PFEC’s supposed modus operandi

Apparently this is how PFEC or Performance Foreign Exchange Corporation is "scamming" investors, which led the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to raid the company's Makati office on Wednesday.

The NBI said that the Internet-based PFEC's modus operandi is to urge its clients to invest no less than $5,000 (P230,000) in the foreign currency trade.

After a few months, the company will inform its clients that their investments have been lost.

- Source: ABS-CBN News

The raid was conducted pursuant to the complaint of an investment scam victim identified as George Palos, a resident of Olandes Industrial Valley Complex, Makati City.

According to the victim, who was accompanied by his wife Aurelia to the NBI-AOCD office yesterday, they were enticed to invest an amount of $8,500 (about P382,500) in the firm and were made to believe that their investment will earn substantial profit.

Relying on such assurance, they invested the amount.

The victims were later informed that their investment lost in the firm’s transactions and were not able to recover their investment, including the principal.

- Source: The Daily Tribune 

From what we know, PFEC explicitly states in its Risk Disclosures that returns are not guaranteed and that there is risk of capital loss. In light of the complainant's accusation and the recent NBI raid, some questions need to be answered:

• Did PFEC, or any of its "business executives" or representatives, ever guarantee clients a fixed or specific minimum return?
• Were investors' funds really traded or, as being rumored, merely kept in deposit accounts while clients are notified of "trading losses," with PFEC pocketing the difference between the actual "untouched" deposit and the reported "diminished" capital?
• Is PFEC really operating illegally as a foreign currency trader, as claimed by the NBI?

If you have answers to these question, we'd like to hear you out. Visit and post in the PFEC: Performance Foreign Exchange Corporation thread in the PMT Forum.