTE: As frame of reference, all the other pairs I trade I traded as if they were ranging and trade a range. Markets are messed up right now.
• Currency Strength/Weakness: I use a tool that gives me a currency strength/weakness dashboard called TradeVision2020. Helps me track individual currency strength/weakness intra day. Took me about a month to get used to it, but helps me keep track of intra day strength/weakness that can add a bias to trade direction as the day unfolds. Like "Will this run have a 2nd or 3rd push higher" or "I should look to TP at the first sign of weakness in the push" type bias data. You still got to use your brain and figure out the best decision. It wont make choices for you, its only a guide.NOTE: I am not trying to adverse the tool (if providing the code is against sub rules let me know), its just a tool I use every day that helps me with directional bias calls. I am sharing the coupon code that was given to me when I found out about the tool in the TradingView forex chatroom and the guy gave me the code to use when I signed up. I dont want someone to read the name and want to try it out then overpay for no reason. The coupon will give you 40% off. Coupon Code: 3F7A0T5T
• Higher Timeframe Analysis: Detected some early signs of Bearish Divergence on the 1hr chart using a on a higher time frame using a Stochastic RSI. Then I saw more confirmation on 5 min charts using Relative Vigor Index to help time my entry mid session.
• Pivot Points: I treat pivot points like support/resistance and trade them as such using price action to give me some idea how its being treated by the market. Pretty straight forward.

It may seem like a lot of stuff to process on the fly while trying to figure out live price action but, for the fundamental bias for a pair should already baked in your mindset for any currency pair you trade. For the currency strength/weakness I stare at the dashboard 12-15 hours a day so I am always trying to keep a pulse on what's going or shifts so that's not really a factor when I want to enter as I would not look to enter if I felt the market was shifting against me. Then the higher timeframe analysis had already happened when I woke up, so it was a game of "Stare at the 5 min chart until the price does something interesting"
Trade Example: Today , I went long EUUSD long bias when I first looked at the chart after waking up around 9-10pm Eastern. Fortunately, the first large drop had already happened so I had a easy baseline price movement to work with. I then used tool for currency strength/weakness monitoring, Pivot Points, and bearish divergence detected using Stochastic RSI and Relative Vigor Index.
I first noticed Bearish Divergence on the 1hr time frame using the Stochastic RSI and got confirmation intra day on the 5 min time frame with the Relative Vigor Index. I ended up buying the second mini dip around midnight Eastern because it was already dancing along the pivot point that the price had been dancing along since the big drop below the pivot point and dipped below it and then shortly closed back above it. I put a stop loss below the first large dip. With a TP goal of the middle point pivot line
Then I waited for confirmation or invalidation of my trade. I ended up getting confirmation with Bearish Divergence from the second large dip so I tightened up my stop to below that smaller drip and waited for the London open. Not only was it not a lower low, I could see the divergence with the Relative Vigor Index.
It then ran into London and kept going with tons of momentum. Blew past my TP target so I let it run to see where the momentum stopped. Ended up TP'ing at the Pivot Point support/resistance above the middle pivot line.
Random Note: The Asian session has its own unique price action characteristics that happen regularly enough that you can easily trade them when they happen with high degrees of success. It takes time to learn them all and confidently trade them as its happening. If you trade Asia you should learn to recognize them as they can fake you out if you do not understand what's going on.
​
TL;DR At the end of the day there is no magic solution that just works. You have to find out what works for you and then what people say works for them. Test it out and see if it works for you or if you can adapt it to work for you. If it does not work or your just not interested then ignore it.
At the end of the day, you have to use your brain to make correct trading decisions. Blindly following indicators may work sometimes in certain market conditions, but trading with information you don't understand can burn you just as easily as help you. Its like playing with fire. So, get out there and grind it out. It will either click or it wont. Not everyone has the mindset or is capable of changing to be a successful trader. Trading is gambling, you do all this work to get a edge on the house. Trading without the edge or an edge you understand how to use will only leave your broker happy in the end.

My friend recently told me about getting a message from a guy on Zoosk. She sent me his picture and unfortunately I had to tell my friend that was definitely not the person in the photo , as I searched the photo and found who it really belonged to. She’s new to the dating scene and I’ve been married 16 years, but I’m trying my best to help her navigate online dating.
Anyways , she proceeds to keep talking to him and questions the pictures and he “comes clean” with his “real” picture. I look the photos up for her and they don’t come back to anyone. She spends today texting him and he tells her he is a forex trader. I have no clue what that is, so I look it up for her. In the meantime he is texting her telling her that she needs to download an app called coinbase.
I tell my friend immediately not to do it. But she says she wants to see what he has to say. I’m not sure if I can post it here , but he gave her an email address associated with his coinbase account.
She’s stopped chatting with him , but as her curious friend I am shocked that this is happening on dating websites! We have two phone numbers for this guy and an email address. Are there any websites out there we can use to look information up ? It’s all really strange and it’s her first connection on a dating site , so she’s a bit bummed that it was a scam.

I as a British citizen and Im concerned about the recent Bitcoin ban.
Reasons why:

1. You can be scammed out on Forex trading due to high leverage, online con artists and platforms shutting down forex trading altogether.

Plus 500 stopped trading the USA/CNH trading pair after the trade war was declared by trump.

1. Gambling has no regulations, I can spend as much money as possible on any game or sport and no questions are asked.

A uni student committed suicide last year after being groomed by gambling companies to spend over 20k in one week. No action was taken.

1. Platforms such as plus 500 offer options that have high spreads, hidden leverage, doesn't track the asset price and can be shut down and can be manupliated by the platform at will.

Plus 500 regulary increase the spread of options such as gold, oil, stocks during trading days and also shut down trading on a daily basis.
Plus 500 shut down Natural gas options for 12hrs due to a 6% slump.

1. The UK is one of the biggest money laundering and predatory finance trading countries in the world.

The requirements to be a pro trader are insane: ( you need 2/3)

1. you need experience working in finance.
   
2. 500k trading captail
   
3. Or make 12+ large trades in the past year.
   

Ironically using Binance and Coinbase for trading has been safer for me compared to uk stock/forex trading apps.
In summary the reasons above HAPPEN ALL THE TIME AND NOTHING IS BEING DONE TO STOP THESE THINGS FROM HAPPENING.
But Bitcoin and cryptocurrencey as a whole are seen as evil even though they have been profitable for the majority of their existence.

Okay so i really wanted to get into Forex Trading but the problem is that I saw a SEC advisory that announced that Forex Trading is illegal. However, there are online brokers from outside the country that are regulated and approved by the BSP. This lead me to believe that the SEC only released this statement because a lot of people are scammed by fake brokers and companies. Furthermore, there are still a lot of Forex Traders in the Philippines and there hasnt been an incident of a day trader being arrested. I really wanted to get into Forex Day Trading but im scared that i might be imprisoned.

So iMarkets live changed their name, and they’re called IM Mastery Academy now and yep, they’re still shitty and preying on people who have lost their jobs/can’t work/taking advantage of the awful situations people are in financially because of the pandemic.
My friend kept asking me to attend their online info session so I begrudgingly did and they basically take monthly fees if you don’t recruit certain quota of people, the leaders talk like pastors and it’s all so weird honestly, it was like a preacher selling me on Jesus and calling me a sheep saying that my 9-5 was me not “maximising my potential.” It’s definitely emotionally manipulative, saying how people who don’t join their academy and don’t make money independently are sheep, and how we’re disappointing our mothers like what, that’s just insane. If you want to learn Forex, there’s a million YouTube videos on it that teach you FOR FREE.
Obliviously didn’t do it but my friend had give my number to her mentor, who kept messaging me, for months, requesting video calls, and I kept giving excuses cuz I really didn’t feel like dealing with that lol. Finally got fed up, told her I’m not gonna do it and I’ll learn on my own. The mentor said she tried to learn it too and it’s hard to learn on one’s own and I said I’m smart enough to figure it out and blocked her.
Of course, I told my friend everything I could find online about this scam, about how it’s definitely a pyramid scheme and in life, there’s no “get rich quick” methods. I sent her countless articles, reputable sources and YT videos. In the end, all she said was this is a good opportunity for her and she’s gonna see where it goes. We haven’t talked since.
Just wanted to post and let people know that they’re under a new name and targeting vulnerable people like the vultures they are!! Stay safe and healthy everyone!!

Finding the right places online to educate yourself if hard. You can't even watch youtube without being interrupted by another guru claiming to be the best in the world selling you a course.
​
A majority of these marketers are preying on gullible or emotionally vulnerable people and I'd like to see some someone develop a source of truth so user online know who is a scam or not.
​
Any sort of input would allow you to help those on the come up and would be greatly appreciated:

• Where do you go to know if these guys selling courses online are legit?
• How can you tell is someone is authentic or a charlatan?
• What sort of courses have your purchased in the past and how did it turn out?

​
I am looking to compile all of your answers into a research guide for people looking for reliable online courses and to educate themselves online.

This morning, I had a guy (UK) reach out to me (USA) on Instagram. No mutuals, no reason us to be connected. After a few short messages, here's what he sent to me:
"I'm (name) and I work with a financial growth institute on Forex, I'm a professional Forex trader with 11 years experience where I'm able to achieve success where others find it difficult. ForexTrade is the fastest growing and easiest growing online trade very beneficial to everyone interested. It is trade made on Gold, Bitcoin, currencies, as well as cryptocurrencies (digital currency) and the stocks when there would be a rose or fall and it would be safe to buy or sell. You don't need any skill to do it because we are professional traders and account managers and study the stocks market and know when it's safe to sell or buy when favourable to your gain.
Forex trading is one of the highest paid investment treasury in the world, it is a lucrative platform worth trillions of dollars and you can earn tremendous profits with good experience in Forex trading. Here you can make twice your investment, no experience needed. Let's say I start trading on Forex with $5000, I'm sure to get a profit of $15000 at the end of every week or 21 days at most."
Me: "Cool, what's your role?"
Him: "I offer trading account management services with tutoring where you'll be able to watch your forex live trading account progression with each day I manage and trade your account. I charge a 20% commission of the total profits I make trading on your Forex live account.
I googled "Forex scam" and couldn't find too much online. I'm really suspicious for a few reasons:

1. A lot of what he says seems like stringing along buzzwords in an effort to wow me. "Bitcoin... as well as cryptocurrencies" But bitcoin IS a cyrptocurrency...? Also what even is a financial growth institute?
2. Why can't I find him on LinkedIn? That seems like an obvious place to be if you're trying to expand your network (and a whole lot more reasonable than Instagram)
3. If we "don't need any skill to do it", why do I need to pay him 20% commission? Surely I could find someone else who will do it for less or do it myself?
4. His Instagram says he has 8000 followers, following 7000 people. But his first post is from *3 days ago* and none of them has more than 80 likes. To me, it looks like he's bought most of his followers. Also just looking through a few of their profiles, none of them appear to be British.
5. He seems very certain of his ability to succeed. That certainty seems misplaced for a few reasons.
6. He has no reason to reach out to me. When I accepted his message request, I thought he had found me on Tinder or something. But no, he just saw that I'm military and I'd liked some pictures on a military page (which FUCK THIS GUY WITH A SPATULA if he's trying to scam fellow service members out of money).

So anyway. If this is a scam (which I am leaning toward yes), my follow-up would be:

1. Can I report him to Instagram? Will anything be done?
2. What else could I do? If he's actively targeting the military, I want to bring this guy down.

Someone posted on here a few days ago asking about forex and forex trading in Kenya, I have gone through the responses and clearly, most people don’t have an idea. It is 3am in the morning and am in a good mood so let me make this post. This will be a comprehensive and lengthy post so grab a pen and paper and sit down. We’ll be here a while.
FIRST OF ALL, who am I..?
I am a forex trader, in Nairobi, Kenya..i have been actively involved in forex since I found out about it in Feb 2016 when I somehow ended up in a wealth creation seminar (lol) in pride inn Westlands, the one close to Mpaka Rd. Luckily for me, it was not one of those AIM global meetings or I’d be on Facebook selling God knows what those guys sell. I did not take it seriously till August of the same year and I have been active ever since.
I don’t teach, mentor or sell a course or signals, I trade my own money. I am also posting from a throwaway account because I don’t want KRA on my ass.
What the fuck is forex and forex trading.
In simple plain English, forex is like the stock market but for currencies. Stock Market = Shares, forex = currencies. If you want more in-depth explanation, google is your friend.
These currencies are pegged on specific countries, united states- dollar, UK- pound, euro zone- euro, Switzerland- Swiss franc, Kenya- Kenya shilling.. you get the point. Now, there are specific events and happenings between these economies that affect the movement and values of the currencies, driving their value (purchasing power up and down). Forex trading exploits these movements to make money. When the value is going up, we buy and vice versa (down –sell)
Is forex trading illegal in Kenya? Is it a scam?
Illegal, no. scam, no. All the banks in the world do it (KCB made about 4 billion from trading forex in 2019)
Have there been scams involving forex in Kenya?
Yes. Here is one that happened recently. This one is the most infamous one yet. Best believe that this is not the end of these type of scams because the stupidity, greed and gullibility of human beings is unfathomable.
However, by the end of this post, I hope you won’t fall for such silliness.
What next how do I make it work..?
Am glad you asked. Generally, there are two ways to go about it. One, you teach yourself. This is the equivalent of stealing our dad’s car and hoping that the pedal you hit is the brake and not the accelerator. It is the route I took, it is the most rewarding and a huge ego boost when you finally make it on your own. Typically, this involves scouring the internet for hours upon hours going down rabbit holes, thinking you have made it telling all your friends how you will be a millionaire then losing all your money. Some people do not have the stomach for that.
The second route is more practical, structured and smarter.
First Learn the basics. There is a free online forex course at www.babypips.com/learn/forex this is merely an introductory course. Basically it is learning the parts of a car before they let you inside the car.
Second, start building your strategy. By the time you are done with the babypips, you will have a feel of what the forex market is, what interests you, etc. Tip..Babypips has a lot of garbage. It is good for introductory purposes but not good for much else, pick whatever stick to you or jumps at you the first time. Nonsense like indicators should be ignored.
The next step is now the most important. Developing the skill and building your strategy. As a beginner, you want to exhaust your naivety before jumping into the more advanced stuff. Eg can you identify a trend, what is a pair, what is position sizing, what is metatrader 4 and how to operate it, what news is good for a currency, when can I trade, what are the different trading sessions, what is technical analysis, what is market sentiment, what are bullish conditions what is emotion management, how does my psychology affect my trading (more on this later) an I a swing, scalper or day trader etc
Mentors and forex courses.. you have probably seen people advertising how they can teach and mentor you on how to trade forex and charging so much money for it. Somehow it seems that these people are focused on the teaching than the trading. Weird, right..? Truth is trading is hard, teaching not quite. A common saying in the industry is “Those who can’t trade, teach” you want to avoid all these gurus on Facebook and Instagram, some are legit but most are not. Sifting the wheat from the chaff is hard but I did that for you. The info is available online on YouTube, telegram channels etc. am not saying not to spend money on a course, if you find a mentor whose style resonates with you and the course is reasonably priced, please, go ahead and buy..it will cut your learning curve in half. People are different. What worked for me might not work for you.
Here are some nice YouTube channels to watch. These guys are legit..

1. Sam sieden
   
2. Cuebanks
   
3. TheCoinFx
   
4. The trading channel
   
5. Astro
   
6. Forex family
   
7. Wicksdontlie
   

Advanced stuff

1. ICT

After a short period of time, you will be able to sniff out bs teachers with relative ease. You will also discover some of your own and expand the list. Two tips, start with the oldest videos first and whichever of these resonates with you, stick with till the wheels fall off.
How long will it take until things start making sense
Give yourself time to grow and learn. This is all new to you and you are allowed to make mistakes, to fail and discover yourself. Realistically, depending on the effort you put in, you will not start seeing results until after 6 months. Could take longeshorter so there is no guarantee.
Social media, Mentality, Psychology and Books
Online, forex trading might not have the best reputation online because it takes hard work and scammers and gurus give it a bad name. However, try to not get sucked into the Instagram trader lifestyle as it is nowhere close to what the reality is. You will not make millions tomorrow or the day after, you might never even make it in this market. But that is the reality of life. Nothing is promised, nothing is guaranteed.
Your mentality, beliefs and ego will be challenged in this market. You will learn things that will make you blood boil, you will ask yourself daily, how is this possible, why don’t they teach this in school..bla bla bla..it will be hard but growth is painful, if it wasn’t we’d all be billionaires. Take a break, take a walk, drink a glass of whatever you like or roll one..detox. Chill with your girl (or man) Gradually you will develop mental toughness that will set you up for life. Personally, I sorta ditched religion and picked up stoicism. Whatever works for you.
Psychology, this is unfortunately one of the most neglected aspects of your personal development in this journey. Do you believe in yourself? Can you stand by your convictions when everyone is against you? Can you get up every day uncertain of the future? There will be moments where you will question yourself, am I even doing the right thing? the right way? It is normal and essential for your growth. People who played competitive sports have a natural advantage here. Remember the game is first won in your head then on the pitch.
Books: ironically, books that helped me the most were the mindset books, Think and grow rich, trading for a living, 4 hour work week, the monk who sold his Ferrari..just google mindset and psychology books, most trading books are garbage. Watch and listen to people who have made it in the investing business. Ray Dalio, warren, Bill Ackman and Carl Icahn.
This is turning out to be lengthier than I anticipated so I’ll try to be brief for the remaining parts.
Brokers
You will need to open up an account with a broker. Get a broker who is regulated. Australian ones (IC Market and Pepperstone) are both legit, reliable and regulated. Do your research. I’d avoid local ones because I’ve heard stories of wide spreads and liquidity problems. International brokers have never failed me. There are plenty brokers, there is no one size fits all recommendation. If it ain’t broke..don’t fix it.
Money transfer.
All brokers accept wire transfers, you might need to call your bank to authorize that, avoid Equity bank. Stanchart and Stanbic are alright. Large withdrawals $10k+ you will have to call them prior. Get Skrill and Neteller if you don’t like banks like me, set up a Bitcoin wallet for faster withdrawals, (Payoneer and Paypal are accepted by some brokers, just check with them.)
How much money can I make..?
I hate this question because people have perceived ceilings of income in their minds, eg 1 million ksh is too much to make per month or 10,000ksh is too little. Instead, work backwards. What % return did I make this month/ on this trade. Safaricom made 19.5% last year, if you make 20% you have outperformed them. If you reach of consistency where you can make x% per month on whatever money you have, then there are no limits to how much you can make.
How much money do I need to start with..?
Zero. You have all the resources above, go forth. There are brokers who provide free bonuses and withdraw-able profits. However, to make a fulltime income you will need some serious cash. Generally, 50,000 kes. You can start lower or higher but if you need say 20k to live comfortably and that is a 10% return per month, then you can do the math on how big your account should be. Of course things like compound interest come into play but that is dependent on your skill level. I have seen people do spectacular things with very little funds.
Taxes..?
Talk to a lawyer or an accountant. I am neither.
Family? Friends?
Unfortunately, people will not understand why you spend hundreds of hours watching strangers on the internet so it is best to keep it from them. Eventually you will make it work and they will come to your corner talking about how they always knew you’d make it.
The journey will be lonely, make some trading buddies along the way. You’d be surprised at how easy it is when people are united by their circumstances (and stupidity) I have guys who are my bros from South Africa and Lebanon who I have never met but we came up together and are now homies. Join forums, ask questions and grow. That is the only way to learn. Ideally, a group of 5-10 friends committed to learning and growth is the best model. Pushing each other to grow and discovering together.
Forex is real and you can do amazing things with it. It is not a get rich quick scheme. If you want a quick guaranteed income, get a job.
And now it is 5am, fuck.
This is oversimplified and leaves out many many aspects.
Happy to answer any questions.

Hello, I live in England and this is a long post about how I got scammed, presenting my story and asking for advice. Much appreciated to all who go through all of it and send their ideas.
Also posted in AusLegal here: https://www.reddit.com/AusLegal/comments/iujgpq/uk_resident_got_scammed_to_send_money_to_an/
So I met a person online, and after chatting a bit she started showing me her gold trading profits. At first I didn't care that much, but she kept showing me profits and I said I wish I knew how to trade like that. She puts me in contact with this person, who is supposed to teach me how to trade.
This teacher tells me that I will start with simulated gold trading, and after some time I would move on to real trading. After a couple of days of trading she says I'm ready to trade for real, I say I need more time to do simulated trading. We do another day of simulated trading and she says I'm ready and I should start trading with real money.
Hindsight is 20/20, I can't believe what I was thinking. But I did do some checks on these people, like I aske them for pictures of themselves and I google image searched them. No results, not stock images, so I'm like, okay, a good sign.
I ask the first person to have a phone call to talk, we do. Okay, fair enough.
I ask the first person to send me the link to her design company that she said she owns, and she sends it over. Site is in Chinese but it's filled with a lot of images of homebuilding and some English sentences about home design. I ask her for more photos and it seems okay.
I do the same with the "teacher". Google image search, no stock images, no results. I google the platform she's asking me to open an account on, can't find anything about it saying it's a scam. The reviews for the iphone app are mostly 4-5 stars, with people in the reviews complaining that the previous version of the app was better.
So after all this, on the 11th of September I transfer the minimum needed to start investing, USD 10,000. I do this by using Transferwise, so I transfer the money in UK pounds to Transferwise (I live in the UK), the money is converted by Transferwise to USD and is send to the scammer's account to an Australian bank on Friday evening.
I sleep on it, and next day morning I start panicking, I think my instincts started kicking in, and I do some more research online and I found something similar, not exactly the same scam, but something similar where you meet somebody online, start talking, some people even met with these people, and then they say can teach you or know somebody that can teach you to trade (gold, bitcoin, forex, etc). At that point I really panicked and I realised I got scammed.
I try to reach Transferwise, but since it was Saturday, you could only reach them by email, couldn't even call them.
I call the bank in Australia, I tell them what happened, I was scammed and the scammers account is with them and I give them the details of the bank account and everything. So literally after a few hours of the money leaving Trasnferwise I contacted the receiving bank. They told me they will pass it on to the Financial Crime team and look into it.
I file a report with Action Fraud in the UK, I sent the report number to my bank, to the Australian bank and to Transferwise, but to Transferwise only on Monday when I can contact them again.
I search online for some advice, and everybody thinks the best solution is to keep contacting the receiving bank as they could block the account, or the transaction and it could bounce back to Transferwise so I keep doing that. The receiving bank in Australia tells me to contact Transferwise and have them raise a fraud report and to get in contact with the Australian bank.
After numerouse calls with Transferwise asking them to contact the receiving bank where I was told there's nothing they can do after the money has left Transferwise, I resort to calling the bank in Australia again. By this point I raised a cyber fraud report with the Australian police as well and sent the report number to the Australian bank.
I ask the bank in Australia what is there to do, if they will deny the transfer or do something so that money does not leave the Australian bank account, and they said the Financial Crime team is looking into it, but I could also ask Transferwise to raise a recall request and to contact them, but I say I already did but Transferwise keeps telling me they can't do that. The person from the Australian bank tells me it seems like Transferwise is giving me wrong information.
So I decide to call Transferwise again. I reach out to somebody, and they explain it still cannot be done. I'm almost begging them to do it, but they say it cannot be done. I start searching online of any events with TW and recall requests, and I found something where it said Transferwise doesn't want to do it because there's slim chance of getting the money back so they tell customers it cannot be done.
I call Transferwise again and push and complain that I think they're just telling me they can't do it just to get rid of me and the person I'm talking to this time says it can actually be done and she'll do that request for me, and she apologises for her colleagues telling me the wrong information previously. I call the Australian bank again to let them know that Transferwise said they will do the recall and if there is anything I can do. They tell me best thing is for me to keep talking to Transferwise, as the Australian bank has done everything it can.
Now, Transferwise shows you an estimation in days of how long a transfer will take. I did the transfer on Friday the 11th, and Transferwise estimated that the transfer would be completed by the 16th at 9:30 pm UK time. So doing all this I had some hope that something can happen. Mind you, I called the receiving bank a few hours after the transfer was done by Transferwise, and by their estimate had around 4-5 days until the transfer was complete.
I feel like I wasted precious time because Transferwise was not helpful at all, from the start when I raised the scam with them telling me there's nothing they can do, to the moment I had to make around 5 calls just to get them to do the recall request.
The 16th passes, the transfer appears complete in Transferwise and I get a message from the scammer that the funds have arrived and I can start trading. I didn't block them because I didn't want to freak them out and withdraw the money immediately it hits their account.
I posted my long story here to see if there is something I can do. I had hopes that the Australian bank would block the withdrawal and it would bounce back, or they would block the scammer's account and my money would not be withdrawn and the recall would go through. I also have some hopes that based on what the scammer said today, the money is still in the Australian bank account.
I feel like I acted pretty promptly after I realised I got scammed. Contacted the receiving bank, my bank, Transferwise and the authorities both in the UK and Australia.
I don't know what else I could have done to get a more positive outcome, but now I'm asking you, the people of this subreddit, is there anything else I can do? Is there a chance the money is still in the scammer's account and the Australian bank has blocked it?
Do you guys think Transferwise didn't treat me properly by dismissing me off the bat, and only helping me with the recall request after around 10 calls and pushing?
Any advice would be much appreciated. I know I was foolish, I should have trusted my instincts, but I feel I also took some verification steps that I knew from the internet and I contacted every instituion asap after I realised I was scammed, so a few hours after sending the money.
TL;DR I got scammed into sending money to an Australian bank account from the UK. What can I do now?