In early 2010 I was looking for a better return on my savings and had been studying and trading foreign exchange for a couple of years with mixed results.  I decided to find a company that could do this for me and after looking at many companies on the internet I was contacted by a chap in Switzerland who explained to me how his company went about trading currencies, and he provided me with historical data.  They were trading short term movements on the exchange which is what I was looking for.

A short time later I was invited to meet the owner of the company Mr. David Hick in the Chelsea Harbour Hotel in London. He was very personable and clued-up about Forex trading and told me that he dealt with the trades himself, personally employing traders around the world.  I was shown the basic workings on his laptop and a website that showed the trades in real time as they were happening and was impressed enough to invest a modest amount to begin with. A short time later I was contacted by a man called Andrew Frankland who introduced himself as David Hick’s partner and long time friend. He later told me that if I wished to continue I would have soon to invest six figures as this was the minimum amount and that he would now be my investment manager and point of contact for G.F.X. Management Trading Ltd. It was only later that I discovered that there were no minimum or maximum amounts for investments as everyone I had spoke to had invested differing amounts, although ten thousand pounds was the lowest I had heard of.

Everything went well for many months and in December that year I began drawing down some profits from the fund; and the payments came back promptly to begin with. In later months I had to remind them several times that money had not arrived and this was explained as an administration error. In October 2011, I was persuaded against my better judgement by the main sales manager to invest some more money in gold trading as they had employed an expert in the field at great cost to the company. This did not seem to work as well as the Forex trading and I had the money put back into my Forex account. In the summer of 2012 alarm bells began to ring when it became increasingly difficult to have funds returned until in September I was told that due to unforeseen circumstances there would be no drawdowns for a few months until some trading issues could be dealt with. After talking with other investors, these so called “issues” started to become clear: long-standing, losing open trades that could be viewed on the website if you knew where to look for them but which never appeared on the monthly statements. From September 2012 I never received another penny despite numerous calls and emails to Mr Hick, and then in November I received an email from his sales partner with an attachment containing about 40 email addresses of his clients, saying he had left the company.

I decided at this point to terminate my contract with Globalfx which states that I would have to wait 120 days for my money back. But Mr Hick told me I would have to wait six months and not only that, I would be charged 45% commission on all profits besides paying my share of the open trade losses. I asked him “where does it say this in the contract?” but he became very irritated and ended the conversation. This was in November 2012 and I am still waiting for my money back although I have spoken to him since then. He asked me in Sept. 2013  to stay in the investment and I said I would if he paid me back a proportion of my money as a good-will gesture, but nothing has yet arrived in my account.

David Hick has now all but vanished. He does not reply to any of my calls or emails, although his Globalfx website at the time of writing (July 2014) appears to show continuing active trading. I am left wondering if I shall ever see any of my capital returned.