Beware! FXEnergy is an offshore broker! Your investment may be at risk.
RECOMMENDED FOREX BROKERS
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Open trading accounts with at least two brokers.
FX Energy is a forex and CFD broker, offering over 40 currency pairs, as well as CFDs on crypto coins, spot metals, various energy and agricultural commodities, indices and stocks on the MetaTrader4 platform. Traders may choose between 5 account types where the minimum deposit requirement ranges between 500 USD and 50 000 USD depending on the account type.
The spreads that we came across, while testing their trading platform with a demo account were not very impressive. The EUR USD spread was fixed at 3 pips, which is roughly two times higher than the level traders usually expect with a standard account. The offered maximum leverage is caped at 1:400, which is generous and can easily fit any trading style.
FX Energy regulation & safety of funds
FX Energy is owned by S.r.Capital Group Ltd. – a company registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which is also a shareholder in A.M.I. Solutions Ltd. – a Bulgaria based company, which is operating the broker’s website.
FX Energy does not say anything about their regulatory statues and that is unfortunate as having a legit license is crucial for the security of any investment.
And because A.M.I. Solutions Ltd. are based in Bulgaria, we decided to check the registers of the local Financial Supervision Commission (FSC), where all companies providing financial services in the country should be licensed. However, we were not able to find neither A.M.I. Solutions Ltd. nor FX Energy there.
Being licensed in the St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which is an offshore territory in the Caribbean, does not sound serious. Local financial authorities from places like Vanuatu, the Marshal Islands or St. Vincent and the Grenadines ether does not or simply have not the capacity to monitor internationally operating forex brokers.
Sufficient protection can be provided only by well respected financial institution such as the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK or the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), where brokers are obliged to follow strict rules.
With an FCA backed client compensation scheme for example, traders can receive back up to 50 000 GBP of their trading capital, in case their broker goes insolvent.
FX Energy deposit/withdrawal methods and fees
You can fund your account with FX Energy using major credit or debit cards like VISA and MasterCard, bank wire or CashU. However, we do not see any of the popular e-wallets like PayPal, Skrill or Neteller and we do not see an option to pay with crypto coins.
How does the scam work?
There are many ways scammers use to trick traders and get away with their cash. Yet the most widely used scheme goes as follows:
You may happen to watch a high end, professionally edited video telling you its easy to get rich by trading the markets with a cutting-edge financial company. Usually, to learn more you will have to fill a simple registration form, leaving your e-mail and phone number. And then you will receive a casual call from a professionally sounding “financial adviser”, who will convince you to invest just 200 USD and start making money right away. And even if your intention is just to say politely you are not interested and to hang up, you will be surprised to find yourself investing those 200 USD the same afternoon.
And trust me, your first trades will go smoothly and in no time your money will double – you will have 100% profit in just a few hours.
And than you will be contacted again, this time by a “senior account manager”, who will tell you that if you want to make real money you will have to invest more – let say 10 000 USD. And chances are you will invest those money as well and than your trades will go into the red. Besides, that is not because you have necessarily made bad trading decisions, but simply because your trading account will be manipulated.
Than you will be contacted again and your “account manager” will try to convince you not to close the trades and that the market will surely recover. His only solution will be that you invest another 10 000 USD to avoid the margin call. And if you refuse to deposit those 10 000 USD, the money in your account will soon evaporate. In any case, even if you want to withdraw your remaining cash, the scammer will tell you it is not possible because of some clause in their Terms and Conditions, which you have omit ed to read.
Also, beware that some scammers may even try to convince you to install TeamViewer, under the pretext to assist you with software installation and funding your trading account. If you allow this, latter it will turn out they have stolen your credit card number or bank security code and your card will be depleted.
What to do if scammed?
In case you are a victim of a scam, you should immediately contact your bank or credit card provider and file for a charge back . Unfortunately that may work only within a 6 month period and if you have voluntarily provided the scammers with your ID and a proof of address, they will have a much stronger case, when you file for a charge back.
In case you have given any banking details to the “broker” – you credit card number for instance, or they have convinced you to install a TeamViewer – immediately cancel your credit card. If you have given them the pass for your online banking service, change the password right away.
And finally, if you have lost money with scammers, do not loose even more with the so called “recovery agencies”. Those companies are on a hunt for desperate traders, who have been stinged by scammers and will simply ask you for an up-front payment without any result.
