It’s a question we hear a lot at MyChargeBack. We’re an international fund recovery firm, headquartered in New York that has retrieved millions of dollars for victims of online binary options, forex and CFD scams.

In fact, the truth is more complicated than the reality seems to be.

Indeed, certain governments and international institutions have cracked down on online investment scams. In March 2016 binary options trading within Israel was banned on the grounds that it is essentially gambling and not a form of investment. The ban was extended to overseas clients in October 2017.

Belgium banned binary options schemes in August 2016. In the same month, France outlawed all financial derivatives advertising. Canada instituted a complete ban on binary options trading for options having an expiration less than 30 days in September 2017.

Other countries, such as Cyprus, Malta and New Zealand, require binary options firms to obtain a license to offer financial instruments. The United Kingdom requires them to obtain a gambling license. In the United States, binary options trading is permitted only on the American Stock Exchange and the Chicago Board Options Exchange. A license has also been granted to one independent firm.

In July 2018, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) decided to institute a three-month ban on binary options trading by individual retail investors throughout European Union member states and placed restrictions on the sale of contract for differences (CFDs) as well. The ban was extended for an additional three months in October and can continue to be renewed by ESMA at will.

So Why Are Scam Brokers Still Around?

Basically because scammers, by definition, are lawbreakers. As such, they’re more agile than legislators, government regulators, law enforcement agencies, and courts, all of which have to follow due process and respect the rights of the accused. That takes time. And in the meanwhile, scammers can stay one step ahead. They know what’s coming down the pike, so they take countermeasures to avoid it.

For example, in anticipation of ESMA’s highly long-debated bans on binary options and CFD trading, binary options sites were busy at work taking evasive action. All binary options scams that targeted EU countries eliminated all references to “binary options” from their sites and re-branded themselves overnight as forex brokerages or even as private bankers.

That also enabled them to sneak through a loophole created earlier in the year by Google and Facebook when the two internet giants decided to ban binary options advertising. Unlike online binary options trading, which was a complete fraud, the forex market is a backbone of the global economy. There’s virtually no way to weed out all the scammers who advertise their re-packaged services, no matter how illegitimate they are.

Can’t They Just Be Arrested?

The good news is that some are, and more are being arrested every day. Boiler rooms, where teams make phone calls to potential victims, have been closed down in Australia, England, the Philippines, and the United States, among other countries. And government agencies have succeeded in taking down dozens of scam sites.

Where there’s a will there’s a way. Governments have both, but so do the scammers. Ultimately, therefore, the only way to eliminate online investment scams is to alert and educate the public about them in order to make scams unprofitable for the scammers who run them.

MyChargeBack.com is owned and operated by Cactil LLC, an American dispute resolution consultancy firm headquartered in New York with a global focus and an international client base throughout North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.

The MyChargeBack team, which has recovered more than $10 million in funds for its clients to date, is comprised of professionals with extensive financial, legal and regulatory backgrounds who assist victims of binary option scams retrieve their money.

MyChargeBack is able to accomplish that because it knows how chargebacks work and how to ensure that each client’s case will be presented effectively to the bank. Contact us today for a free consultation. File a complaint today at: https://mychargeback.com/binary-options/