Beware! 101FX 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.
101FX says to offer tight spreads and access to over 1000 trading instruments including forex pairs and CFDs on commodities, metals, energies, shares, and indices with leverage as high as 1:999 and the MetaTrader4 platform.
As tested with a demo account the platform offered us just 28 major forex pairs and two CFDs – on gold and silver. That however is not our main problem with 101FX, but the fact that their website is virtually anonymous, and that they are not regulated as required if they want to offer any kind of financial services on regulated markets like the U.S., the European Union, Canada, Australia or Japan.
101FX regulation & safety of funds
101FX is owned and operated by 101 Venture Capital Limited – a company about which we know virtually nothing. There is no contact information, no address, not even a phone number. And we are not told where the company is incorporated too.
So basically what we are dealing here is an anonymous, unregulated broker with very limited credibility.
We should note as well that in their Terms and Conditions 101FX quotes the laws of the state of New York as their jurisdiction. However, if they are really based in the U.S. they will have to be regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and to be a member of the National Futures Association (NFA) – a membership that comes with a rather steep requirement – a minimum operational capital of at least 20 000 000 USD. That is why only a few brokers have US licenses, while the majority prefer getting a license in Europe by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK or the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC). Another option is the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC).
Bear in mind that trading with unregulated brokers is extremely risky and we strongly advise you to stay away from anonymous websites like 101FX.
101FX deposit/withdrawal methods and fees
Except for bitcoins 101FX does not tell us what other payment methods do they accept. Bear in mind that most brokers accept payments with major credit and debit cards like VISA and MasterCard, bank wire and various e-wallets – most notably Neteller and Skrill.
And 101FX offers trading bonuses, but you should be especially wary if a broker offers you a trading bonus. This is a highly controversial practice, prohibited on virtually all major regulate markets including the EU. The general problem with all trading bonuses is that they are invariably linked to some special withdraw conditions as for example a minimum trade volume requirement, which quite too often is used by scammers as a pretext to cancel your withdraw requests. And here 101FX does not even disclose what their bonus conditions are.
As for the minimum deposit requirement it is set at 10 USD and that looks fine.
How does the scam work?
If you have ever wondered how so many people get scammed – currently investment scams reach 1 million pounds a day in the UK alone – you should bear in mind that scammers are highly organized and do not spare resources fore their clandestine operations. They employ call centers, known as boiler rooms in places like the Philippines and Eastern Europe, as well as robo scam websites like Bitcoin Profit and Brexit Trader, where you will be greeted by some unrealistic offer for fast and easy returns with a minimum investment, and no risk at all. And if you get hooked and leave them your e-mail and phone, instantly you will be transferred to the web page of a unregulated scam broker, where finally you will be asked for an initial deposit of about 250 USD.
Scammers however will aim to squeeze you out of as much cash as they can, so their first step will be to manipulate your trading account – it will seem like you are making a lot of money and pretty soon your initial 250 USD will grow well over 500 USD. And you will be getting lots of phone calls as well. It will be your “senior account manager”, who basically will be saying that if you really want to make some real cash, you will definitely have to invest more – like at least 10 000 USD or even more.
And chances are that at this point you will be willing to invest that kind of money without realizing you have been scammed until the very moment you decide to withdraw some of your funds. Than, all of a sudden it will turn out you are not allowed to withdraw, because of the trading bonus you have so carelessly accepted and the minimum trade volume requirement, it is linked to. But even if you reach that minimum trade volume requirement, you can be sure that scammers will find another pretext to refuse to pay you.
What to do if scammed?
Your only plausible chance to get your deposit back is to file for a charge back with your credit card company. Fortunately both VISA and MasterCard will allow you to do that within 540 days – that is according to their new anti scam policy.
And if somehow scammers have tricked you to install TeamViewer, or to tell them your credit card number and online banking password, immediately delete the program, change the password and block your credit card.
And one final note. If you are approached by the so called recovery agencies, do not trust them. They will not recover you a single penny, but simply will charge you with some payments in advance, basically scamming you a second time.