Cornwall Council’s Public Protection Service is warning members of the public and groups and organisations that work with young people about a new scam where fraudsters are using social media websites to encourage young people to invest in binary options. 

Binary options, sometimes referred to as ’Forex trading’, are where an ’investor’ bets on whether the value of a commodity such as currency or gold, will go up or down over a set period of time, sometimes as little as a few minutes. 

Just like in gambling, if the investor predicts incorrectly they will lose all the money they have placed.

’Although binary options are being advertised as an investment, they are actually a form of gambling on the markets,’ said Julia Groves of Cornwall Trading Standards.

Research carried out by the National Fraud Investment Intelligence Bureaux (NFIB) has shown that fraudsters are using social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook and apps to target younger people to defraud them.

They claim to be able to turn small investments of £100-200 into £1,000 or £2,000 for a cut of the profits – normally 10-20% - but no trades are believed to actually take place.  Victims are asked to pay either via a bank transfer, direct to another bank account controlled by the fraudster, or via a money transfer agent such as MoneyGram or Western Union.

As soon as a victim becomes suspicious and asks for their money back, the fraudster will block them on social media. No money has ever been recovered.

Further information can be found on binary options scams from the Action Fraud website at

Another valuable source of information is the www.getsafeonline.org website which is a dedicated area to help with online security.

If you have been contacted by a suspicious firm or have been affected by this, or any other scam, report it to Action Fraud by calling 0300 123 2040, or visiting www.actionfraud.police.uk