The CFTC Vision Financial Partners Binary Options Fraud Action led the group and its owner to permanent ban. How did the binary options provider defraud its clients?
22 March, AtoZForex – After the US authorities permanently banned Forex broker FXCM, another high profile case has emerged. As the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issues a permanent ban against Vision Financial Partners LLC. Alongside, the CFTC has barred the binary options provider's owner, Neil Pecker for life.
Moreover, the US watchdog has charged them with a fine of more than $6.5 million. Last month, CFTC charged them for the fraud and also froze their assets as per the court order.
Details - CFTC Vision Financial Partners Binary Options Fraud Action
The US CFTC enforcement anti-fraud action filed a case against them back on February 16, 2016. As per the order, Vision Financial Partners ill-legally solicited approximately $3 million. They solicited this amount from over 120 clients in the US and Canada to trade off-exchange binary options. Furthermore, the order finds that they did this by misleading and false representations to clients. This includes cheating clients in regards to their trading experience and registration status.
Hence, the CFTC order requires the fraudsters to pay compensation to defrauded clients. This totals around $2,777,130 and a civil monetary penalty of $3.75 million. Also, the Federal court imposed a permanent ban against Vision Financial Partners and Pecker.
Vision Financial Partners responsible to reimburse its clients
In addition, the company failed to reveal that trading was done through unregistered foreign or off-shore firms. Moreover, the clients were not able to withdraw funds from their trading account. The condition to withdraw funds was that the client needs to trade at least 20 times the value of a respective trading account.
Furthermore, the fraudsters were accused of misappropriating almost $2 million of client funds and ultimately failing to trade binary options on behalf of its clients. Therefore, Pecker and Vision Financial Partners are now accountable for their clients’ reimbursement. Also, the company acted as a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) and as an Associated Person of a CTA, respectively, that too without being registered as such with the CFTC.
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