Boom Reviews

Unstated prejudice against certain locations big waste of time and money

I m a British citizen working in a third world country It is very hard for me to invest through a British broker due to our stringent laws about money coming in from overseas This is a problem many British expats face I was so happy when I learned about Monex Boom and thought that I could finally put some of my money to work instead of leaving it in bank accounts to be eroded by inflation After filling in their rather frustrating webform which required me to fill in fields that were not applicable to me I had to print it and have it signed and witnessed It would have been easier to just fill in the whole thing in pen but that was not an option Additionally I had to send a certified true copy of my passport and proof of address As I am a long way from home I don t know a lot of suitable persons for witnessing After some difficulty I managed to locate a barrister who would do it as a favour It cost just under 50GBP to send the documents to Hong Kong from here which would have been well worth the money had things turned out better A couple of days after receiving the documents Boom starting asking for things They wanted a tax number that they didn t ask for on their pretty extensive form which was hard for me to find I provided it Then they wanted another number which I had clearly already provided which just goes to show how careful they are about all this And thirdly they wanted the barrister s business card I asked the barrister for his business card and sent them the scan They said it was not acceptable because the barrister uses a Gmail email address which is very common practice out here Almost as common as using a Hotmail account They wanted some other proof So again I had to bother this barrister doing me a favour and he told me the name of his bar association I passed that on to Boom They wanted his membership number I found it and told them Still not acceptable This went on for a while Whatever I gave them wasn t good enough I asked them what else I could do to prove I am who I say I am and that it was really me who signed the form After all they should be more concerned about verifying my identity than the witness s All I got was a curt reply saying that they could not proceed with the application I pointed out that in none of their various forms was I asked to prove a barrister is a barrister Again just a curt reply saying that they couldn t do anything Only after expressing my annoyance did I receive an apology Up until this point they were completely inconsiderate to the time wasted and embarrassment caused how often do you think barristers are asked to prove that they are barristers Only after further prodding was I given the option of reapplying using a different witness I replied saying that presumably the second witness must not use Gmail I was confused by how poorly I was treated by this well-respected company I searched the internet for anyone who had a similarly bad time I found a man in Thailand whose witness was not accepted because his business card was written in Thai My conclusion is that they are avoiding people from certain regions but wish to be known as a great international brokerage My advice is to look elsewhere