Feels Like Scam in the Air. Is Binary Options Scamming Still with us?

Feels Like Scam… Walk Likes Scam… Is Scam Still with us?

Money is honey! As long as money is involved, scammers will be attracted like bees to honey. This doesn’t apply to binary options exclusively, but to life in general. When a con man feels he can make an easy buck, he will try to. Cheap iPhone replicas are sold, fake Rolex watches and so on – all of these are scams so do not believe for a moment that scam is obsolete, although some progress has been made in fighting it. So let’s see what are the differences between binary options then and now.

Binary Options – The Journey So Far

Ever since binary options hit the large retail sector around the year 2008, clients have been dodging scams left and right. Well, actually they haven’t been dodging enough because the Internet is filled with complaints and “they’ve stolen my money” accusations. But anyway, back in the beginning of mainstream binaries, people were even more gullible than they are now because they believed binary options are some ancient god’s gift to humanity. This financial instrument was meant to solve all Earth’s problems of famine, lack of money and even individual love troubles. “If you’re feeling blue because your babe left you, just give me your credit card information and start trading binary.” Yea, back in the day, idiotic slogans like that worked – of course I am exaggerating a bit but people were ready to believe almost anything.

Slowly the tide started to turn and traders started to realize that scam was everywhere. The authorities looked away – after all if people want to give their money to the first guy who asks for it, they are free to do so; no illegality there – but a few people wanted to make a difference. Websites like forexpeacearmy.com and dare I say thatsucks.com begun to warn people that we are not living in a perfect world and that they shouldn’t believe everything they read on the Internet. When Account Managers claimed they could double our accounts, we started asking questions like “Why are you not at home trading for yourself then?” When brokers assured us there is no risk involved, we said “Really? Aren’t all speculative instruments risky?”. When brokers didn’t tell us their physical address we wondered why not. Are they afraid of something? Do they have something to hide? All these questions made people aware of the risks involved and brought forth the most important question of all: “Are you Regulated?”. Brokerages have to be regulated, otherwise they can do whatever they want… almost. Dealing with a non-regulated brokerage is like asking to be scammed. If the company is not regulated they don’t answer to any regulatory agency like the CySEC, FCA, etc. so all you can do if you are scammed is sue them. But let me ask you something: if you willingly give your money to a person or company, without knowing their name and address (real address, not a P.O. box or virtual office), WHO are you going to sue? And what are you going to sue about? I gave them my credit card number and they took money from it? Well duh, what did you think the information was for? Fortunately people started to understand they need to be more careful with their money and regulation for binary options brokers started to be almost a standard in the industry. I’ve said it before: brokers will become regulated once traders ask for it. Nowadays unregulated brokers don’t have a lot of chances of getting new clients because people have other options. Why would you put your money in an unregulated brokerage when there are so many regulated ones now?

The Bottom Line

Here’s where we stand now: things are way better than they were back in 2008 but there are still a lot of improvements to be made to the industry. Binary Options are not a haven for scammers and con men anymore, but they are not really gone. They will never go away completely because remember: Money is Honey and scammers will always be around honey. Your job is to never stop questioning everything you read or hear from brokers, software sellers and signal providers. The ever-present question should be “WHY?”. Why would you sell me software that makes $1,000 per day for just a few hundred bucks? Why would you trade my account if you are a seasoned account manager who can double the money in no time? Why would you need to sell me your signals if your accuracy is through the roof and you can make tons of money trading for yourself? Why? Just ask yourself that.