If you spend any time at all on the Internet, you have seen the ads: a friendly looking woman, photographed against a wealthy-looking background, explains how she wants to show you how to make $100,000 in the next 3 weeks. Then the ad cuts to another person, who waives a check for $54,600 and tells you he made that much money yesterday.
All you have to do to start making all this money is just sign up for an account, fork over as little as $250, and you too can make your fortune with "binary options.”
The Nova Scotia Securities Commission has recently issued a general warning about the dangers of investing in binary options, in addition to warning about a specific company advertising to Nova Scotians called Magnum Options, which may also do business as Hampshire Capital Ventures Ltd., and operates the websites magnumoptions.com and magnumoptions.eu.
Here’s the NSSC’s description of binary options trading:
“Binary options are like an ‘all or nothing’ wager. You bet that an asset (currency, shares, etc.) will rise or fall in value within a specific amount of time, sometimes as limited as a few minutes. At the expiry of that time, you either profit a pre- determined amount or you lose 100% of your initial investment.”
Among the problems that people have encountered who have sent money to one of these online binary options companies are:
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The company takes your deposit, and then refuses to return it.
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You think you’ve made money on an option, but the company refuses to turn over your gains.
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Some companies engage in identify theft.
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The companies manipulate their software to turn your potential gains into losses.
If you need more information, call the Nova Scotia Securities Commission toll-free at 1-855-424-2499, or send an email to [email protected].