HexMarkets

A summary of what happened?

HexMarkets is an online trading platform offering Contracts for Difference (CFDs) across various financial instruments, including forex, indices, commodities, stocks, and cryptocurrencies. Operating through the cTrader platform, it provides access via PC, web, and mobile interfaces. Despite its service offerings, HexMarkets has attracted significant scrutiny and criticism concerning its regulatory status, operational transparency, and overall trustworthiness.

Key Concerns and Complaints:

1. Lack of Regulatory Oversight:
   • HexMarkets is registered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines under the Financial Services Authority (FSA). However, this entity does not regulate forex or CFD trading, effectively leaving HexMarkets without substantial regulatory oversight. This absence of stringent regulation raises concerns about the safety and security of client funds.
     BrokersView
2. Low Trust Scores:
   • Independent assessments have assigned HexMarkets low trust scores. For instance, Scam Detector’s algorithm rated hexmarkets.com at 40.1 out of 100, indicating potential high-risk activities related to phishing and spamming. Such evaluations suggest that engaging with this platform may be risky.
     Scam Detector
3. Negative User Experiences:
   • User reviews have reported issues such as difficulties in fund withdrawals and unresponsive customer support. One user on Sitejabber recounted investing a substantial amount, only to face challenges in retrieving funds, leading to suspicions of fraudulent activity.
     SiteJabber
4. Opaque Operational Practices:
   • Analyses by platforms like Major Forex Review highlight that HexMarkets lacks a standard website detailing legal information, trading conditions, and other essential details. The domain redirects directly to a trading platform interface, which is atypical for legitimate brokers and raises transparency concerns.
     Major Forex Review
5. Potential Red Flags:
   • The absence of comprehensive legal documentation and clear operational transparency are significant red flags. Such deficiencies can indicate potential fraudulent schemes, as legitimate brokers typically provide detailed information about their services, regulatory status, and terms of operation.

HexMarkets presents several concerning aspects, including a lack of proper regulatory oversight, low trust ratings from independent evaluators, negative user experiences, and opaque operational practices. Potential investors are advised to exercise caution and conduct thorough due diligence before engaging with HexMarkets. Opting for brokers with robust regulatory frameworks and transparent operations is crucial to ensure the safety and security of investments.

Analyzing the Fake Copyright Notice(s)

Our team collects and analyses fraudulent copyright takedown requests, legal complaints, and other efforts to remove critical information from the internet. Through our investigative reporting, we examine the prevalence and operation of an organized censorship industry, predominantly funded by criminal entities, oligarchs, and disreputable businesses or individuals. Our findings allow internet users to gain insight into these censorship schemes’ sources, methods, and underlying objectives.

What was HexMarkets trying to hide?

HexMarkets‘s attempts to hide unfavourable content through the misuse of copyright notices while allegedly engaging in perjury present serious legal concerns. These actions suggest a calculated attempt to manipulate legal systems to suppress free speech, a fundamental violation of copyright law principles and an abuse of legal processes. The use of such tactics not only undermines the integrity of copyright protection but also potentially constitutes perjury, further entangling HexMarkets in legal accountability. Let’s examine the information HexMarkets may be trying to remove from the internet –

Investigative Report: HexMarkets – Allegations, Complaints, and Concerns

HexMarkets is an online trading platform that offers financial instruments such as forex, cryptocurrencies, indices, commodities, and stocks through Contracts for Difference (CFDs). The platform operates using the cTrader platform, accessible via desktop, web, and mobile applications. Despite its extensive offerings, HexMarkets has come under scrutiny for its regulatory status, operational practices, and user experiences. This investigative report delves into the allegations, complaints, and concerns surrounding HexMarkets.

1. Overview of HexMarkets

A. Company Background

• HexMarkets is registered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, a jurisdiction commonly used by offshore brokers due to its lenient regulatory environment.
• The platform claims to provide access to global financial markets with advanced trading tools and high leverage.

B. Service Offerings

• Offers trading on multiple asset classes, including forex pairs, stocks, commodities, indices, and cryptocurrencies.
• Leverages the cTrader platform for advanced trading features and automated strategies.

2. Major Concerns and Allegations

A. Lack of Regulatory Oversight

1. Unregulated Broker Status:
   • HexMarkets is registered under the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. However, the FSA explicitly states that it does not regulate forex or CFD trading.
   • This effectively leaves HexMarkets operating without meaningful oversight, raising concerns about client fund security and legal protections.
2. Implications of Offshore Registration:
   • Offshore brokers operating in jurisdictions like Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are not required to comply with stringent financial regulations or offer protections such as segregated accounts or investor compensation schemes.
   • Investors face heightened risks, including the potential for fraudulent practices, due to the lack of accountability mechanisms.

B. Transparency Issues

1. Opaque Operational Practices:
   • Unlike legitimate brokers, HexMarkets lacks a standard website detailing critical information such as:
     • Legal documentation (Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policies, etc.).
     • Trading conditions, spreads, or fee structures.
     • Regulatory disclosures and company ownership details.
   • Instead, the HexMarkets domain redirects users directly to the trading interface, bypassing the standard educational or informational resources expected of legitimate brokers.
2. Inadequate Disclosure:
   • The absence of transparency in operations raises questions about the legitimacy of the platform and its intentions.

C. User Complaints

1. Withdrawal Difficulties:
   • A recurring complaint among users is the inability to withdraw funds. Users have reported that:
     • Withdrawal requests are delayed indefinitely.
     • Customer support provides vague or unhelpful responses when addressing these issues.
   • These complaints suggest potential misconduct in fund management, a red flag for possible fraud.
2. Unresponsive Customer Support:
   • Many users have expressed dissatisfaction with HexMarkets’ customer support, citing delays in response times and a lack of resolution for critical issues such as account verification and withdrawals.
3. Claims of Fraudulent Activity:
   • Some users suspect that HexMarkets engages in deceptive practices, such as price manipulation or account freezing, to prevent them from accessing their funds.

D. Negative Trust Scores and Reviews

1. Scam Detector Ratings:
   • Scam Detector’s algorithm rated HexMarkets.com at 40.1 out of 100, classifying it as a high-risk website potentially associated with phishing and spamming activities.
2. User Reviews:
   • Sitejabber: Users have posted reviews describing significant financial losses and difficulties recovering their investments.
   • BrokersView: Negative feedback highlights issues such as unclear terms, uncompetitive spreads, and concerns about hidden fees.

E. Potential Misrepresentation

• HexMarkets advertises itself as a reliable broker but fails to provide verifiable evidence of its legitimacy.
• The lack of publicly available information about its founders, management team, or operational policies raises further suspicions.

3. Broader Implications of HexMarkets’ Practices

A. Risk to Retail Investors

1. High Leverage and Risk Amplification:
   • HexMarkets offers high leverage, which appeals to traders seeking significant profit potential. However, this also exposes clients to amplified losses, particularly in volatile markets.
   • Retail investors without adequate risk management strategies are more likely to suffer substantial financial harm.
2. Absence of Safeguards:
   • Without regulatory protections such as negative balance protection, clients could lose more than their initial investments in adverse market conditions.

B. Reputational Damage to the Trading Industry

• HexMarkets’ practices contribute to negative perceptions of the forex and CFD trading industry, often seen as rife with scams and predatory brokers.

4. Regulatory and Legal Context

A. Offshore Registration Concerns

• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has become a haven for unregulated brokers due to its lack of enforcement mechanisms. Many fraudulent brokers exploit this jurisdiction to operate with impunity.

B. Absence of Legal Recourse

• Clients of HexMarkets lack access to regulatory complaint mechanisms or investor compensation funds, making it difficult to recover lost funds in cases of disputes or fraud.

C. Comparison with Regulated Brokers

• Brokers regulated by Tier-1 authorities (e.g., FCA, ASIC, CySEC) must adhere to strict requirements, including:
  • Segregated client accounts.
  • Negative balance protection.
  • Regular audits and financial disclosures.
• HexMarkets’ lack of these safeguards places it at odds with industry standards.

5. Recommendations for Potential Clients

A. Exercise Caution

1. Avoid Unregulated Brokers:
   • Choose brokers regulated by reputable authorities to ensure fund security and access to dispute resolution mechanisms.
2. Verify Regulatory Claims:
   • Always cross-check a broker’s regulatory status with the corresponding authority.

B. Conduct Due Diligence

1. Research User Feedback:
   • Review platforms such as Myfxbook, BrokersView, and Sitejabber to gauge user experiences and complaints.
2. Evaluate Transparency:
   • Ensure the broker provides clear information about its operations, fees, and terms.

C. Consider Alternative Options

• Numerous reputable brokers offer similar services with stronger regulatory backing and client protections. Examples include:
  • FCA-regulated brokers like IG or CMC Markets.
  • ASIC-regulated brokers like Pepperstone.

6. Conclusion

HexMarkets has positioned itself as a convenient platform for CFD trading across multiple asset classes. However, its lack of regulatory oversight, opaque operational practices, and a troubling pattern of user complaints raise significant concerns about its legitimacy and trustworthiness.

Key Takeaways:

1. Regulatory Gaps: Operating in a jurisdiction with minimal oversight, HexMarkets exposes clients to heightened risks.
2. Transparency Issues: The lack of standard disclosures and ambiguous operational practices are red flags for potential fraud.
3. Negative User Experiences: Complaints about fund withdrawals and unresponsive customer support undermine its credibility.

Final Word:

Potential investors should approach HexMarkets with caution and prioritize brokers with strong regulatory credentials and transparent business practices. The risks associated with unregulated brokers like HexMarkets far outweigh any potential benefits, making due diligence essential before committing funds to such platforms.

How do we counteract this malpractice?

Once we ascertain the involvement of HexMarkets (or actors working on behalf of HexMarkets), we will inform HexMarkets of our findings via Electronic Mail.

Our preliminary assessment suggests that HexMarkets may have engaged a third-party reputation management agency or expert, which, either independently or under direct authorization from HexMarkets, initiated efforts to remove adverse online content, including potentially fraudulent DMCA takedown requests. We will extend an opportunity to HexMarkets to provide details regarding their communications with the agency or expert, as well as the identification of the individual(s) responsible for executing these false DMCA notices.

Failure to respond in a timely manner will necessitate a reassessment of our initial assumptions. In such an event, we will be compelled to take appropriate legal action to rectify the unlawful conduct and take the following steps –

Since HexMarkets made such efforts to hide something online, it seems fit to ensure that this article and sensitive information targeted online by these events get a lot more exposure and traffic than what it would have received originally

We hope this becomes an excellent case study for the Streisand effect…The key idea behind the Streisand effect is that efforts to restrict information can backfire, often causing the information to gain more attention than it would have otherwise. This effect is widespread in the digital age, where users quickly notice and spread censorship efforts on social media and other platforms. Trying to suppress something can unintentionally lead to it becoming more visible, which HexMarkets is finding out the hard way.

Potential Consequences for HexMarkets

Under Florida Statute 831.01, the crime of Forgery is committed when a person falsifies, alters, counterfeits, or forges a document that carries “legal efficacy” with the intent to injure or defraud another person or entity.

Forging a document is considered a white-collar crime. It involves altering, changing, or modifying a document to deceive another person. It can also include passing along copies of documents that are known to be false. In many states in the US, falsifying a document is a crime punishable as a felony.

Additionally, under most laws, “fraud on the court” is where “a party has sentiently set in motion some unconscionable scheme calculated to interfere with the judicial system’s ability impartially to adjudicate a matter by improperly influencing the trier of fact or unfairly hampering the presentation of the opposing party’s claim or defense.”  Cox v. Burke, 706 So. 2d 43, 46 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998) (quoting Aoude v. Mobil Oil Corp., 892 F.2d 1115, 1118 (1st Cir. 1989)).

Is HexMarkets Committing a Cyber Crime?

Yes, it seems so. HexMarkets used multiple approaches to remove unwanted material from review sites and Google’s search results. Thanks to protections allowing freedom of speech in the United States, there are very few legal ways to do this. HexMarkets could not eliminate negative reviews or search results that linked to them without a valid claim of defamation, copyright infringement, or some other clear breach of the law.

Faced with these limitations, some companies like HexMarkets have gone to extreme lengths to fraudulently claim copyright ownership over a negative review in the hopes of taking it down.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. HexMarkets is certainly keeping interesting company here….

The DMCA takedown process requires that copyright owners submit a takedown notice to an ISP identifying the allegedly infringing content and declaring, under penalty of perjury, that they have a good faith belief that the content is infringing. The ISP must then promptly remove or disable access to the content. The alleged infringer can then submit a counter-notice, and if the copyright owner does not take legal action within 10 to 14 days, the ISP can restore the content.

Since these platforms are predominantly based in the U.S., the complaints are typically made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires online service providers and platforms to react immediately to reports or violations. Big Tech companies rarely have systems in place to assess the merit of each report. Instead, all bad actors need to do is clone a story, backdate it, and then demand the real thing be taken down.

Reputation Agency's Modus Operandi

The fake DMCA notices we found always use the “back-dated article” technique. With this technique, the wrongful notice sender (or copier) creates a copy of a “true original” article and back-dates it, creating a “fake original” article (a copy of the true original) that, at first glance, appears to have been published before the true original.

Then, based on the claim that this backdated article is the “original,” the scammers send a DMCA to the relevant online service providers (e.g. Google), alleging that the ‘true’ original is the copied or “infringing” article and that the copied article is the “original,” requesting the takedown of the ‘true’ original article. After sending the DMCA request, the person who sent the wrong notice takes down the fake original URL, likely to make sure that the article doesn’t stay online in any way. If the takedown notice is successful, the disappearance from the internet of information is most likely to be legitimate speech.

As an integral part of this scheme, the ‘reputation management’ company hired by HexMarkets creates a website that purports to be a ‘news’ site. This site is designed to look legitimate at a glance, but any degree of scrutiny reveals it as the charade it is.

The company copies the ‘negative’ content and posts it “on the fake ‘news’ site, attributing it to a separate author,” then gives it “a false publication date on the ‘news’ website that predated the original publication.

The reputation company then sent Google a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice claiming the original website infringed copyright. After a cursory examination of the fake news site, Google frequently accepts the notice and delists the content.

In committing numerous offences, HexMarkets either premeditated actions or were unaware of the consequences. Despite hiring an agency to make Google disregard any negative information about HexMarkets, ignorance does not excuse this wrongdoing.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. FSMSmart is certainly keeping interesting company here.

The Reputation Laundering

Rogue Reputation agencies use spurious copyright claims and fake legal notices to remove and obscure articles linking clients to allegations of tax avoidance, corruption, and drug trafficking. Most of these reputation agencies are based offshore, mainly in Russia, India, and Eastern Europe, and they do not worry about complying with US-based laws.

The content in all of the articles for which the fraudulent DMCA notices have been sent relates to allegations of criminal allegations, including corruption, child abuse, sexual harassment, human trafficking and financial fraud against businesses and individuals with ultra-high net worth.

In addition to the misuse of the DMCA takedown process, there is a notable absence of enforcement concerning perjury violations. The statutory requirement related to perjury is designed to deter copyright holders from submitting fraudulent or knowingly false takedown requests, as they may face legal consequences for making false declarations under penalty of perjury. However, to date, there have been no known instances of any individual being prosecuted for perjury in connection with the submission of false DMCA takedown notices.

This lack of enforcement has emboldened copyright holders to exploit the DMCA takedown process to suppress dissent, criticism, or other unfavorable content, without fear of legal repercussions.

Some of the people and businesses who have employed this tactic to remove legitimate content from Google illegally include a Spanish businessman-turned-cocaine-trafficker, Organised crime, an Israeli-Argentine banker accused of laundering money for Hugo Chávez’s regime, a French “responsible” mining company accused of tax evasion, child molesters and sexual predators. HexMarkets is in great company ….

What else is HexMarkets hiding?

We encourage you to ‘Dork‘ Google by searching for keyword combinations such as [HexMarkets] + {Negative Keyword, such as Scam, Fraud, Complaints, Lawsuit, Sanction, etc} on Google. It’s likely if you scroll down to the bottom of this Google search results, you’ll stumble upon this Legal Takedown notice (pictured below)

To make such an investigation possible, we encourage more online service providers to come forward and share copies of content removal requests with industry experts and researchers. If you have any information on HexMarkets that you want to share with experts and journalists, kindly email the author directly at [email protected].

All communications are strictly confidential and safeguarded under a comprehensive Whistleblower Policy, ensuring full protection and anonymity for individuals who provide information.