Are Victims Really to Blame? And Are They Alone?

If you’ve been victimized by an online scam, it’s natural to express self-doubt, helplessness and suspicion.

One of the first questions MyChargeBack clients most often ask us is “How could I have fallen for a scam?” Some react by telling us that they must be especially gullible, naïve or even less intelligent than what they previously presumed.

Having spoken with thousands of victims of unlicensed and unregulated forex and binary options brokerages however, we can tell you with absolute certainty that you’re not to blame. Empirical evidence shows that victims are distributed rather evenly across all demographic and socio-economic groups. Yes, they include retirees, farmers and novice investors. But plenty of successful lawyers, professors, engineers, and even the finance minister of a major country have turned to us for assistance as well.

So Who’s Responsible?

The answer is the scammers themselves. They’re professional criminals and accomplished thieves. Regrettably, they have plenty of experience under their belts. They know what they’re doing and they do it well. They know how to gain your trust, how to come across as sympathetic to your particular financial situation, how to feign empathy, and how to convince you that they can offer you the deal of a lifetime. If you express skepticism, they know how to manipulate that to their own benefit as well.

Worse yet, they won’t give up. As long as you’re willing to answer the phone, they’ll keep calling you back as many times as they have to in order to get you to sign up.

Yes, There Really IS Something You Can Do!

Another widespread misimpression that scam victims tend to have is that they’re helpless. There’s nothing they can do.

There are countless numbers of scam victims who have been there. No victim, therefore, is really alone. Together they can make a difference by fighting back and making the scammer pay up. If enough do so, they can even force the scammer out of business.

How? If you paid using a credit or debit card, you can file a request for a chargeback – a retroactive cancellation of the payments they made to the scam forex exchange – with your bank. That can be a complicated process, however, since many bank dispute departments are unfamiliar with the rights guaranteed to scam victims. As a result, they may initially assume these online sites are legitimate online investment platforms. Banks, of course, are not responsible to reimburse their customers who make lousy but legitimate online investments.

In the case of forex, CFD and binary options scams, however, no investments are being made because no trading is taking place. It’s all smoke and mirrors played out on a computer screen.

A financial services firm like chargeback can provide crucial assistance in convincing the bank to open disputes against scam brokers by compiling the evidence, resenting the request and conferencing with the bank’s dispute department. We can do that because we speak to bankers in the language they understand and quote chapter and verse of every applicable rule and regulation.

What is perhaps most important is that every scam victim who does fight back is making an important contribution to bringing these criminals to justice. Processing chargebacks requires time and manpower, which are limited resources for any financial institution. The more chargebacks that are filed and won against scam brokers, therefore, the more their businesses become burdens on their own banks. And once that becomes clear, the bank will draw the necessary conclusions and the thieves who scammed you will be forced to close up shop.