Con Man

This is another warning going out to all readers and members of the forum. The con men never stop with their elaborate plots to fleece you. We have just had one on the forum that used the two names DayWalker and T Rex. We know that it is the same person because they recently logged in from the same IP address within minutes of each other. Here is an image of the forums logs showing the IP address match.



The con was fairly simple. DayWalker talked about this fantastic trader that he'd met and watch trade. (I think that TippyTom made a good comment about the irony of these fantastic traders being "heard about" but never seen when DayWalker posted this.) After DayWalker had been posting away and trying to build up some credibility he did something (I can't remember what) to make me lock him out of the forum. Perhaps that was his plan... No sooner had he been locked out T-Rex turns up and claims to be this trader that DayWalker has built up.

Well Elite Trader spotted the con straight away and called T-Rex on it in this thread: T-Rex and DayWalker questions.. which was started by BruceM who I suspect guessed the ploy at the same time.

T-Rex/DayWalker's objective is probably to get readers to approach them for help with their trading. He will then eventually offer to do an exclusive once in a life time one on one mentor-ship or something like that and will ask a lot for it.

Will this be the last we see of him? Not likely. He will probably register under another name and try this again, and of course someone else might try a similar trick.

So the moral of the story is the same one that we've been touting here for a long time. If you're going to pay someone for trading advice, or lessons, or calls then do your homework and insist on seeing those statements and talking to their broker on the phone. Confirm that the statements aren't fabricated, confirm their business or place of work address etc. You will save yourself a lot of time and money by asking some hard questions and not taking no for an answer.

Remember that they do this for a living and so they're good at it and already have all the answers to give you the run around. I've noticed that the cynical traders that frequent this forum tend to do a good job of spotting these cons. Well done guys!!

DT, I have a question.
You show 2 columns labeled IP Address. What is the meaning of that first column?

It is the first IP address that you have when you register on the forum. IP addresses frequently change - sometimes multiple times in a day. When you connect to the internet your ISP assigns an IP address to you. It can stay the same for several days, weeks, months but can also change.

Well then I guess I missed one. It seemed obvious that ahk=mahawhatever=daywalker=trex. But I thought Max was different. He didn't start out with the same insulting arrogance. However, he had sent me a couple of emails and one of them is a match, 198.172.206.148. I know others suspected him, but I got fooled on that one.
Thanks for your work.

Thanks for the great service you have provided here DT, showing this. I generally stay out of the public forum to avoid all this type of nonsense, which I have no time for. I usually just hide behind the castle walls of my private forum. In this case I came by to look all this over because a post was made to my public forum, and then deleted before I could even read it. I was also mentioned by name and ripped by someone who doesn't even know me or what I do.

Anyway, I wanted to make one comment, play devil's advocate if you will, on statements and contacting a broker. I hope the sharks don't descend on me and rip me to shreds, but if one can't provide information that makes sense, there is no point to a forum like this.

Now, I don't know about all your brokers, but mine, all the 'big names' we all know about and likely use, will access my account, most if not all of the time, by simply asking me my name (only rarely asking my account number), and then they will do anything I ask them to, such as open or close positions, etc. I once asked one if they weren't worried someone might just call up and do a malicious order in someone's account, and they said they never heard of that or even considered it.

They said they didn't want to have to ask a lot of questions and delay what may be an emergency order closure, say if someone's computer froze up or if their platform went down, and it cost the person a lot of money. I have found this with most or all of my brokers, at the places we all use.

If you are not finding this to be the case, let me know how you got them to change. And even if they would do more security, I'm not sure I want to have all that delay when in a crisis. The point? I would not want anyone to know who my broker's are, and I surely wouldn't want to advertise who they are. Keep in mind I make no claims and hence have no need to reveal such information, but I'm trying to point out why this is a very dangerous thing to do.

Also, my brokers would never talk to anyone who isn't me unless I specifically authorized the person on the account. You know of brokers who will take random calls from people discussing another person's account because the person told them verbally it's okay? I have never seen a broker whose compliance department would allow that. Again, I'm not saying I disagree at all with anything said about wanting to see statements or call brokers about someone making claims, in fact, I agree 100% with that. I'm just saying from a practical standpoint, this is a difficult and dangerous proposition for someone.

Let's not even get into the issue of identity theft. Imagine what you open yourself up to when you tell the entire world who your broker is. Would you put up a link on the web and say this is who I online bank with? I can't imagine doing that under any circumstances. Now, could a broker be found where all this could be worked out? I'm sure one could. And should people making claims perhaps do whatever is necessary to accomplish this? Probably.

I just want to show the other side of this, and why it is very risky to attempt this with the big brokers we are all using. Now, I offer this up just to give everyone some food for thought. Please try not to rip me to shreds...

We'll rip you apart gently

You have some valid points. I am guessing that the reason that brokers don't have more security is because all of the telephone conversations are taped and the calls logged. Remember that when you state your name that it also flashes up Caller ID (if you have it switched on) on their screen letting them know that you are the same person. If they match then they don't have to enquire further. If the Caller ID says "call-box in Queens" then they may ask you a couple more questions. You will also rarely use this service to open a position but to close one because you computers are down and in that case you will (or should) know approximately how many contracts you have left on and in what instrument and what direction. Of course, if you're in a live chat room posting your trades in real-time then someone could call your broker and close your position for you because they'd have all those details

Your points are well taken though.