Beware! Alliance Investment 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.
Alliance Investment claims to be a New Zealand broker with a focus on the crypto market, as well as forex trade and even real estate investments.
Their offer includes several investment plans with guaranteed weekly returns of between 5% and 12% – which is unrealistic, so if you are considering investing with them be sure to read this review first.
Alliance Investment regulation & safety of funds
Alliance Investment is owned and operated by Alliance Investment Limited – a company that says to be based and regulated in New Zealand. Unfortunately that information turned out not to be true. Not only Alliance Investment Limited is not regulated by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) of New Zealand, but also FMA has issued a special warning about Alliance Investment Limited, adding the company to a list of suspected scam brokers.
Take a note that trading with unregulated brokers generally comes with a unreasonably high risk of loosing your money to scammers. Broker, regulated by well respected institutions like the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) or the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) of New Zealand are reliable due to the strict rules they are obliged to follow.
Among those we should note the obligation to keep all clients finds in a segregated, trust account, to provide them with a negative balance protection, meaning that a trader can not loose more money than he or she has invested, to maintain at all times a certain capital adequacy ratio, to file regular reports, to allow external audits and in certain cases even to insure traders funds.
For example all regulators in the European Union require their brokers to participate in customer compensation schemes. With CySEC brokers the insurance covers up to 20 000 EUR of the invested capital, while with FCA brokers the insured funds are up to 50 000 GBP.
Alliance Investment deposit/withdrawal methods and fees
Alliance Investment accepts payments with a bank wire and several crypto coins, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin, but no popular e-wallets like Neteller and Skrill. Besides, take a note that since October last year Skrill requires all brokers, that want to use its services, to provide a legit license. Alliance Investment , as we already discussed, does not have a license so it is not a surprise that they do not accept payments with Skrill.
The minimum deposit requirement is also higher than with most other brokers – 500 USD.
How does the scam work?
There are many variations of the story, but more or less it is about an irresistible offer for fast, easy and “completely risky free” returns in exchange of a minimum investment. And quite often gullible investors get hooked by the so called robo scam websites like Crypto Revolt and Bitcoin Evolution.
Besides, initially scammers will just ask you to fill a simple registration form with your e-mail and phone. And if you do that you will be promptly transferred to the website of a scam broker, where finally you will be invited to deposit about 250 USD.
Have in mind that trading with a scam broker in the beginning might seem like a lot of fun. You will receive lots of trading signals and your trades will actually be quite successful. That, however, will not be real. Your account will simply be manipulated so that you will be more easily seduced to invest a larger sum.
And also that is the time you will receive a phone call as well. It will be “a senior account manager”, who will basically explain that if you want to make some real cash you will simply have to invest more – at least 10 000 USD.
And chances are you will invest those money as well and you will not know you have been scammed until the very moment you decide to withdraw some of your cash. Than it will suddenly turn out this is not possible, because of some minimum trade volume requirement you have agreed with, when you accepted your trading bonus in the first place. In any case the pretext might be different, but the end result will be the same – you will not see a single penny back.
What to do if scammed?
Our experience shows, that if you have lost money to scammers you do not have much options except to file for a charge back with your credit card company. Fortunately both VISA and MasterCard currently allow customers to file for a charge back within 540 days. In any case you should do that immediately.
Sometimes scammers may try to trick you to tell them your banking details, including your credit card number and online banking password. In case you have told them your banking details, immediately block your credit card and change your password.
And finally do not trust the offers of the so called recovery agencies. They will not help you recover your money, but will simply charge you some fees in advance, leaving you even deeper in to the red.
