Forex and Binary Options Broker Complaints
Nowadays, Forex, Crypto and Binary Option brokers are often associated with complaints and scams, which can be for many reasons. Investors that choose to trade with regulated or licensed brokers rarely deal with such problems.
If you have invested money with a non-regulated or unlicensed broker, there is no government agency that can help you get your money back.
MyChargeBack is a service that specialises in cases such as this – they will hunt down the broker and hopefully recover the money you invested.
Complaining to licensed brokers
However, if your broker is authorized by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom or licensed by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) in Cyprus, follow the directions below:
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
The FCA explicitly warns users to always be careful before investing money and to check their FCA register and Warning List where they can find which specific firms to avoid. Now, if you are late in reading this and have already been scammed, you can use their reporting form to submit a complaint or even report the firm or scam directly to them by contacting their Consumer Helpline on 0800 111 6768.
To understand the entire process in more detail, read their full FCA complaint procedure. However, as mentioned before, you will not be able to get any help you if you have chosen to invest in a non-regulated or unlicensed broker.
Next time be smart and invest in a regulated and licensed broker like 24option.
Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC)
CySEC takes every complaint that clients submit into consideration but warns them that they cannot investigate each individual complaint.
If you are unsatisfied with a financial product or service provided by a Cyprus Investment Firm (CIF), follow the three steps below:
- Contact the CIF
Once they receive your complaint, they are required to respond within five days informing you that it has been received. In addition, within two months, they are required to let you know whether your complaint has been resolved successfully or whether they need more time (with the maximum being three months from the day of the complaint).
- Contact the Financial Ombudsman
The Financial Ombudsman is a service that settles disputes between clients and CIFs. If you are unhappy with the CIF’s response or if they have not responded within the time period required, you should check directly with the Financial Ombudsman.
- Go to court
Finally, if you are unhappy with the decision made by the Financial Ombudsman, you can take the case directly to court.
The CySEC also gives its clients a form they can fill if you want to inform them about a specific complaint you submitted. Their full complaint procedure, as well as this form can be found here.
Withdrawal Complaints – If You Cannot Get Your Money Back
If you have any problems withdrawing your money from a broker, we suggest using MyChargeBack.com, a service specifically created to help scam victims get their money back.
MyChargeBack is a special company that helps investors who have lost over $1.000.If you have been scammed by a broker, they urge you to never simply give up, but “fight back” to recover the money you lost. In order to make use of these services, you will need to be charged an upfront fee as well as a percentage of the funds that they manage to recover for you.
Here are three things to always keep in mind when a broker is not processing your request to withdraw your money:
- Withdrawing money is much more complicated of a process than depositing money.
When requesting a withdrawal from your broker, part of the procedure is verifying your identity through different documents. The most common of these are: National ID/ Passport/ Driver’s License, Proof of Residence: Utility bill, bank/credit card statement as well as your local authority tax bill. Now, when it comes to deposits that have been made by Credit or Debit card, you will be required to send a front and back scan of your card.
- Never just rely on a phone conversation or Skype message when requesting a withdrawal from your broker. You should alwaysmake sure to email the compliance department or contact their customer support.
- If you see that your broker is not processing your request for withdrawal in a timely manner, you can always contact your bank directly and ask them for a charge back. Usually when people face issues withdrawing their money from a broker, this means they are dealing with unlicensed or non-regulated companies that are often associated with fraud.
Managed Accounts Issues
The scenario has only become increasingly common: a Forex broker calls you and offers to trade on your behalf, reassuring you that you should trust their expertise and give them your money. The first problem that comes to mind here is that trading Forex and Cryptocurrencies entails great risk, no matter your trading level or experience. The truth is that, by authorizing a broker to invest your money on your behalf, you actually risk losing all the money in your account, so you are, in fact, giving all that money away.
It is important to note that if you do in fact decide to invest in Forex, before investing any money, you should always do the research and learn exactly what it means to be a real trader. You should never trust that someone else will help you make money. In fact, if you do the research and look at how most brokers make their money, they actually profit when you lose yours – which means helping you make money is not even slightly in that broker’s interest.
Think about it:If a broker is such an expert at investing, why are they not out there trading with their own money and are so interested in investing yours?
Trading Software Scams
Users often open brokerage accounts when getting intrigued by certain “secret systems” they see in many advertisements that magically generate money. Some examples of such systems are, among others, Bitcoin Code, Crypto Trader and Tesler app.
These systems, referred to as “automated trading”, use a scam broker to create an account for you, tell you to deposit money, and then reassure you that the system will now start making you money. The problem here is that the brokers used by these systems are usually unlicensed and non-regulated companies and the type of software they advertise does not actually work. If you read carefully through a broker’s terms and conditions page, you will see a specific clause that prohibits the use of automated trading software.
Now, this does not automatically mean that all auto-trading robots out there are scams. You just need to be smart and always make sure to trade with a robot that works with licensed Forex brokers.
Bonus Policy Complaints
Receiving a bonus is one of the main reasons traders have trouble withdrawing funds from their broker.
Before accepting any bonus, you should always think about it and be extra careful. In fact, before anything else, you should read the bonus policy on the broker’s page carefully. Usually unlicensed companies require investors to trade 30 – 60 times the bonus value. You will notice that regulated brokers, on the other hand, never offer bonuses and there is a reason for that.
For example, let’s say you decide to deposit $500 and automatically receive a bonus of $200. Automatically, this means that you will now have to generate a trading volume of $500 x 20 = $10.000. Think about this for a moment – that is a lot of money. By accepting this bonus, the catch it that the $500 that you first deposited will only be eligible for withdrawal once the trading volume is met. So, in this scenario you will now have $700 in your account ($500 + $200 bonus). Now let’s say you decide to place a trade and profit $85,which now makes your account balance $785. This money will not be eligible for withdrawal.
In some cases, the worse kind, brokers automatically give users bonuses without their permission. This is exactly why these unlicensed companies receive so many complaints and bad reviews that are spread all over the internet. People want the word to be spread and inform others of these types of scams so they can hopefully avoid them.
Unauthorized Credit Card Charges
If you notice an unauthorized credit card charge from your broker, it could be explained by these two reasons:
- It was an honest mistake and your broker processed your payment twice.
- Your broker lost all your money, despite their claims to double the investment. Usually they then call you in order to convince you to invest even more money for them to trade.
The moment you notice an unauthorized charge to your credit card, you should immediately contact the credit card fraud department so they can try and dispute the charges.
The conclusion here is that trading is indeed a risk and if you decide to invest any money with a broker, make sure to always be aware of the scams out there, how they work and how to avoid becoming one of their victims. Now, if you are late in reading this and have already been a victim to a scam by a broker, make sure to follow the directions detailed above for each case.