Illegal Broker Blamed Pandemic and the Bank for Withdrawal Failure

Exposed broker: Forman Forex

Regulatory status: unregulated illegal broker

Complainant: Mr. Jung(from South Korea)

Cause of complaint: investor cant withdraw

While multiple brokers have seen a boom in transaction volume during the epidemic, some have experienced withdrawal issues and blamed it on the banks that remained closed due to lockdown measures. Is that what's really happening？ Take a look at this case below.

Event recap

In August 2019, the complainant Mr. Jung opened an account and deposited on the trading platform of Forman Forex, a broker that prides itself on a long history in the trade and claims to hold ASIC license. In the first few tradings, Mr. Jung generally made good returns, so he gradually dispelled doubts about the platform. For the rest of 2019, Mr. Jung's trading operations and withdrawals on the platform had no problems, and everything seemed to go well.

However, the sudden coronavirus outbreak dealt an unexpected hard blow on Mr. Jung's transactions. Under the influence of the epidemic, Mr. Jung's transaction frequency decreased significantly, while the withdrawal applications submitted at this time failed to be approved in time as before. In several occasions Mr. Jung had to cancel the withdrawal application after waiting for many days in vain.

But when he applied to withdrawal again on March 19th, the application was soon shown as completed on the MT5 trading software. However, after waiting for a long time, Mr. Jung still didn't receive the withdrawn funds.

Mr. Jung immediately contacted the platform but was told that the above delay was because the bank hadn't resumed usual business during the epidemic lockdown. But as time goes by, Mr. Jung's withdrawal still failed to arrive even after the bank processing transactions of Forman Forex already resumed business on a large scale, while his recently-submitted withdrawal application had not been approved and remained in progress.

Mr. Jungs withdrawal records

Mr. Jung's trading records and account balance

The platform blamed the issue of withdrawal on the bank and influence of the epidemic.

About Forman Forex

The broker claims to hold a valid regulatory license granted by ASIC, but according to investigation, both of the broker's licenses are invalid. The investment consulting license limits the licensee's business scope to financial consultation services and doesn't qualify the broker for providing services involving forex and other financial derivatives products. Meanwhile, the MM license(regulatory number 403863) the broker claims to hold actually belongs to another broker Synergy, not Forman Forex. In addition, according to WikiFX's on-site investigation, Forman Forex's office is not located at the claimed address.

Conclusion

According to WikiFX App, broker Forman Forex is currently unregulated, rated at only 1.65. WikiFX has labeled the broker as illegal to warn investors to stay away.

Up to now, WikiFX App has included profiles of about 18,000 global forex brokers. If you have any question about a broker's qualification, you may check the broker's profile on the WikiFX App. WikiFX has also released the new feature of “Wiki Fair”, a forum where investors can discuss forex trend and expose illegal brokers.