Beware! Totalfxm 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.
Totalfxm is a forex company that doesn’t stand out in any particular way from other forex brokers.
Totalfxm Regulation and safety of funds
On its website, the company claims to be registered in UK. However, after checking the FCA register (screenshot below), we found out that the company doesn’t appear in the FCA register. We have reasonable doubt that this company is not legitimate and might as well be scam.
One of the most crucial things to consider when selecting a forex brokers is its registrations and whether it is regulated by a financial authority. Your safety of funds depends on that. Let us give you an example. Forex brokers from well-established jurisdictions, such as EU or UK, have to go through a strict procedure in order to be regulated. They need to have a minimum of 730,000 EUR initial capital and also they need to make contributions towards a compensation scheme from which in case of bankruptcy the clients will be compensated. If the broker is regulated by CySEC, then the clients can receive up to 20,000 EUR per client in compensation. If the broker is regulated by FCA, then the clients can receive up to 85,000 GBP per person. As you can see, Totalfxm which is neither registered, nor regulated won’t be able to provide you with a guarantee for the safety of your funds. We suggest that you stay away from a broker such as Totalfxm which most probably is a scam.
Totalfxm Trading software
To its clients, Totalfxm offers the MetaTrader 5 platform. Here is a screenshot of an unbranded MT5 to give you an idea what the platform looks like:
On the left, you see the currency pairs menu with the bid and ask price. For the EUR/USD currency pair, we can find out that the spread is 3 pips which is rather high. You may notice that the spread indicated in the Learners account is 1.6 pips which is different from what the trading platform shows.
Beneath the currency pairs menu, is the navigator for the different tools and instruments. In the middle of the screen, there are displays of charts of currency pairs. For this one, you can see EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/CHF and USD/JPY currency pairs, but actually the numbers of charts can be increased as per the client’s needs. There are also many options for selecting the design of the charts. Other advantages of the MT5 which is one of the most popular trading platforms, include a financial calendar, an auto trading option, an app market, trading signals, VPS, code base with customs scripts, etc.
However, an excellent trading platform does not signify that trading with this broker will be trouble-free. If you look at the account types information in the last screenshot, you will notice that the leverage offered by this broker is very high – 1:300 for the Learner account and increasing to 1:1000 for the Corporate account. Leverage as high as this one, puts the trader at risk of losing his/her funds. It may be tempting to think that high leverage will bring high financial gain, but in reality, the opposite will happen if you take seriously the statistics that around 70% of traders lose in transactions!
Totalfxm Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
To its clients, Totalfxm offers 4 accounts (screenshot below) – Learner, Startup, Business and Corporate. The initial minimum deposit is $100 for the Learner account. For the others the initial amounts are $ 500, 1,000 and 5,000 respectively. Payment methods consist of VISA, MasterCard, Skrill, Neteller and Bitcoin.
Strangely enough, this company does not have Terms and Conditions document on its website, therefore, we are unable to find exactly how the deposit and withdrawal methods are set up, what is the processing time and if there are fees included.
In the account types information, we noticed that for the Startup, Business and Corporate accounts the broker offers bonuses – 20%, 30% and 50% respectively. We want to warn our readers and potential forex traders that it is not advisable to accept bonuses without knowing under what conditions they are offered to the clients. As bonuses are not client’s funds but broker’s, they normally come with heavy to fulfil requirements attached to them. As this company does not specify what the conditions are, we advise you not to accept any bonuses. Also, be aware that legit brokers do not offer bonuses.
How does scam work?
Scam works in different ways. It could be either that you receive an unsolicited telephone call or you see one of these flashy ads on the Internet or the social media promising you a quick and easy profit. Scammers will promise you the sky and the earth until you give way to temptation and deposit money. Once you give them money you get caught in the scammers’ mouse trap and the cheese in the shape of a big fat money fall is gone! It may take some time before you realise that you are being scammed. Scammers are smooth talkers and they are masters of deception. They will give you some excuses as to why the big profit hasn’t come yet and will try to lure you to make even a bigger investment because according to them, the more you invest, the more you profit. After you have been waiting for awhile and you finally come to your senses, you realise that you are being scammed. All you want now is to get your money back and get out of there. However, the scammers won’t make it easy for you! They will try to delay you so that you miss the deadline for applying for chargeback.
What to do if scammed?
There are a few things that you must do immediately – file for chargeback if you have paid using a VISA or MasterCard. Those two payment providers allow you 540 days time frame within which you may file for chargeback.
However, the chances are grim if you have used bank transfer or Bitcoin as a payment method. There is no chance you’ll be able to recover your money.
In such desperate situation, some so-called ‘recovery agents’ may approach you with offers to recover your money for a fee. Be cautious as you may be dealing with another type of scammers. Always check the information about the recovery agency – make sure it is legitimate and transparent in the public eye. Also, some scammers publish personal comments after our review about how they have been scammed and how they found a recovery agent who helped them get their money back. Do not trust such comments and do not use the published contact info in them as it will lead you to another scammer!
And lastly, a reminder to cancel your credit card if you have given your CVV code to the scammers and erase any software from you PC that gives scammer access to your personal data.
