Complaint Review: Universal Forex Trading - Fort Lauderdale Florida

WARNING!

If you have been approached by either Carmen Katsaitis or Evan Taubman regarding financial or any other business matters, I suggest you tread carefully, or better yet look elsewhere. I have lost US$19,000 through their deception and careless mistakes, and I don't want other people to fall into the same trap.


My story:

I was approached by Evan Taubman in the fall of 2007. I had no idea who he was when he called me, nor where he got my number from. At the time he said he had wanted to help me earlier but didn't have the right vehicle, and now he did. He offered to trade Forex on my behalf via his team of expert traders at ufxtrading.com (note: I now own this domain name as they've abandoned it).

Frankly, I was intrigued by the offer because 6 months earlier I had known someone who was rather wealthy, and he had 3 people trading Forex on his behalf (they split the profits half-half). Evan told me my cost would be $70 per in and out trade (buy and sell). I thought that was fair, providing they actually would be making me money. He then proceeded to put me in touch with his personal assistant, Carmen Katsaitis. It turns out that Carmen was not his assistant, but as I later found out she was actually the owner of ufxtrading.com, and Evan worked for her!

In any case, Evan came across as a rather big shot, always throwing multi-million dollar figures around to try and impress me. He advised that they only trade Forex conservatively, with stop losses, etc. With Carmen's sweet-talking persistence I decided I would give them a shot, and so over the course of the next month, I wired a total of US$19,000 to 2 separate Forex brokerage accounts, placing them as power of attorney.

In the beginning, I played it conservative by giving them just $5,000 and seeing trades showing up in my account along with strong profits, I felt them to be sincere. So then shortly thereafter they advised they could do a better job if they had more to work with, and so I wired them another $7,000. Unfortunately, not long after, and through a freak occurrence, my entire account got wiped out, practically overnight. Carmen blamed it on the Forex company not shutting down my account as she had requested. [However, only recently (Nov 2008) after speaking with the CFO of that brokerage firm did I learn there was absolutely nothing on file about a request that my account be closed. That CFO is rather surprised to learn of my events because he says they had absolutely nothing to do with it.]

So, going back, Carmen and Evan insisted it was not their fault that my account got wiped out (as well as it turned out they had lost $500,000 in other people's accounts they were managing); at the time I believed them since they appeared to be genuine and sincere. Before this turn unfortunate turn of events, I had already wired them an additional $7,000 since they requested more funding, but luckily they had not gotten around to adding it to my trading account. When I asked Carmen if she could rebuild the lost $12,000 from the $7,000 she said YES. Despite my asking she trade conservatively to rebuild my losses, she still insisted on high-risk trades. (I consider myself to be a risk taker, however I
take calculated risks and I don't like things being rushed.)

One of several examples of the carelessness I saw came out when just before leaving for Christmas vacation, Carmen put in a 2-lot trade, and then took off for Costa Rica. I watched day by day as my account value plummeted and despite all my efforts I could not reach anyone at her office. By strange coincidence, the brokerage firm's website was under construction so I couldn't even download their platform or access my trading account to put a manual stop in place. Finally, in desperation I was able to get a hold of Evan (who had also gone to Costa Rica). He said he would speak with Carmen when he saw her in an hour and they would call me back. I waited and waited and she didn't call back.

My account had now gone below $0 and there was nothing I could do about it. Carmen's extreme level of carelessness and her lackadaisical attitude shocked me. She insisted she had people watching her accounts in her absence, but I highly doubt that or they would have put a stop to the shenanigans.
Now that she had personally wiped out US$19,000 of my money, I quickly learned that neither she or Evan had any more use for me. I found this rather appalling. Not only that, but when I went through my account statements, I discovered that I was actually being charged an average of $100 per in & out trade, not the $70 I had agreed to.

When I submitted my findings to Evan and Carmen, complete with full transactional data the brokerage firm had emailed me, all Carmen said was she'd look into it and contact someone at the brokerage firm for an explanation. Well, 3 months turned into 10 months and I got no call-backs and still she never could explain the discrepancy. All I wanted was some of my money back that I had clearly overpaid, and she refused to consider it. When I pressed further saying this was unacceptable, she said she would no longer accept my calls and I am never to call her again. And, even if someone from the brokerage firm were to call her regarding my case, she would not speak to them. Why? She insists I have wasted too much of her time already!?!  Excuse me, but after wiping out US$19,000 due to sheer carelessness, I felt I had every right to understand what took place. And, as it was we had barely spoken for a couple of hours in all of 2008 (as she was away in Greece for 6 months). Carmen's sudden callous attitude was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, and is what led me to warn others so they may not suffer a similar fate--thus this website.

In summary, my dealings with both Carmen Katsaitis or Evan Taubman started off rather pleasant, however I cannot call either one of them trustworthy or having integrity. With both of them, we had agreed on a $70 per in & out trade, but this ended up being inflated nearly 50% to over $100. Also, I had been told stop-losses were being used, but in actual fact they never were. For all intents and purposes, it was a cash grab, plain and simple. They got paid $100 commission on average per in & out trade regardless if they made me money or lost money. There really was no performance incentive to do well, and therein lies the crux called GREED.

Unfortunately, Universal Forex Trading has been shut down, no doubt after Carmen & Evan realized they had ZERO Forex trading acumen and should never have been in the business of investing to begin with. These people are SCAM artists first and foremost.

At last check Carmen also dabbles in real estate and mortgages through the following firm:

Innovative Mortgage Services
Carmen Katsaitis, Loan Associate
Trinity, FL 34655
Phone: (954) 696-8694

Last I heard, Carmen may also be working in Greece, no doubt to escape the wrath of angry US investors.

As for Evan Taubman, I have no idea of his present whereabouts, but no doubt he is still trying to rope in more people to his financial scams.