The best place for this book to start is in the year 2000, it was then I managed to save a
reasonable amount of money, (more than $10k to $20k). As I said before I knew I could find a
way to make this money work so that I would not have to, at this stage although I was not 100%
sure how I was going to do it.
What I did next, (in hindsight), was extremely stupid. The whole scam is still out there on the
internet so it is important I mention it because people must still be being fooled and at the time
couldn’t find anywhere on the internet saying the whole thing is a scam, and it just amazes me
how blatantly these people steal money, they get away with it every day, and it seems perfectly
legal. Hopefully some big gun will read this and bring them to bear.
Ok my excuse for this is I believed so strongly I could live off the interest of my savings and I am
such an honest person I could not comprehend someone would do this, (be sure this book is
100% honest).
The first place I lost money was “High Yield Internet Investments”, (do not laugh)! Just do a
search for high yield investment programs on Google and see what you get.
To be fair I now do see a number of government websites warning you about these, although I
may have been blinded by the money, back in 2000 I did not see any warnings. If you get into
one of these programs, all agreements are made electronically, (email) and inevitably you deal
with some the other side of the world. You will see returns coming back to you for a few months
while at the same time you are sent loads of information on other really good high yield
investments.
You get regular updates and everything looks good, the cheeky bugger I was dealing with even
sent me pictures of his family holiday in Costa Rica, then all of a sudden you are told the fund is
bankrupt and there are no more payments. Oh well my fault for being so stupid to begin with,
hope he enjoyed his holiday! So my advice is to steer clear of stuff like that, again if you want
further advice on something email me.
The second place I lost money was with people phoning me and selling me forex options. I had
read a little about forex funds while looking into high yield investments. Now these people calling
me sounded a lot more professional, they explained the whole option thing to me and how they
recommend I use a weighted straddle technique to get in on the action on the euro. Again there
are 100s of companies doing this, if you want them to call you just do a search for forex options
or investments and fill out a few online questionnaires. I did this a couple of times back in 2000
and I have had people calling me weekly for the past 6 years trying to sell me investments.
The people and companies selling option based investments to the semi-informed public are no
less crooked than the high yield investment people who just take your money and go on holiday
with it. While the options selling people are slightly more professional, all they do it confuse you
with too little or too much information, act as the counter party to your options and tell you what
strike price to use. At the end of the day it is a legal way of stealing people’s money.
5
They employ a load of people who know a bit about the market but never made it as traders
themselves, and cold call any poor member of Joe Public who is unlucky enough to have filled
out an online questionnaire. As mentioned the sales techniques combine too much information,
too little information and on many occasions aggressiveness. It seems like some people have
been driven mad by money, (ok man, calm down, I am sure you know what you are talking
about).
You could also do a Google search for people who would like to sell you some options, but I
wouldn’t bother.
I have been cold called by 100s of people trying to sell me options. I lost loads of money with an
investment advisory based in Barcelona. The whole experience was so terrible, it was in
December 2001 this happened, (I am sure Windsor limited changed its name a long time ago). I
was on holiday in Johannesburg at the time; I can still recall how sick the telephone
conversations I had with them made me feel. The whole thing had been sold so well sold, (UPS
shipment of signed agreements, wiring funds to banks in the Bahamas), it crushed me when I
was told it had fallen apart, not even the “straddle technique” had helped, (surprisingly!).
At this stage I had lost around $30,000 to $40,000 in the space of about 2 years. Thanks to all of
this I had learned the lesson never give your money to any one, never let your money out of your
control and never make and investment based on someone else’s advice.
Call it stupidity, call it determination but despite losing so much I still believed I would be able to
live off my savings one day. I kept looking, this time looking at how I could trade forex myself. I
soon found my first forex brokers website, I saw the charts, I saw the trade station, I read the
briefs and I was sold.
At the time I believed I had made it past the sharks and was with the good guys who would help
me make money on forex. It was simple, accessible, and there were loads of educational
resources. I did not know it at the time but I was just swimming with a different bread of shark.
I can tell you now although online forex brokers on the whole provide and excellent service their
main objective is to transfer the funds from your trading account into theirs, much like the firms
selling forex options, online brokers use a combination of too much information, too little
information, miss-information and generally suggesting trading parameters and methods that are
unfavorable. I cannot complain about on line forex brokers too much as they provide the general
public to the once exclusive forex market and generally their trading tools are good, however
much like a casino giving players an opportunity to gamble online brokers use loads of subtle
tricks to part the would be trader with his margin account.
It is not only the online forex brokers that are attempting to make money from the aspiring forex
traders, as stated in the introduction there are numerous forex alert providers, managed account
services and people selling trading systems and forex trading courses. Believe me when I say
none of these people are for real, they are all selling bogus products, selling lies, trying to steal
your money!
If you do a Google search you will find 100s of such forex trading related products and services.
To me it is almost unbelievable that these are all bogus scams, (as I can’t comprehend
dishonesty, especially on such a level), but 99% of all online forex trading related products and
services, i.e. courses, alerts, systems, managed accounts are scams, believe me and do not get
involved!
Although I have spent $1000s on forex courses, alert services I have lost very little money on
actual forex trading. This I believe is due to the fact I was so badly burnt by my previous
investment attempts. I never risked any money on the spot forex market until I was able to make
consistent profits on a demo account. Thanks to my adamants, to not trade with real money until I
had a method of trading I knew worked, I have been able to persevere with my forex endeavors
without wiping myself out.
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The next three chapters will deal with my early forex trading experiences, (dealing with forex
sharks), forex courses, forex e-books, forex alert services, managed accounts, forex technical
analysis and brokers. The remaining chapters will deal with my experiences of legitimate trades
and what you need to do to succeed in the forex market.
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