fortune from working on the Internet.
While there is absolutely no harm in dreaming big,
for some, it is sheer greed. Greed that
makes them ready to believe just about anything
they read or hear about making money
online.
A case in point is forex trading in Nigeria. On my
recent trip to Ibadan, I saw several
advertising drives, aimed at recruiting forex traders.
Huge posters and banners have
defaced just about any available public space in
some parts of the ancient city. Many of
them were advertising "forex training", while others
were advertising e-gold funding/
exchange.
Wikipedia describes the term Foreign exchange
market (forex trading) thus:
The foreign exchange (currency or forex or FX)
market exists wherever one currency is
traded for another. It is by far the largest financial
market in the world, and includes trading
between large banks, central banks, currency
speculators, multinational corporations,
governments, and other financial markets and
institutions. The average daily trade in the
global forex markets currently exceeds US$ 2–2.5
trillion [citation needed]. Retail
traders (individuals) are a small fraction of this
market and may only participate indirectly
through brokers or banks.
It is indeed possible to make money from forex
trading online but then what the "trainers"
do is to massively hype the returns one could make
from forex trading. Thus, many
Nigerians are attracted because they are informed
that they could earn very high returns on
their investment capital.
These hypes have resulted in many loosing their
money due to mis-information and have
ended-up denting the reputation of the forex trading
brokers to the extent that Fx
Solutions (FxSol) had to stop dealing with Nigerians
completely. A mail from FX Sol has
been making rounds in online forums recently:
Dear Trader,
Thank you for registering for a practice account.
However, FX Solutions, in an effort to
help protect the citizens of Nigeria from fraudulent
schemes, is no longer accepting live
trading account applications from Nigeria.
FX Solutions is taking this action as the company has
noticed a rapid increase in instances
of fraud that promise unrealistic expectations in
foreign exchange trading, while
specifically targeting Nigerian citizens. Nigerian
citizens should be aware that there are
risks associated with all trading, and there is no
methodology that can eliminate risk or
guarantee performance.
If you are still interested in trading foreign exchange,
please consider opening a practice
account with another broker.
Regards,
FX Solutions
These "trainers" charge between 15,000 naira and
100,000 naira (between $115 and
$781) for training sessions that last for between 1
day and 3 days! Now, how someone can
learn the nitty-gritty of a sensitive activity like forex
trading in 3 days (talk-less of 1 day),
beats my imagination! What such "trainers" only do
is to introduce their audience to the
basics of forex trading and expect them to figure out
the rest themselves. The charitable
ones among them give their trainees some printed or
CD tutorials, and thus the money
spent on training is exhausted.
Do not get me wrong. Forex trading is real and a
trillion-dollar industry. It is indeed possible
to make money from the foreign exchange market.
What Nigerians need to be careful about
are scammers who would only give you rudiments
and collect your money in the name of
training.
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
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