Beware! WestinTrade 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.
If you look at WestinTrade broker company’s website what would be your first impression? That there is no better time than today to start trading? At least this is what the constantly flashing messages show us. So, let’s take a closer look.
WestinTrade is a broker company trading in forex and cryptocurrency. The company offers weekly and monthly accounts. From the screenshot below, you will see that the company offers 5 weekly accounts to its potential clients – Starter, Classic, Pro, Executive and Premium. Opening an account is super easy. Once you fill out a very basic registration form, almost instantly you get the confirmation and you can start trading.
On the next screenshot, you see the monthly accounts where serious money is in play, starting from $50,000 and reaching $1,000,000. Later on in this review, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the features for these accounts.
WestinTrade Regulation and safety of funds
From the company’s website, in the ‘contact us’ section, we find out that the address of the WestinTrade is in UK. So, we went to the FCA register to see if the company is registered in UK. We found out that it is not! See screenshot below:
If you are a newbie in the forex and cryptocurrency trade world, let us ask you a question. Would you prefer to invest your money in a company that is legit or not? Would you consider a company with an address in UK which is not registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in UK, such as WestinTrade? But is that really necessary? Of course it is! FCA has strict requirements for the forex companies, such as an initial capital of 730,000 euros and a compensation fund of 85,000 pounds. Why? To guarantee that only genuine and reliable forex companies are authorised to do trade in forex and to put in place some precautions in favour of its clients so they do not lose money in case of company’s bankruptcy. Such is not the case here which puts at high risks traders who invest into WestinTrade.
And if you are looking into selecting a legit and reliable forex company for your trade, let us tell you that besides FCA regulating authority, there is also CySEC that you can trust and is also well equipped to provide protection to the trader’s funds by imposing 20,000 euros compensation funds.
WestinTrade Trading software
If you are new in the forex trade world, what would be your requirements for a trading platform? Simple, straightforward and user friendly, without any confusing features? Right? OK, at first glance everything looks fine here. You just need to create an account and log in, and voilà! you are taken to the dashboard. So far, quite simple, right? Now we take a look at the interface. What we see on the left is a menu with options for deposit, withdrawal, etc. In the middle of the dashboard is your account and transactions information and below you can see the fluctuation of the pair currency or cryptocurrency you have chosen. So maybe you should start trading? Oh but wait! What’s going on? Where is the buy/sell button? The Web Trader doesn’t have trading features! It shows but doesn’t do any trade!
You are upset but after you have calmed down, you just remember that you have seen a link on WestinTrade’s website for MetaTrader 5 platform which has a demo account. Great! You can practice for a while, gain some knowledge and experience before starting for real. You have heard that MetaTrader 5 is great and very popular among the forex companies. You have heard it has many great features, such as tools and instruments for forex trade – financial calendar, app market, VPS, code base with customs scripts, etc.
And so, you happily click on the link to download MetaTrader5 … and nothing happens! No, nothing, nada!
Now let me ask you – would a genuine, legit forex company have such problem with downloading its trading platform? If you are thinking what we are thinking, you should run away from this brokerage, and you should run away fast!
WestinTrade Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
The initial deposit for the Standard account starts at $500 and the highest one, as we already mentioned is $ 1,000,000. When you compare the lowest and the highest initial deposits, $500 may not look such a big amount, but in fact, it is. Would you be happy if you invest $500 and then lose it in a transaction? Perhaps not. With legit forex companies the initial deposit is normally a very low and affordable amount of money.
To fund your account, the company offers different payment methods which flash on a ribbon across the company’s interface (in badly executed and blurry design) – Skrill, Fast Pay, Visa, Neteller, Web Money, OK Pay, and others. However, when you log in and click on the deposit or withdrawal button you see that your options are rather limited to bank wire and bitcoin (see the screenshot below). Do you know what the implications are? No? Then read the last section of this review to find out!
We find very strange that such an important document as Terms and Conditions is missing from the company’s website. What we found, though, in the account information is that the company offers a deposit bonus which varies from 10% for the Standard account and goes up to 250%! for the gold Luxury Platinum account. It is not clear to us whether it is a reward for depositing money or is a type of bonus that carries certain conditions. Anyway, as the saying goes – beware of free gifts!
Another thing that is not clear on the trading platform but appears in the accounts information is the spread which varies from 1.9 pips for the Standard account and goes in inverse proportion of the deposit amount reaching 1.2 pips for the account with the highest deposit. A higher spread signifies higher risks for the trader. Now what it looks like to us here is that the more inexperienced you are in the forex and crypto trade, the harder the conditions for your account. So, if you are considering joining this company for your forex trade, ask yourself some hard questions and weigh the risks involved.
OK, so far we are not impressed with the deposit conditions, so let’s take a look at how withdrawal is organised. In the FAQs section, we find out that according to the company, requests for withdrawal of funds are processed instantly. We think, so far, so good. However, in the next sentence our hopes are shattered – because if your withdrawal is pending, then the processing period can go for up to 2 business days. There is no explanation as to what ‘pending’ means.
Another thing, which we can’t help but think sounds silly is that the minimum withdrawal amount is $0.1! Common guys, quit joking!
How does scam work?
Actually, pretty easy! You browse the net or are on social media, and bam! an attractive ad appears promising a quick and easy profit if you invest a certain amount of money. Scammers are very experienced in the art of manipulation and the ad looks so tempting that before you know it, you have deposited money and have started dreaming already about that holiday you always wanted to go on but couldn’t afford. And now you happily wait in anticipation of that phone call from your ‘broker’ to let you know how much profit you have made. But something seems off. And so, you call them instead without suspecting that your deposit has already gone as a commission to your ‘broker’. They tell you to be patient, the big profit is just around the corner and by the way, wouldn’t you consider investing more money for a bigger profit. But you already have had enough of their games and you only want to get your money back and get out of there.
But once in the clutches of the scammers, it might not be that easy! They will try to delay you asking for this and that document or coming up with reasons why you can’t get your money back until you miss the period for filing for chargeback.
What to do if scammed?
We advise you to immediately file for chargeback. There could be light at the end of the tunnel if you have made your deposit using Visa or MasterCard as they allow for a 540 days period in which to file for chargeback.
Things are not so optimistic if you have paid in Bitcoin or have made a wire transfer though and you may have to kiss your hard earned money goodbye.
And at the end, another word of caution – you may be approached by a so-called ‘recovery agent’ who will promise you to recover your money for you, for a fee of course. Be warned that it may be another form of scam.
