Binary Option Fraud: Will They Never Learn?

It surprises me that people just don’t seem to learn from history. What am I talking about? A new binary options fraud the level of which I have never seen since Banc De Binary’s attempt to enter the U.S. market. They tried to use press releases, false addresses and misleading information to lure the public into thinking that they were at least operating in New York if not actually in talks with the CFTC for regulation. What did they get? A firm smack on the wrist and denied access to U.S. markets. Will that be the end result in this new case, I don’t know but what I am sure of is that NYStockOptions.com better be ready when the CFTC and the SEC come knocking on their door. Banc De Binary at least had CySEC to help protect them, they are still in business. I’m not so sure about NYStockOptions.

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A New Regulated Broker In Town

NYStockOptions is a new broker with new regulation. They maintain offices in New York city, are regulated by the IFR and operate on the TradoLogic binary options platform. The platform itself is fine but I found the expiry to be very limited, in fact there were only intra-day expiry, not counting the short term 60 Second and other Turbo style options, for everything except High/Low trading and that only has end of the month for long term trading. The asset list is quite good, with indices from around the world, 14 major forex pairs, 8 different commodity trades and a healthy number of international stocks.  Options available for trading include standard digital options, Turbo (speed trading/60 Seconds), Range and Touch.

On face value the broker appears to be on the level but because I know better it only took a little digging to uncover the truth. First of all, it is not legal to operate spot binary brokerages in the U.S. Any claims to the contrary are completely false. If this were not the case then the CFTC would not have cracked down on BDB in the first place. Now, moving on to the location of the offices. The name of the company and other underhanded tactics will lead you to believe this is a legitimate NY based operation but oh no my friend, oh no. The name, NYStockOptions, is the first draw. It sounds legit, right? New York, stock options, they go together like peanut butter chocolate. However, as a wise man once said, A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

This company is in fact based in Belize. If you take the time to read the fine print you will find that the address listed in New York, 41 Madison Avenue 31st floor, is actually a virtual office called  Regus.com. Regus provides a number of virtual office services including email, physical mail and phone answering. An easy way for any business any where in the world to create the illusion of U.S. residence. This broker is actually based in Belize and even go so far as to put the words “United States” after the Belize address, seriously. As for regulation, it is really no better. The IFRA or International Financial Regulatory Agency, Inc, is an independent international financial regulator with no authority whatsoever except for that granted by itself and those who choose to register with it. Which I think may be limited to NYStockOptions.com because they are the only ones I can find listed. . . and because the IFRA is yet another dummy front corporation operating out of a virtual office run by Regus, go figure.

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Adding to the depth of the fraud being perpetrated by this broker is another sister website called NYSOHedge, located at NYSOExchange.com. This website is a so-called hedge fund located at the same New York address as NYStockOptions. The hedge fund uses aggressive growth tactics with three different account types based loosely on actual U.S. investing requirements. Their “certified” investor must have an account of over $100,000, the “margin” account requires a minimum of $25,000, the same requirement for an actual margin account for trading futures, etc. This account is guaranteed from loss because the “hedge all investments”. BS!

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This broker and the associated hedge fund are not to be trusted. Even if they are on the level, and that is a very big if in my opinion, you have to assume that they are going to get shut down, and shut down hard, by the CFTC and/or SEC very very soon. But, if they are on the level, why go to so much trouble to make it look like they are based in the U.S. and regulated when in fact they are not?

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