Beware! CapitalGrowth 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.
CapitalGrowth says to be a trustworthy and lucrative UK investment platform, especially designed to guarantee you great earnings. And they promise returns as high as 5,5% an hour, with no need to bother to trade yourself – all you have to do is register, invest and relax.
This really sounds fantastic and yet you should think twice before making a deposit with CapitalGrowth, because this is classic example of a scam – unregulated website, which on top of that turned out to be virtually anonymous.
CapitalGrowth regulation & safety of funds
CapitalGrowth says to be a UK registered broker and as such it should be regulated by the local Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). That is not the case however. Not only that CapitalGrowth can not be found in the FCA registers, but in reality their website is virtually anonymous – we can not even be sure about the name of their company. They mention “Capital Growth Limited” as well as “capital-growths.com Financial Limited”, but when we checked the registration number they have provided us in the UK Companies House – the archive with all legal entities in the UK – it turned out the number belongs to a completely different company – Bitwaves Financial Limited, which on top of that has been dissolved in March 2019. See for yourself:
So basically CapitalGrowth is an obvious scam, but you should make sure to avoid unregulated brokers all together, because unregulated brokers are simply not accountable for the faith of your money, and as a rule will not allow you to withdraw a single dollar.
CapitalGrowth deposit/withdrawal methods and fees
Despite the various logos of e-wallets and payment providers on the CapitalGrowth homepage, when we completed our registration and attempted to make a payment it turned out the broker accepts payment only with bitcoins. See for yourself:
Keep in mind that bitcoin payments and any crypto payments in general are 100% irreversible, which makes them a perfect choice for scammers. Using a more conventional payment method on the other hand – a major card like VISA or MasterCard, will leave you with an option to file for a charge back, if you realize you have been scammed. That is why we advice you to avoid crypto payments with online brokers and to use your VISA or MasterCard instead.
Furthermore, there is something fundamentally flawed with CapitalGrowth’s offer in general. CapitalGrowth promises guaranteed returns – 5,5% after just 1 hour, and as we noted, all you have to do is “register, invest and relax” – CapitalGrowth say they will do the trading for you so you do not have to worry about a thing. See for yourself:
There are two problems with that. First, like virtually all forex and CFD brokers, CapitalGrowth act as market makers, which means they make money when traders lose. So it is quite obvious that if you trust market makers with the task of managing your trading account, they will have the incentive to mismanage it and lose your funds for their own profit. That is called conflict of interest and that is also the reason why regulated brokers never offer managed accounts. Of course, there are big investment advisers like Vanguard or BlackRock, which do provide investment management service, but they are not brokers and are subject to even stricter regulations.
And second, trading forex and CFDs is a high risk investment and legit brokers, regulated in the EU or the UK are even required by law to publish the exact percent of traders, who lose money while using their platforms. That percent on average ranges between 70% and 85%.
So far with the guaranteed returns promised by CapitalGrowth.
How does the scam work?
As a rule people get scammed, when they register with a unregulated broker. It is good to known however, how they happen to stumble upon such a broker in the first place. Well, scammers are pretty well organized – they use call centers and aggressive advertisement campaigns on social channels like Facebook and Instagram. And they use the so called robo scam websites like Crypto Engine and Crypto Master Bot where you might be lured by promises of spectacular and risk free returns. And if you register with your e-mail and phone, you will be directly transferred to the web page of a unregulated broker like CapitalGrowth and will be offered a trading account with an initial deposit of about 250 USD.
Take a note that your initial trades might be amazingly successful and your balance might seem to double in just a few days. That however will be done intentionally (scammers will be manipulating your trading platform) in order to convince you to deposit more. And that exactly will also be the message of your senior account manager, who by that time will be calling you virtually every day – if you do want to make some real money, you will surely have to deposit at least 10 000 USD or so.
When you attempt to withdraw anything, however, you will be surprised to learn that you can not. Either some minimum trade volume requirement will be cited, or you will be told that in order to withdraw first you will have to upgrade your trading account to the next level by depositing let say yet another 1500 pounds. The story could be different for sure, but it will always come to the same – you will not be getting any money back.
What to do if scammed?
Your only chance to get your deposit back is to file for a charge back with your bank. That however might work only if you have paid with VISA or MasterCard. In case you have been tricked to pay with bitcoins you will not be able to recover anything.
And if by any means scammers have tricked you to tell them your personal banking details like a credit card number, the card security code or your online banking password, or if you have been tricked to install Team Viewer or Any Deck, which are the most popular remote desktop applications, and share your installation details with the scammers, immediately cancel your credit card, delete the application and change your password.
And if you are approached by one of the so called recovery agencies, do not trust them either. You will not be assisted in anyway. Instead, you will have to pay some commission in advance, which basically means that you will be scammed a second time.
