Beware! Moneta Markets 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.
Moneta Markets is a forex broker trading in forex, indices, commodities, crypto and shares. On the company’s website everything looks super legit but whether this is true or not we are about to find out.
Moneta Markets Regulation and safety of funds
In the footer of the company’s website, we find out that Moneta Markets is operated by Vantage Group of companies regulated in different jurisdictions – Cayman Islands, Australia and UK.
We were able to find proof that the company is indeed registered in the Cayman Islands which is an offshore zone. Although forex brokers are required to provide a minimum operational capital of about $120,000 in order to be registered and regulated by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA), it’s still not safe to trade via such brokers as it is not clear whether they can provide a guarantee for the safety of your funds in case the broker goes bankrupt.
Regarding its registration in Australia, we found information that even if it’s registered there under the name of Vantage FX, this company will no longer provide services to non-Australian citizens traders and will shift its services to the international arm of Vintage Prime which is registered and regulated on the Cayman Island.
Lastly, we checked whether this broker is regulated by FCA in UK. We found out that Vantage Global Prime LLP, which is the name of the company given in UK (as per the footer in the company’s website), there are some discrepancies between the information that appears on FCA site and on the Moneta Markets sites. From the screenshot below, you can see that the address and the website of the company are different from what is shown on the Moneta Markets website. We have a fairly reasonable ground for doubt whether this broker is really regulated by FCA or whether it is a clone of a legit broker.
When you choose your forex broker, there shouldn’t be any doubts about the legitimacy of the company. Everything about its regulation should be crystal clear and readily visible. If you have any doubts (like we have in this particular case), better choose another broker. There are many licensed brokers that you can find in well-established jurisdictions, such as EU and UK and most importantly, these licensed brokers can provide a guarantee for the safety of your funds. No broker from an offshore zone can do that. Just to give you an example – traders will be compensated by up to 20,000 EUR per person if the broker is regulated by CySEC and by up to 85,000 GBP per person if the broker is regulated by FCA. This is the guarantee you need for your peace of mind and for the safety of your funds!
Moneta Markets Trading software
The trading software that Moneta Markets offers to its clients is a web trader. In the screenshot below you can get an idea what the web trader looks like – a rather basic platform that has the currency pairs on the right with a display of a currency pair and the fluctuation of price in a give time frame in the middle and in the far right, the bid/ask price with the trading volume, pips value and required margin. In this case we are looking at the chart display of the EUR/USD currency pair. From the bid/ask price, we can calculate the spread to be 1.3 pips which is in normal limits. The leverage for trading with this currency pair is 1:400 which is quite high. High leverage signifies high level of risk of losing funds and traders should avoid trading with this way. Licensed brokers in EU and US have a cap on the leverage they can offer. In EU, brokers are not allowed to offer leverage higher than 1:30 and in the US, 1:50. These are measures to prevent traders to take high risks of losing funds in risky transactions.
Web trader is not the best platform to trade with. We want to recommend to our readers to look for a regulated broker that offers one of the best platforms in the forex trade world – MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5. They are number one choices for about 80% of the brokers around the world and have a proven record of excellent tools and instrument, among which we want to mention the auto trading option, the code base with customs scripts, the app market, the financial calendar, the numerous charting options that allow traders to predict the future direction of exchange rates, the trading signals that come with a subscription fee, VPS, and many others.
Moneta Markets Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
The minimum initial deposit is $200. There is limit on first time funding done by credit card which cannot exceed 1,000 AUD and the maximum deposit per transaction a day is limited to 10,000 AUD.
There are no fees on deposit and the payment options include wire transfer, VISA/Mastercard, FasaPay, JCB, Bitcoin and Sticpay. For most of the payment methods, the processing time is instant. Bitcoin takes 1 business day and the wire transfer may take between 2 and 5 business days.
It is interesting to note here that all withdrawal requests are processed via bank wire. This limits the withdrawal options and affects the possibilities to file for chargeback which may have a detrimental effect on the client’s funds in case of scamming.
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!
