Scam & Spam Mail sent by Forex Bastards

Now, a few interesting things about this one:

- The email was sent by ‘Felix Homogratus’, an individual who obviously uses a nickname to run his business. His real name is Dmitri Chavkerov. My gut tells me that there is something fishy about running a business under a nickname but maybe that’s just me.

- ‘Felix’ runs a few sites, one of those is www.forexbastards.com. According to Felix “Forex Bastards was founded in January of 2006, after I literally couldn’t handle getting screwed any longer. Learning how to trade Forex I went through several Forex brokers, a few different trading signals providers and used multiple Forex educational training services; some brilliant, some useless and some down right horrible.”. For some reason I get the feeling that his Yacht Seminar is a typical example of the types of scams his website was meant to expose.

- The speakers include Felix’s partner, Rob Grespinet. According to the agenda, “If he feels like it, [Rob] will share with the participants the “inner talk” and “big boys outlook” on the Forex market over the next year. Otherwise, we’ll just have to enjoy his profanity and witty humor.”. Have you ever been to a seminar where one of speakers may or may not participate depending on his mood on that day? Interesting character…

- Now the piece de resistance is the other two speakers: Skip Atwater and Marty Rosenblatt. Those guys are supposedly experts in ‘Remote Viewing’. Now I have to admit that I had to look up ‘Remote Viewing’ because I had no idea what that meant. I thought that maybe it was the name of a new fancy indicator or strategy but I came to find that remove viewing (RV) is “is a protocol used in consciousness research where a viewer attempts to gather sense impressions and “knowingness”, non-sensorial information, about a target.” So basically we are talking about telepathy or clairvoyance in trading the Forex?!?! How desperate are we getting here? What’s next, opening a ‘channel’ to Jesse Livermore to ask him for tips?

- The last speaker is ‘anonymous’ and I quote “He wants to keep his identity unknown before the seminar”. Come on…people using nicknames, others using clairvoyance, and this last one the enigmatic speaker who wants to remain incognito. Is it a trading seminar or a masquerade? Is there really a difference? I am starting to wonder.

- As another test, let’s go back to the CFTC warnings and let’s see how many apply to this ‘invitation’:

1) “Stay away from opportunities that seem too good to be true”. In Felix’s own words: “I can teach you a trading system that in my experience can easily make you into a Forex millionaire in 3 years or less”. Now here note the word ‘EASILY’, ‘MILLIONAIRE’, and ‘3 YEARS’. Too good to be true? I also always like when systems promise to make you plenty of money with extremely little effort. Two beautiful examples in this invitation. First from Felix himself ” I’ll be honest with you, because of this way of trading, I am starting to become very lazy, and I am actually sleeping through a lot of the news announcements that I used to trade short term.” Next from Skip Atwater: “The technique takes 1 hour per day, 5 days per week, and it has made this guy millions”.

2) “Be Sure You Get the Company’s Performance Track Record”. In Felix’s own words again “[Rob Grespinet] is a heavy weight financial giant, and most people will never be able to comprehend the level of connections this guy has. Just being in this guy’s presence is an honor”….Ok, what is HIS performance track record? Numbers please! About Skip Atwater: “he will be teaching a simple technique he has been using over the years. The technique takes 1 hour per day, 5 days per week, and it has made this guy millions.” So this guy is going to teach me how to use psychic abilities to make money in the market? Show me a trading journal here, show me a trading account statement! Quantify this guy’s trading system’s expectancy! Last but not least: “this is Felix writing, and if you know me, you should know by now that I don’t throw empty words into thin air”. Actually Felix I don’t know you, at all! Actually it’s only by googling ‘Felix Homogratus’ that I was able to find your real name. Maybe you’ve made millions but for all I know none of it was made through trading; maybe you have made all this money scamming retail traders.

Ok, I have already wasted enough time analyzing this email. My only point is that there are plenty of emails like this one finding their way in my inbox every single day, making incredible promises, telling me that there is a system out there that could make me millions by just working one hour a day, and to be honest I not only don’t believe any of them but I have to come to find them insulting. As individuals who are entering the retail trading world, this is what we are exposed to. We have to be vigilant, extremely vigilant.