Four fake students – with a first-class degree in deception
Probes a world of scams and scandals
T.A. writes: When I opened the emails page on my computer, up came an advertisement from an investment company called Ultimate4Trading. Its impressive website includes a clip from what looks like an American TV show, describing how four students from the University of Birmingham have developed award- winning computer software that predicts stock market, currency and commodity prices. It says it is ‘the most successful online trading tool in the UK’. Is all this true? NO, none of it is true. It is a lie, in support of a scam. The American TV show looks as though it was simply made for the internet, but more importantly, what it says is false to the point of being criminally fraudulent.
Supposedly, the software was developed by four students – John Cross, Abbey Walker-Jones, Matty Voss and Ash Patel – as part of a final year computer science degree project at the University of Birmingham. According to Voss: ‘Trading was always the domain of the inherently wealthy, privileged and well connected, but now we have levelled the playing field.’
Walker-Jones adds: ‘What we have created is now able to break down a mind-blowing amount of financial data in a matter of nanoseconds to provide well over 100 reliable trades per day.’ She claims a success rate of at least 70 per cent for her software’s predictions.
Having made a fortune for themselves, the Fab Four say they are now giving away the software to anyone who wants it. All anyone needs to do is open an account with a binary options firm and then place bets on price movements according to whatever Ultimate4Trading forecasts.
Too good to be true? Well for a start, these ‘students’ do not exist. The University of Birmingham tells me that ‘extensive searches’ have shown no record of them having ever studied at or graduated from its Computer Science department. This is not the only lie from Ultimate4Trading. It advertises that ‘all activity based in the UK is overseen by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.’ This is rubbish. The regulator has refused to oversee binary options, which it regards as nothing more than spin-of-a-coin betting and not investing at all.
So what is the point in all these lies? How does Ultimate4Trading profit? Well, people who have taken the next step say it introduces them to at least two binary options firms, Banc de Binary and EZTrader. So perhaps Ultimate4Trading earns commission? Well, Banc de Binary told me: ‘We would like to stress that we have no relationship with Ultimate4Trading.’ I also invited EZTrader to comment, but it did not respond.
Both Banc de Binary and EZTrader are licensed by the Cyprus Securities & Exchange Commission. It said: ‘Ultimate4Trading is not a Cyprus-regulated entity and any prospective investor trading on the platform will not be safeguarded either directly or indirectly by the rigorous licensing regime and legislation we have in place to protect investors.’
Naturally, I also aimed a few questions at Ultimate4Trading’s owners. Why has their university never heard of them? Why do they falsely claim that investors are covered by regulatory protection? The Fab Four failed to answer.
But then, do they even exist? If they do, then why are there virtually identical internet videos in French and Italian, fronted by four different ‘students’? Do you know the Fab Four? What are their real names? Who are they working for? If you know the answers – or if you are ‘John’, ‘Abbey’, ‘Matty’ or ‘Ash’ – email: tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. It would be good to know who paid for these lies.