Pretoria - A Centurion-based investment scheme, Trading To Get Results, which claimed to use an online trading centre to trade in currencies, commodities and indices, is believed to be a fraud.
This was one of the conclusions reached by Noluntu Bam, the Ombud for Financial Services Providers (FAIS), in a determination to a complaint lodged against Trading to Get Results of 25 Carnegie Park, Blarney Street, Hennops Park in Centurion, and Pierre-Louis van der Walt, who owns 100 percent of the scheme.
Bam said a tracing agent confirmed the address of Van der Walt, 37, as 25 Miles Broadwood in Port Elizabeth.
Van der Walt was “by all accounts the driving force” behind Trading To Get Results, she said.
The determination related to a complaint lodged in March 2015 by Wayne Klug, who said he was promised growth of between 40percent and 60percent within the first 12 months of making his investment.
Klug claimed he was required to pay a registration fee of R4950, which would be refunded if the promised growth in the investment was not achieved, and enticed to invest because of a “signing bonus” of $1500 that would be added to his investment.
Klug deposited the registration fee into Trading To Get Results’ account in February 2014 and a further amount of $3000, worth about R40414.75, two days later into an account that was supposedly that of AVA FX, an “online trading centre” entity owned and operated by Ava Financial, a company based in the British Virgin Islands.
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He accessed his account in April 2014 and discovered there were losses and by December 2014 was left with $27. The account had a zero balance by January 2015.
Apart from one phone call, Klug found it impossible to reach Van der Walt telephonically, but exchanged many e-mails with him.
Van der Walt promised to resolve the matter but it was never resolved.
Bam said Van der Walt was invited but failed to act on invitations to respond to the complaint.
She said the investment offered by AVA was high risk in that there was no safety net for losses, but Van der Walt made extravagant promises to potential investors and the true nature of the investment was not explained to Klug.
Bam added there was no evidence that Trading To Get Results and/or Van der Walt had ever traded Klug’s money and the only reasonable conclusion, in the absence of any other explanation, was that they had appropriated the money for themselves.
Bam ordered Trading To Get Results and/or Van der Walt to repay Klug R45 364.75.