31 May 2007It is with deep regret that we have to inform you that FeederFund is closing down. It was set up with the desire to provide an opportunity for small investors to take advantage of high risk, but equally high return unregulated investments as per our Membership and Subscription Terms.
As you know, some of those investments did not do well and the information below is a summary of how we dealt with accounts in those programs once they failed.
ArbClub
Oct-2004. We were able to negotiate an immediate settlement of our account for a small loss, which wasn’t passed onto Members who retained their full profits. (41.5% over 6 months)FSI
Mar-2006. FSI is now being liquidated. No futher interest will be paid to this program. FeederFund Members need to transfer any funds in FSI to another Program. Members retained their full profit (243% over 19 months).CIubInvest
Apr-2006. ClubInvest is now being liquidated. No futher interest will be paid to this program. FeederFund Members need to transfer any funds in ClubInvest to another Program. There have been losses associtated with this Program, but none passed onto Members. Members retained their full profit (108% over 28 months).Club4X
May-2006. Club4X (4X-Club) posted a 33.6% loss as of the first week in May. This was a revaluation based on the write off of their trading account in Refco. This loss was in fact higher, but a substantial amount of capital from the 4X-Club Principals has been added to reduce that loss. Club4X will not be accepting any further members or deposits, but will be continuing to trade existing Member accounts at least to a break even position. Members retained their full profit (55.5% over 11 months).CC
May-2006. ChartCandle was removed as an Associtate Program due to low returns. Members retained their full profit (12% over 10 months).LF
July-2006. LeopardFund was removed as an Associtate Program due to our concern over trust. Members retained their full profit (55.13% less withholding tax, over 9 months).It should be clear from our actions in regards to these programs that we have tried to act in a professional and equitable manner when there have been problems. Recently the losses associated with FXIG and the news of the fraudulent deception by PSHI have caused major concern over the level of loss that might be sustained and the situation with ITS still remains unresolved. To say the wheels have come off the bus would not be overstating the case.
Due to this dire situation, and the risk of legal action by some disgruntled members, the decision had been taken in April to liquidate all the assets of programs that could be accessed and make full balance repayments for these programs, namely SAF, NSFG, JoyFund, ILC and the Cash Account. However, in trying to do the right thing, this action has resulted in our complete undoing.
In April, all these programs were liquidated and just under $300K of e-gold was attained ready for these settlements to be actioned. Then E-gold was indicted and most of the large Exchangers had their accounts seized. The timing was appalling, but at that stage there seemed very little we could now do about the situation and the plan was to continue to make the payment in e-gold to ensure that our liability had been discharged before anything else went wrong. We were quite confident that the assets in e-gold would be able to be out exchanged by the members at some point in the future and we wanted to ensure that settlement of all liquid accounts was achieved. That is now unfortunately not going to happen.
Earlier in the month we transferred all the e-gold to our main E-gold account ready for these settlements to be actioned, but one day later, the account was frozen, preventing the process from occurring.
Below is our discussion with E-gold regarding this action:
>> —–Original Message—–
>> From: ffadmin@feedernews.com [mailto:ffadmin@feedernews.com]
>> To: 7eLO2428_ddu@e-gold.com
>> Subject: [e-gold-ddu] Access to Account … [PR: ZBBTBUDZ]
>>
>> CATEGORY: DDU
>> Customer Name: Matthew Calder
>> Email: ffadmin@feedernews.com
>> Phone:
>> Fax:
>> e-gold Batch:
>> e-gold Account: 1063249
>> Question: Dear Sirs,
>>
>> Access to Account 1063249 has been declined. A substantial amount of
>> e-gold had been acquired to provide full balance payments to all
>> subscribed members. If access to our account is not re-established in
>> the next 48 hours then we shall issue account settlements for all
>> Members and notify them to contact you to make the necessary
>> payment from our account.
>>
>> Yours sincerely, Matthew Calder.
>>
>>
> ——– Original Message ——–
> Subject: RE: [e-gold-ddu] Access to Account … [PR: ZBBTBUDZ]
> From: EG DDU <7elo2428_ddu@e-gold.com>
> Reply-To: <7elo2428_ddu@e-gold.com>
> Organization: G&SR INC
> To:
>
>
> Sir,
>
> Your e-gold account was frozen pursuant to a court order issued by the
> United States District Court for the District of Columbia case number:
> 07-198-M-01.
>
> Thank You,
> Due Diligence Unit
>——– Original Message ——–
Subject: RE: [e-gold-ddu] Access to Account … [PR: ZBBTBUDZ]
From: FFAdmin
Reply-To: FFAdmin@FeederNews.com
To: 7eLO2428_ddu@e-gold.comDear Sir,
This is a truely calamitous situation. That gold was to be used as full and final payment of outstanding liquid liabilities. This now puts us in an impossible situation. We have a UK legal company deal with our affairs normally but we are in the process of finding a US lawyer to see if there is something that can be done. It would be a great help if you could provide us with more information so we have an understanding of what has happened and what action might be taken.
Ideally can you please send us the Court Order which will answer the first two issues below.
First and foremost, we need to find out if this is an injunctive relief or if a judgement has been passed against the company or individuals.
Secondly, we need to find out who is bringing this action? Is this the work of a US government organisation, or a private action being taken by an individual member in what will effectively be a smash and grab raid much to the detriment of all other members. Either way it is a disaster for the members, but in the latter case, it may be possible to ensure that some benefit is gained by them.
Thirdly, if the action is being brought by a single member, what will happen to the assets? How do we find out what account they have been transferred to so a class action may be considered for the benefit of the other members? This is a very large amount of money so what happens to any surplus of their claims as this will certainly be the case?
This is a truely terrible situation and will result in us being unable to met our liabilities which could result in further legal actions being filed against us. All of this on prima facie evidence which will be impossible to defend against.
From here we will be doing all we can to help all members reach some settlement, but our backs are really against the wall now and we need to protect our own interests as well.
In regards to the action being taken against you by the US Government, we do offer our best wishes. We have found e-gold to be a straight and professional organisation. It is an extremely difficult area to work in with the legal and polital pressures on the one hand and the scammers and hackers on the other. We wish you luck for the outcome.
Yours sincerely, Matthew Calder.
——– End Message ——–
Our answers came soon enough, not through E-gold, but through our own lawyers. The court case reference was the same USA vs E-gold indictment that allows for the forfeiture of E-gold assets by the US government for specifically the operation of any unlicenced exchange operation or any unlicenced investment.
There is not the slightest hope of recovering this money. This action is not an injunction, it is a forfeiture (confiscation) of e-gold assets. The principal targets were the large exchangers, namely 1mdc, Icegold and Omnipay but dozens of large accounts have also been seized. We understand that the US government has already forced E-gold to pay them $11-15 million by exchanging this amount of gold associated with the forfeitures. For any hope of this money to be returned, E-gold would have to be found innocent and despite that being the case, this is not the outcome that will prevail through the courts, in our opinion.
This situation means the almost total ruin of FeederFund and there is absolutely no way that it can either try and recover these losses or on the otherhand, make any further offering with such potential legal issues surrounding it. It is an extremely sad and disappointing end, especially as we had made significant inroads to finding very profitable and stable regulated opportunities. We had high hopes for FeederFund but ultimately it has failed for many reasons, some within our control and others beyond it. We know many Members will be very angry and upset that it has come to this, but there is little more to do apart from liquidate the remaining assets and move on with life.
We deeply regret what has happened and any hardship this may have created for Members. For our part, FeederFund has been a major loss for us as well. We had invested heavily in FXIG and PSHI and have lost significant amounts of capital as a result. We have come out with more experience and some important lessons and hope that Members have likewise.
As you can imagine, we have received numerous emails over the last 2 months covering the full spectrum of emotions and opinions. Some members have refused to accept any respsonsibility for any loss and demanded their full balance of all investments. This is obviously not going to happen. For these members we would remind them that they did agree to the Terms of Membership when they joined and paid a subscription for the private information and services provided by FeederFund. Those terms included:
FeederFund is a private organisation. Membership is only available by referral from an existing Member.
FeederFund provides private information services and also administers various private account management facilities for its Members.
Applicant shall not disclose the terms, conditions, or particulars of FeederFund Membership to any person.
Applicant declares he has not being solicited by FeederFund to become a FeederFund Member.
Applicant agrees to hold harmless and free from any liability, the Proprietors, Directors, Programmers and Staff of FeederFund, from any damages or losses, whatsoever and howsoever arising.
In regards to any investment Applicant may make as a result of information provided by FeederFund, Applicant agrees that:
a. The investment is made of his own free will and he shall take full responsibility for the decision.
b. Applicant shall only use risk capital for any such investment.
c. Applicant understands that past performance is no guarantee for future performance.
d. Applicant understands all disclosed investments are high risk and the value of investments may fall as well as rise.While most members are angry with the outcome, others have been philosophical about the situation and asked us to keep in touch regarding our plans for opportunities based on regulated offshore investments. For those who might be interested in this, please click the link below and let us know.
Click here to stay in touch
In regards to the liquidation, we have appointed a third party organisation to manage this process and have provided access to all assets for them to distribute. With the losses from e-gold wiping out the funds associated with SAF, NSFG, JoyFund, ILC and the Cash Account, these are now only the recovered funds from FXIG, the ITS account and the $19K reserve fund.
Every Member who has made a deposit to FeederFund and not previously closed their account and wishes to make a claim against the remaining assets will need to logon to the new website being provided by this organisation. Members have until the end of August to make a claim against the remaining assets by simply logging into the new website.
The liquidation website is http://www.f-management.com/logon.php.
We re-iterate that you will need to logon to that website using your normal FeederFund Username and Password before the end of August if you wish to make a claim against the remaining assets of the company.
This website, feederfund.com, will be removed at the end of June.
Kind regards,
Matthew Calder,
for FeederFund SA.