Beware! Optical Invest 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.
Optical Invest is a Forex broker with unusually primitive web page, the information given is scarce and on top of that most of the links are broken. They claim to be a CySEC regulated entity, holding its clients funds segregated, also an ICF member. So far so good, but there aren’t any evidences that will undoubtedly prove them right. In fact, their trading software is provided by a well-known offshore company, which has a lot of troubles with the majority of the European financial regulators, also there are shocking similarities with other Forex brokers. Find out more details on the matter in the full Optical Invest review.
Optical Invest REGULATION AND SAFETY OF FUNDS
Optical Invest is a Forex broker headquartered in the infamous Griffith Corporate Centre in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. In fact, it shares the notorious suite 305 with hundreds, even thousands of other offshore brokers, many of which are proven scam!
Optical Invest claims to be a CySEC regulated entity, but our search in their database didn’t produce any results. They are deliberately misleading the public by making false claims, trying to present themselves legitimate! Optical Invest is not a legit company!
Your funds are not safe if you deposit with Optical Invest, it is an unlicensed, unauthorized and unregulated Forex broker and you should avoid it. It is an offshore enterprise which is risky and unstable, might disappear at any moment, leaving the traders with losses almost impossible to recover.
You should choose a Forex broker which is legit, transparent and regulated either in EU, UK, USA or Australia. These Forex brokers put the customer protection on top of their priority list and will treat your funds with an utmost care, not because they want to, but because they have to. In EU, for example, complying with the product intervention measures that the European Securities and Markets Authority has agreed, which further CySEC and FCA have implemented, the Forex brokers are required:
- to limit the leverage to between 1:30 (Forex majors) and 2:1(cryptocurrencies);
- to close out a customer position when the funds fall to 50% of the margin needed;
- to provide negative balance protection on a per account basis, meaning that losses cannot exceed the total funds;
- to restrict or completely obliterate the incentives offered to trade Forex and CFDs;
- to provide a standardised risk warning to the customers.
Failure to do so will result in disciplinary action such as salty fines or license being suspended/revoked.
Optical Invest TRADING SOFTWARE
Optical Invest offers MT4 accounts only, MT5 or web-based platform is not available. However, their service provider is the dodgy offshore company Capital Com Investment Ltd, which is a proven scam. There are official warnings issued against them by numerous European financial watchdogs including FSMA and CONSOB. You should stay away from Optical Invest and report immediately if they contact you!
The Login page and the Dashboard are identical to those of Investo Brokers, another fishy broker that we earlier reviewed! There is a 99% resemblance, only the logos are different, have a look.
We shall stress on the fact that Investo Brokers’ website looks significantly better, but this is only the visible part of the case. It’s an indisputable fact that those two, together with Banco Invest and Matrix Banco are operated by the same group of scammers. Even the Metatrader .exe file is the same!
The EUR/USD spread is 1.5 pips, the leverage can be as high as 1:500, demo trading on the MT4 Desktop platform is possible.
The Account Types page is also broken, so there isn’t any further information about their products and services available.
Optical Invest DEPOSIT/WITHDRAW METHODS AND FEES
Optical Invest does not even present Terms and Conditions to its clients, it’s the ultimate red flag for a Forex broker.
The minimum deposit is said to be 500 USD. There are various funding methods enlisted, but in reality you can only deposit by All Global Pay.
It turned out that the only funding method is Crypto,which is the favorite currency of the scammers around the world. Upon clicking you are redirected to allglobalpay.com, where you are supposed to make a deposit Bitcoins to a certain crypto wallet.
No minimum withdrawal specified, no taxes or charges known, the processing time is also unknown. The lack of T&Cs leaves the prospective customers with almost no useful information at hand.
No bonuses or other trading incentives available. There are affiliate and introducing broker programs, but the terms and conditions related to these are also unavailable.However, you have the unique opportunity to earn up to 2 pips commissions for a traded lot! A totally meaningless statement that needs no further explanation!
HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK
A group of scammers usually operates many different scam brokers, scam websites and call centers. Sometimes they will simply rely on the quantity, they will publish tens or hundreds of websites and will just wait for traders and investors with little or no experience to bite. Nowadays, it’s very cheap to create one, and it looks like a profitable strategy, as they carry on doing it.
It’s a scam sign if a Forex broker accept only cryptos as a funding method and that should be remembered. They are doing it for a reason, the cryptos are perfectly unregulated, there isn’t a single authority in the world to deal with cryptos, and also the payments are totally anonymous. Once you deposit cryptos with scammers, it’s virtually impossible to get a refund! Stay away from brokers who does not accept the traditional funding methods, there is something fishy going on.
WHAT TO DO WHEN SCAMMED
No one is immune to scam, anyone can fall into the trap. Scammers are constantly looking for new and different ways to scam consumers. What you need to do first, in case you got scammed, is to protect yourself from further risks. Contact your bank and explain to them your situation, they will give you important instructions to follow and will help you, if possible, recover your money.
Report what happened to you, file a complaint, contact the financial regulator, contact other government institutions related to trading and investing. Seek help actively!
Share online your experience, it’s important to protect others, as well. Be responsible!
Avoid Optical Invest, it’s a truly controversial Forex broker, very closely linked with scammers!
