Second, it should be remembered that Pepperstone's warnings were about trading in the account, but the defendant offered customers something more than that - managing the account using a robot. Robotic trading is the "thing" that customers turned to. An expression of this insight can be found in the testimony of Harel and Yechiel. Harel testified that although he knew that trading was risky, he believed that the robot was supposed to make the investment safe (P. 26.2.2023, p. 241, para. 35 ff.); Yechiel testified that although he filled out the questionnaire and in the process of filling out the questionnaire there was talk of a high risk, but the defendant presented the robot as something "already working" and the risk was not high (P. June 22, 2023, pp. 357, 21-23; p. 362, S. 13-15; p. 363, paras. 1-10). To this, it should be added that the representations regarding his expertise and experience in general, and in robotic trading in particular, pushed the warnings to the corner and effectively nullified their effect.
Third, the defendant himself stated that the purpose of the questionnaire is to filter, in such a way that only customers who are proficient in trading will be able to trade in the arena, in order to prevent anyone from participating in speculative trading at a high level of risk (P/4, p. 142, paras. 13 ff.). Despite this, the defendant did not deny that he had provided the answers to most of the clients in the account opening process (P/4, pp. 148-153), and on the other hand, most of the customers were not skilled in trading in the arena. The testimonies of the clients indicate that the defendant helped them fill out the questionnaire and that most of them even had difficulty in the English language (P/55, p. 33). Thus, Khoury, Kovacs, and Buskila testified that their English was not at a high level and that the defendant assisted them (February 26, 2023, p. 269, paras. 23-24); Buchnik testified that he was assisted by the defendant because there were questions that he did not understand how to answer (P. 26.2.2023, p. 288, paras. 30-31); Asa testified that he did not know English and was assisted by the defendant, he directed the questions to the defendant and the defendant replied with a repeated statement (March 8, 2023, p. 311, paras. 21-29; p. 316, s. 3; see also P/107, pp. 5-10), support for Asa's claims can be found in the correspondence between them (P/107, pp. 5-10). Moreover, one of the videos published by the defendant (P/14) is a kind of guide for customers on how to open an account, where, inter alia, he instructs the clients that among all the leverage levels that Prepstone offers, a leverage of 1:100 should be chosen and not any other leverage; because it is not worthwhile to record that the average salary is less than $15,000, because otherwise the account will not be opened. There is even a deceptive aspect to these guidelines, which is intended to allow customers to bypass the screening and even to convey that the questionnaire is not of great importance.