Is CashFX a REAL trading outfit . . . or just another Panama pyramid?
A.J. writes: I am concerned about a scheme currently being promoted in the UK and around the world, called CashFX. It is based in Panama and tries to give legitimacy by saying funds are invested through a licensed foreign exchange broker called EverFX, but the main way people are encouraged to make money is by introducing others.
CashFX is barely a year old but it has learned to be cautious in what it puts in writing. It attracted investors by saying they will share in bonuses based on pooled trading in foreign exchange markets, but it tends to leave specific claims to those who do its recruiting.
Here is what one of its British promoters says: ‘ CashFX has always paid a daily return of between 2 per cent and 3 per cent, which is capped at 15 per cent passive income each week; this is from trading which is done on your behalf – you can literally set it up and forget it.’
If this were true, you might expect CashFX to be shouting from the rooftops, but no such figures appear on its website. Nonetheless, until recently it claimed to be trading through EverFX, a licensed broking firm based in Cyprus. CashFX described EverFX as ‘our main partner broker’, claiming to have ‘a productive business relationship’ and a ‘strategic alliance’.
Really? EverFX told me: ‘ We would like to highlight that we have never entered into any official legal agreement with CashFX, nor did we have any financial transactions exchanged between us.’ There were talks between the two companies that dragged on, with CashFX c l a i ming t hey were working together, but according to EverFX this is ‘something that never happened so far’.
So, there is no evidence that CashFX has actually traded with its investors’ money. Its website offers a range of pretty expensive manuals about forex trading, but investors’ returns seem to come from recruiting even more investors.
Despite this, Richard Maude, one of its most active recruiters in Britain, holds the title of ‘President’ in CashFX, and in a YouTube presentation he describes EverFX as CashFX’s ‘ partner broker’. He claims: ‘The returns that are made from the trading, that is what fuels this business. If you are someone that just wants to be a passive member and earn from the trading, that’s where the money is coming from. It’s coming from the trading results the company is getting.’
Mau d e p r o u d l y announced recently that CashFX had rewarded him with a Porsche. But a few years ago he was just as enthusiastic in promoting a scam called Banners Broker, which was supposed to profit from internet advertising but which was just a pyramid fraud scheme. Its organisers in Canada were convicted and jailed.
I invited comments from CashFX and its promoter Richard Maude, particularly on what EverFX told me. Neither of them replied, though The Mail on Sunday was approached by London lawyers Schillings, acting for CashFX and keen to know about today’s report. If CashFX really were operating a forex investment scheme in Britain, it would need to be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority – and it is not. The FCA has posted a website warning, telling investors to be ‘especially wary of dealing with this unauthorised firm’.
Forex trading without authorisation is a criminal offence, so I asked the City watchdog whether it had taken any action against CashFX or its promoters. It refused to say, which I take to mean ‘ No, we haven’t.’ One day the FCA will learn that its investor protection duties should involve something more than a message on the internet, but I am not holding my breath.