Beware! Empirecfd 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.
Empirecfd is a forex broker trading in forex, metals, energies and indices. Nothing out of the ordinary strikes us at first glance, so we are going to investigate in depth whether this broker is a reliable or not.
Empirecfd Regulation and safety of funds
From the company’s website, we see that the address of this broker is in London, UK. We immediately check with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in UK to see whether this broker is licensed (screenshot below). It is not! This means that it is best not to trade with this broker as most probably it is scam!
If you want to find a licensed broker that is reliable and can provide a guarantee for the safety of your funds, you should look up brokers that are licensed in one of the well-established jurisdictions around the world, such as EU, UK, US and Australia. In contrast to scammers, licensed brokers must meet many rigid requirements to prove that they are not scammers. For example, a broker in EU must have an initial fund of 730,000 EUR and must contribute to a compensation fund from which clients will be compensated in case the broker goes belly up. If the broker is regulated by CySEC, traders will be compensated by 20,000 EUR per person. The same conditions apply for brokers licensed by FCA, except that the clients will be compensated up to 85,000 GBP per person if the broker declares bankruptcy. In addition to that, forex brokers must report on a daily basis their transactions to avoid shady deals. Scammers will never offer such excellent conditions to trade with!
Always be on the lookout for scammers and the first thing you do is check the registration of the broker and whether it is regulated. If it’s not, forget about it!
Empirecfd Trading software
Empirecfd offers an excellent trading platform to its clients – the MetaTrader4, known as one of the best platforms in the forex trade. Although quite old now (over 15 years since it was launched), MT4 still offers excellent tools and instruments unbitten by other trading platforms. For example, it’s got VPS, code base with customs scripts, an app market, trading signals, an autotrade option, etc. The charting tools are exceptional and offer many design to facilitate your trade.
Below is a screenshot of the platform offered by Empirecfd. On the left, you see the menu with the currency pairs and their bid/ask price. Beneath is the navigator menu with the various trading tools and instruments, such as indicators, expert advisors, scripts, etc. In the middle, you see displayed 4 charts of 4 currency pairs. Actually the number of charts can be increased or decreased as per your trading needs.
If we look at the first currency pair, EUR/USD, we find out that the spread is 2 pips which is not too tight or too wide. However, what worries us is the high leverage as per the account information which is 1:400. Such high leverage represents a double edged sword in forex trade – it can signify either big win or big loss. However, given the statistics that around 70% of traders lose in transactions, chances are you’ll get the latter, not the former! You need to be aware that in EU and US, there is a leverage cap which prevents traders from taking unnecessary risks with their funds. In EU, brokers cannot exceed leverage higher than 1:30 and in US – higher than 1:50.
Empirecfd Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
Empirecfd offers 3 types of accounts – Pro account with a minimum initial deposit of $200, Standard account with the same minimum initial deposit and VIP account starting at $10,000.
Payment methods for deposit and withdrawal include credit card, Neteller, Skrill and bank wire. There are no withdrawal fees.
In the Terms and Conditions document we find a clause on bonuses or non-deposited funds which belong to the broker, not the trader. However, there is no clear explanation what exactly the policy is on withdrawing bonuses or non-deposited funds. We want to warn our readers to be extremely cautious when it comes to bonuses and non-deposited funds as they come attached to heavy to fulfill obligations. You don’t want to find yourself in a mess where you are not able to withdraw your funds because you haven’t fulfilled some requirements! For your information, licensed brokers do not offer bonuses or non-deposited funds as they are part of scamming techniques.
How does scam work?
No one wants to be duped by scammers, but it happens all the time because they know how to manipulate people. As they say in one popular song “sweet dreams are made of this” and this is what scammers rely on – creating in people’s mind a sweet dream of being rich! Scams usually start by unsolicited telephone calls or ads on the Internet or social media promising quick and easy profit. It is easy to fall into scammers’ trap and once you make a deposit, you are done for! Scammers won’t let you get away easily even if you realise that you are being scammed. They will try to delay you when you try to withdraw your funds by asking you to provide this document or fill out this form, etc., in order to make you miss the deadline when you can file for chargeback.
What to do if scammed?
You need to act very quickly. First of all, if you have made a deposit using a credit card, you must immediately file for chargeback. Fortunately, VISA and MasterCard allow for 540 day period in which you can file for chargeback. This is the good news. The bad news is that if you have made a deposit using bank wire or Bitcoin, the chances of you getting your funds back are nil!
Another thing you can do is cancel your credit card if the scammers have your CVV code. Check your PC and erase the software that gives scammers access to your personal data.
Be careful, because even doing all that we recommended, your unfortunate experience with scammers may not be over. There are the so-called recovery agents. One of those may approach you offering to recover your funds for a fee. Do not trust them and always check the legitimacy of the recovery agent and the agency.
Also, be aware that some “victims” of scam may post comments after the review, saying how they lost money and how a recovery agent helped them retrieve their funds. They will even put the contact info for this so-called recovery agent. Do not trust them either as it is another case of scam!
