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The management of investment services and activities towards the public is reserved to subjects previously authorized by CONSOB.
Most of the time, the operations made by UNAUTHORIZED subjects, lacking the necessary requirements, including property and organizational ones, as envisaged by the regulations for the protection of investors, effectively give rise to SCAMS.
TRADING ONLINE
How to defend yourself
Check if the subject is authorized
If you are contacted by or if you come across a domain/website which offers you the opportunity for trading online (i.e. trade on binary options and / or forex transactions) please verify first of all if it is authorized.
Every authorized subject must be included in the SIM list kept by CONSOB. To check with the list click here. On the CONSOB website you can also control the list of all the EU investment firms operating in Italy:
At present, no other third country / UK investment firm, except those included in the above lists, is authorized to operate in Italy.
Also banks can be authorized entities for the provision of investment services; therefore it is useful to consult the lists published on the Bank of Italy website.
Check if the subject has already been reported
Check the "WARNINGS TO SAVERS" section of the CONSOB website and verify whether CONSOB has issued a warning related to the subject offering you financial services and / or CONSOB has ordered to stop its activity or its offer managed online through a website.
Check the "INVESTOR PROTECTION - INVESTOR ALERTS PORTAL" section of IOSCO (International Organization of Securities Commissions) website and verify if the subject offering you financial services has been warned against by other world Authorities homologous to CONSOB.
Warning. The firms which are not registered in the lists published on Consob website are not authorized as investment firms. If you cannot find a specific firm name in the lists which are published or in the communications published by Consob for the protection of savers ("Warning notices to savers") the company itself might be offering investment services without the due authorizations as well, in the absence of measures having yet been taken. In this case you must deliver to CONSOB a specific SIPE/Complain form.
Contact CONSOB if you have any doubts
If you have further doubts, please contact CONSOB by the SIPE request form/ASK TO CONSOB or call +39.06.8477611 (Monday to Friday, from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm and from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm).
Remember that every information provided by investors and savers who want to protect themselves from the risk of fraud represents a valuable source of information for CONSOB and can provide important details for assessing supervisory initiatives.
Please take note that the submission of a complaint to the Public Security Authorities may also be extremely appropriate, to protect oneself against the illegal use by scammers of privacy, personal data (identity document, fiscal code), banking references or any other data or information which have been transmitted in good faith by the scammed subjects.
NEW: italian Register against unwanted calls
The new Public Register of Oppositions provides for the possibility for all home/mobile telephone numbers, both in public and reserved telephone, to subscribe to a ad hoc service in order not to receive unwanted (telemarketing and other) proposals by telephone. The related instructions are published on the website of the Ministry of Productive Activities at https://registrodelleopposizioni.it/.
What can you do
Before investing
ask for more information to the subject who contacted you
or ask the operator to specify every detail of the company mentioned
or ask if the said company is authorized
or ask who gave the authorization
or ask for the authorization number
or ask for details about the authorized domain
or ask where the said company/domain is legally located
make by yourself independent, simple and basic checks on the web
if possible, check the site of the Supervisory Authority that is supposed to have authorized the subject offering financial services (also to verify through which websites/domains the subject effectively operates; avoid the so-called clone sites, illegal operators which may happen to use websites/domains whose name is similar to that of authorized parties);
if possible, check the business register of the country where the online subject declares to have its legal headquarters and check attentively the related information (name, headquarters, etc.);
or enter the company or website/domain name in a primary search engine (i.e. Google) and check the main results published in forums, blogs and other, on the web.
If, after your requests / verifications, you have not obtained a clear and complete information, do not rush to invest money in this trading company at any prize, because the proposal you have been made might be a scam.
After the investment
Remember that the abusive practice of investment services and activities is a crime punishable by imprisonment for up to a maximum of 8 years (Article 166 of the Consolidated Law on Finance - TUF).
report the subject to the Public Security Authorities
reports the subject to CONSOB
Be wary of subjects who promise you the recovery of the money invested.
Alert indices
Who contacted you did not provide clear answers to your questions;
The answers provided have not been confirmed on the web and on the websites you have examined;
Very high and / or easily achievable economic returns are promised as well as incentives (bonuses) to entice you to invest;
Persistent phone calls from the operator to induce you to invest (so-called Cold Calling)
The company/firm/domain is based in off shore countries / tax havens.
FINANCIAL INVESTMENT OFFER
If you have been contacted by a subject or if you come across a website/domain which, instead of proposing the opening of a trading account, suggests you to join financial initiatives related to "DIFFERENT GOODS", contracts related to each other or not better specified " investment programs "whereby:
you are asked for CAPITAL (even of a SMALL amount)
you are offered a YIELD (with the perspective of a relevant, HIGH in percentage, economic return, out of the market value)
you might be faced with a negotiating proposal concerning a "financial investment". In such cases, the subject proposing the transaction is urging the public of savers to make financial investments.
To carry out this "OFFER" activity, it is requested the publication of an INFORMATION PROSPECTUS, a document APPROVED BY THE CONSOB, containing information on the investment that is proposed to you, on the risks you run, on the issuing company and on its state of health (checking the section of the CONSOB website where the prospectuses are published click here)).
Making an offer of financial products to the public without publishing a the prospectus represents a violation of administrative law and, very often, hides effective scams with respect of savers.
