ArrowTeks Review

Brandon,

This is not an exhaustive account, but true.
I invested money (24,000 AUD) with the online trading company Arrowteks over a few months late last year and early this year. As I contributed the funds, they matched it with their own contribution to the same amount in order to have a larger pool of funds with which to trade. On 21 January 2021 all these funds were lost through trade, both mine and theirs, and now they are wanting their funds back saying that I am responsible for their loss. Importantly, one of the rules of our engagement was that I was not allowed to trade on my own, but only on the advice of a dedicated trader assigned to me by them. That’s what I did, and the funds were lost through the trades the dedicated trader instructed me to place. Arrowteks is not a regulated company in Australia, and I’d like to know do they have the power to force me to pay them this money, bearing in mind that I incurred the same losses they did as a result of the instructions they gave me.
About 6 to 7 hours before the funds were completely lost, I called their London office twice to get the trader to call me, and wrote him many emails to call. He eventually called and assured me the funds were safe, and I will not lose my initial investment. It is true that just as he called, the was a lull in the very negative trend in the trade up to that point. But then the negative trend started again and in a few hours the funds were lost. The next day I remonstrated with the trader by email (because you can’t just call them directly – they call you) He said by email he will sort it out.
He said we had two options: the first was for him to recover some of the funds through insurance, this would only be US$2,400 and that will take some time. The second option is the one he wanted to go with. I asked him to put in an email:

Hi Frank,
Recovery offer-
In order to recover the losses on the clients account (Frank Losonski),
The company (Arrowteks) will be adding 30,000$ to the clients account once the client completes the transfer of 10,000$ from his side.
The money will be used until the losses will recovered.

Told him I can’t do it because I didn’t have the money. Then on the 25th January he came back with a new recovery plan:

New Recovery offer-

In order to recover the losses on the clients account (Frank Losonski),
The company (Arrowteks) will be adding 40,000$ to the clients account once the client completes the transfer of 10,000$ from his side.
The money will be used until the losses will recovered.

This time US$10,000 from me and $40,000 from them. After a lot of pressure from him to take his generous offers, I rejected them, and told him I’ll stay with the $2,400 from the insurance recovery.
So after maybe two weeks they deposited US$2,400 into my Arrowteks account. I said I wanted to continue to trade with this slowly and thus recover my losses. At that point I was only referring to my own losses (the $24,000 AUD). The trader said it will take a long time, but did not say it cannot be done. He said it will take years; I said it didn’t matter. He accepted it, and we made a few small trades. But soon he said that he wanted me to invest more and the company will also contribute (double what I put in), so that better trades cane be done with the larger funds. So I invested another $2,500 AUD on 4 March 2021(US$1952.23) and they put in another ($4000 US) of their funds, (I think, because they don’t notify you of what they contributed – they just say it verbally, and your account increases, but I did not receive any documentation for it).
This brought my account up to roughly US$8,500. He said with this amount you can trade more reasonably. We made a few trades, and got the account up to roughly US$10,000.
After this there was no mention that I needed to go onto a radically more aggressive recovery plan to recover the losses incurred by the company. To this point only my losses were discussed, and he was annoyed when I kept referring back to what had happened. His calls became less frequent, saying that he was sick, then on vacation, and then about a month ago he stopped calling me altogether. I sent many emails for him to call. No calls.
So about three weeks ago I started trading on my own and made about US$1,200, and kept sending emails for him to ring me during this time.
A few days ago I rang the company and sternly requested that he call me. Then I got a call the next day from his supervisor, Santino Kessler, saying that he has taken over my file, and that I had to go on a recovery plan so that my losses and the company’s losses can be recovered. This would have required again significant outlays by me, but again the company would also contribute. I said I wasn’t sure, but he took this as a yes. He called me yesterday to finalise it, but I refused it. He got quite irate and he said that the company needed to recover its losses of US$19,000, which they contributed along the way. There is now about $11,000 in my Arrowteks account, so I suppose they want the other US$8000. I told him I was prepare to trade until the account reached the amount owing to them, and then they can have it. He said the Finance Department won’t allow it unless I’m on a recovery plan – they will close the account and take the $11,000, then they will ask the ATO (sic) to issue a fine to me and the ATO will make me pay it. He assured me it will be a large sum.
He gave me till today to email him my final decision. I refused his offer again.
A Comment:
I believe the reason why the trader required me to contribute such large sums from the start is because they requested remote access to my computer screen. He said they needed this so he can direct me how to transfer the funds which I contributed. He said he can’t see my account profile at my bank. But I think he could, because after the losses when I spoke to him he told me to tell him honestly about that account their Finance Department saw on my profile having about $80,000 in it at the time. I told him the truth that it was a Commonwealth Bank mistake, whereby they accidentally put one of my client’s account onto my profile, because the client allowed me access to his account to get statements. At the time that this mixup occurred, I alerted the CBA manager straight away at Keilor Downs, Victoria where my account was opened, but she did not know how to change it. I have since changed it through telephone banking.

I would be very grateful if you could help me or maybe give your thoughts on the case.

Frank Losonski