Abstract:In this article, my second installment in a series of Rtickes focused on the top two scams in the South African forex industry and also who are being named and shamed as the main players in these elaborate schemes, helping the masses to piece together for themselves if these gurus are in fact who they claim to be.
By Chadd
The first on this list is none other then Dr. Refiloe Nkele better know by he‘s stage name as Dr Ref Wayne. Born in 1995 in the humble town of Meadowlands, Soweto, Ref Wayne came from humble beginnings, a high school drop out, he began selling sim cards to earn a honest day’s pay and as a result met he‘s mentor Mr. David Schwartz, who was a bank trader who according to Dr. Ref Wayne passed away a few years later. Fast forward, Dr. Wayne has been trading since the age of 16 and made he’s first million at the age of 19 and hes first billion at the remarkable age of 22, depending on which self fulfilling article you read you will notice it is all in promotion of some new product he is selling.
According to some online articles, Dr. Ref Wayne is a self made Rand value billionaire with a net worth of over $500 million, yes USD! Which when converted to Rand is in the realm of R7. 5 billion, which would put he‘s networth in the same region of Laurie Dippenaar ($556.4 million USD) from Rand Merchant and First Rand bank, which in my opinion is very impressive, except that Dr Ref Wayne DOES NOT feature on ANY Forbes list ANYWHERE, Forbes India published an article on he’s handsome net worth but after extensive research I failed to find tangible evidence of that, this was the first red flag that jumped out at me, especially when compared to another South African Forex trader Sandie Shezi who actually does feature on the Forbes list and not even with the a net worth close to that of 500 million USD, strange how that works, although this does set off alarm bells it is unfortunately not the sign of trouble. The second notable warning sign is the PipCoin saga, a controversial topic to say the least, for this who are not aware of this digital currency, let me give you a brief run down, PipCoin was marketed as a peer to peer financial network for Forex traders to be used or traded amongst each other for transactional and other purchasing purposes, to be honest it is all just a confusing system that never went anywhere and bombed out almost as soon as it started, according to some reviews, it never yielded any the promised value for those who invested since the date of inception, after some research I found that around 66000 people supported and invested in this initiative to the tune of around R200 million and not long after going live PipCoin‘s value decreased dramatically with some citing losses of as high as 98% on their original investments, eventually bottoming out at meer cents on the Rand. There have been many aligations of of website and support domains being changed or redirected rendering customer service useless, further aligations were made of unanswered and ignored emails from concerned investors, the truth of the matter is not many people ever got their money back or what was originally promised by Dr. Ref Wayne who even claimed to be meeting with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to discuss the tremendous opportunity called PipCoin, this too never materialized.
The third concern to be noted regarding Dr. Ref Wayne is the much spoken about Armeggedon or AMG Forex robot that was marketed through the Ref Wayne brand, marketed as the “savior” of automated trading and sold as a guaranteed success rate of 80% and 90% accuracy when trading with this software, sounds like the ref flag we discussed in the previous article used to entice unsuspecting investors to make use of this rogue platform, with clients comments dating back as far as 2017 expressing disappointment in the platform, the gross lack of accountability and also the blatent disregard for the investors who lost money on this platform, with some investors losing up to $5000.00.
It is truly a sad day when such a great talent is named in such a way, I have no doubt that Dr Ref Wayne started out with the best of intentions not do I have any doubt that he has successfully traded the Forex market, but evidedently not near where he claims it to be, Dr Ref Wayne has also been named as someone who gives back to the community and started out giving free Forex classes to the masses to help eradicate poverty, with most believing that this is all for the cameras, somewhere along the way Dr Ref Waynes judgment skewed and based on research has proved to be someone to watch out for, my final advice is this, approach with caution, forget the flashy lifestyle and ask for facts when making any kind of investment of any kind.
See below from other investors and what their financial experience was with Dr Ref Wayne.
Revenue for the year declined by 8.3 percent. Trading volume also remained flat.
He was the COO of the company for almost six years. Match-Trade ended 2021 with solid figures.
cTrader received 53% of the vote in the Finance Magnates survey. It was well ahead of its competitors, including MatchTrader and Leverate.
It offers trading services with US and UK-listed shares, among other investments. It is offering commission-free services.