Investors lose over $2.4m to binary option scams

[cyclone]

Investors lose over $2.4m to binary option scams

by Lorna Tan
PUBLISHEDAPR 22, 2017, 5:00 AM SGT

More than 40 people in Singapore have lost in excess of US$1.7 million (S$2.4 million) after being lured to take part in an unregulated, sometimes fraudulent and mainly offshore activity known as binary option trading.

One victim of the scam lost a staggering US$693,000 after engaging in this highly risky trading, which is banned in some jurisdictions.

Singapore police are investigating a string of complaints and disclosed the eye-popping losses yesterday, in response to queries from The Straits Times.

Binary option trading involves investors predicting if the price of an underlying instrument - shares or currencies, for instance - will be above or below a specified price at a specified point in time. This can range from a few minutes to a few months in the future.

More details in http://www.straitstimes.com/business/inv...tion-scams

[opmi]

Old scams in new packaging.

Those who read Reminisces of the Stock Operator, would know the bucket shops.

https://jesse-livermore.com/bucket-shops.html

[mulyc]

Such scams. At least one MAS-licensed broker called IG also offers it under the guise of renamed instruments called Digital Hundreds or Sprint Markets which lets you bet for 1min or 5min timeframes. How different is that from online casino? Funny why the regulator does nothing about it.