Beware! This 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.
Swiss CCI is a forex and CFD broker, focused on the crypto market, but also offering forex pairs, and CFDs on indices, commodities, precious metals and stocks. The crypto CFDs cover coins like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, Ethereum, Ripple and Monero. Spreads are advertised to start at 1,5 pips, but when tested with a demo account the trading conditions were much worse with the EURUSD spread fluctuating around 7 pips. Maximum leverage is caped at 1:100 on a web based trading platform that reminds us of TradingView. Unfortunately there is no information about the minimum deposit requirement.
Swiss CCI regulation & safety of funds
The ownership of Swiss CCI looks a bit shady – first we have a Marshal Islands registered company – Thinking Ahead Limited, which is said to be the owner, and than a Bulgaria based company – Kitano Limited, which is associated with Thinking Ahead Limited and is said to be operating the website. Here we should note that it is rather easy to register a company on the Marshal Islands, as you can do that online, without taking the long journey to the South Pacific atoll.
Also, we can not speak of any reliable financial regulation on the Islands, as the authorities there simply does not have the capacity to oversee internationally operating brokers.
As far as Bulgaria is concerned, we diligently checked the registers of the local Financial Supervision Commission, but were unable to find Kitano Limited or Swiss CCI there.
All that leads us to the conclusion that Swiss CCI is an unregulated, offshore broker, where the European based company runs a marketing unit and a call center, while the Marshal Islands entity collects the profit. This is a common practice with scammers as the offshore company easily manages to stay under the radar of the authorities.
All that said we strongly advise you to invest only with brokers regulated by respected financial authorities like the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) or the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC).
Apart form the transparency of the trading conditions, traders with FCA and CySEC brokers are entitled to compensations in case something with the broker goes wrong. With FCA brokers you can get back up to 50 000 GBP of your trading capital, while with CySEC the insured funds are up to 20 000 EUR.
Swiss CCI deposit/withdrawal methods and fees
You can fun your account with SwissCCI using various methods, including crypto coins. Other payment methods include major credit or debit cards likeVISA and MasterCard, as well as wire transfer. However, we miss popular e-wallets like Netteller and Skrill.
How does the scam work?
Scammers use different scenarios to trap their victims. However, the usual scam goes like this:
Probably it will all start with a video, that you will happen to watch on the Internet. It will be a nicely edited video, telling the story of ordinary people, whose lives changed after they won big by trading the forex and the crypto markets with a cutting-edge financial company. And if you are interested and want to learn how, you will have to fill a simple registration form, leaving your phone and e-mail.
Next you will receive a call from a professionally sounding “financial adviser”, who will soon convince you to invest a modest sum – 200 USD and start making money right away. Your first trades will go more than well and in no time the money in your account will double – 100% profit in just a few hours of trading! However, do not fool your self that your have necessarily made great trading decisions, as your account and trading platform will most probably be manipulated.
Next you will receive another call, this time form a “senior account manager, who will be impressed by your trading performance and will advise you, that if you want to make real money you will have to invest more – at least 10 000 USD. Chances are that you will follow his advise as well and basically everything will look fine, until you try to withdraw some of your profit.
Than it will turn out that because of some obscure clause in their Terms and Conditions, that you have omitted to notice, you simply can not withdraw. It may be connected with a requirement for the trading volume or probably with the welcoming bonus you have agreed to receive, when you opened the account in the first place. The base line is that you will not be able to withdraw even a single penny.
Besides, at some point the scammers will ask you to send them copies of your ID and a proof of address (your electricity bill for example). They will cite some anti-money laundering regulation. However, the real reason is that if you provide them with personal information voluntarily, they will have a much stronger case, when you file for a charge back with your credit card provider.
Beware that some scammer might even try to trick you to install Team Viewer on the pretext to help you with the installation of some software or with the funding of your account. If you allow this, be sure that they will get to your bank details – your credit card number and the password for your online banking – and will steal money directly form your bank account.
What to do if scammed?
In the unfortunate event that you fall victim to a scam, immediately contact your credit card provider and file for a charge back. Have in mind, however, that this is possible within a six month period only.
In case you have provided the scammers with your personal bank details like credit card number or the password for your online banking, block your credit card immediately and change the password for your online banking service. Do the same if you have agreed to install a Team Viewer.
And finally, if you have lost money to scammers do not seek the service of the so called recovery agencies. They are on a hunt for desperate traders like you and will simply take an upfront payment, leaving you even deeper into the red.
