Beware! Investlead 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.
Investlead can be quite the tricky broker to pin down, yet it didn’t take long for us to unveil its true nature. We opened a live account and were given a leverage of 1:100, and a very favorable EUR/USD cost of trade of 0.2 pips. Users can choose from a variety of different accounts, each one harboring distinct spreads, with the highest leverage being 1:1000. At least this is what the broker website claims. Read on to find out more.
INVESTLEAD REGULATION & SAFETY OF FUNDS
The Terms and Conditions claim that the broker is governed by two companies, Gozala Enterprise Ltd based in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Gozala Services OÜ operating from Estonia.
In Estonia the Finantsinspektsioonacts (FI) acts as a regulatory entity for all financial services institutions, with all regulated companies being officially included in an online register. There were no results of Investlead in the registry, so we can conclude that the broker is not regulated in Estonia. Note that the broker does not claim that the company is actually regulated there, only that it is registered there. Even if a company is registered in a country, that does not make it licensed by its appropriate body which is crucial for any forex broker.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines is the ideal location for illicit brokers, since the country does not regulate the forex market. This means that any would-be broker can register there without issue and start offering shady trading services, while twisting the rules, much like Investlead has done.
Furthermore, it does not say that the broker is actually a hold of any sort of license, which again staples XP Trade as an UNREGULATED broker. Without a regulation users should be aware that the safety of their funds might not be the priority of the broker, since there are no rules by which XP Trade should abide by. There is no other information concerning any type of regulation.
Traders should be trading with risk-free brokers, that hold licensed from renowned and austere agencies, like the FCA or CySec , which have made a name for themselves as some of the top regulators. Readers should be aware that both agencies have adapted very strict rules of conduct, and their licensing framework guarantees safety and security for all clientele. A good example of this is the segregation of accounts which assures that client money and broker money are kept in separate accounts. Furthermore, FCA/CySEC brokers participate in a financial reimbursement scheme that cover traders losses in case the broker becomes insolvent.
The FCA provides up to 85 000 pounds per person, while CySEC guarantees up to 20 000 euros.
INVESTLEAD TRADING SOFTWARE
We used a web version of the MT4. Users can also download the full desktop trading platform that is far more superior to its browser counterpart. Nevertheless, the MT4 is abundant in trading options that accommodate all of the trader’s needs: Expert Advisors, one click trading, multiple order types, superior chart management and customizable trading indicators (and many more). The platform also allows for VPS’s, letting the auto trading bots to trade without worrying that their job will be interrupted.
INVESTLEAD DEPOSIT/WITHDRAWAL TIME AND FEES
According to the client dashboard the user can deposit by means of Credit Card, Orounda, Payboutique, WellcoinPay HPP, Apcopay, VoguePay, iPayTotal. There is not minimum amount requirement; we were able to continue with just $1. The broker has not revealed any deposit fees.
Even though we opened an account, the withdrawal section of the client dashboard did not detect our account, meaning that the dashboard offers us no information on withdrawals. The Deposit & Withdrawal policy gives us insight. Users can withdrawal through Credit Cards, e-Wallets and Bank Transfer. Furthermore, withdrawals are burdened by some hefty fees: Wire Transfers are charged with $50 per withdrawal; $25 for Credit Card withdrawals, plus a $10 handling fee for ePayments. What’s more is that if users have not completed a turnover of 200 or have not verified their account, the broker will levy 10% of the requested withdrawal amount.
We strongly advice traders to only deposit the minimum deposit, or better yet – not deposit at all! As for the withdrawals, scammers are known to either deny such requests, or impose incoming and unexpected charges.
How does the scam work?
Users will be in the middle of a scam without even knowing it, that’s how efficient these scams are. Yet, clients will also be surprised that the most utilized scammer structure is laughably easy to grasp, making it predictable. We have dedicated the following section to the reveal of how the scam works.
The internet is filled with ads, it’s the fuel of the industry, and a big chunk of said advertisements are misleading and some are downright deceitful. The ads concerned with unregulated forex brokers are often very promising, and most of the times utilize completely false claims of immediate profit. Those tempted enough will be redirected to a robo-scam website that further guarantees profits. The only thing that separates the user from the unrealistic promises is a fast registration process that requires a phone number and an email address. After inputting this info unsuspecting users will start getting phone calls from illicit broker representatives, whose one and only job is to initialize the scheme by pushing a trader to make that first deposit of around $250. After that’s done, the senior representatives will be calling. These expert scammers are extremely good talkers, and will start working on you to start putting even more money in. They say that the more money invested, the higher the profit will be. At this point most traders start seeing the big picture, and will want to withdrawal their money and get out fast.
However, the scammers have anticipated this development, and are ready to counter any withdrawal request. Typically they find excuses for delaying the request in the legal documents that hold specific clauses for these purposes. The reasons are many. One thing to remember is that all illicit brokerage firms will deny the withdrawal request for as long as they can, because of the imposed time limit traders have for filling a chargeback. Once the crucial due date is not met, any chargeback requests will be denied.
What to do if scammed?
Those of you who deposited using VISA and MasterCard wil be glad to know that both companies have extended their chargeback time span to 540 days, especially if the reason for it is an online scam.
Scammers will steal directly from a bank account, if the traders has provided crucial details, like banking password or security code. If it get down to this, be sure to either block the account or change the password.
Sometime victimized users will stumble upon the so called recovery agents that promises to magically reclaim all lost investments, for a fee that is. Needless to say, they will not get back any of the lost funds, and will basically scam you a second time.
Vijay Ukande
This company has prevented my funds from flowing out.