Beware! Cryptoarb 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.
Cryptoarb is a forex broker trading in currency pairs, cryptocurrency, stock indices, raw materials, US stocks and bonds. What we noticed at first glance on the company’s website is, that there is no information on the different account types and opening an account is impossible due to problems with the website’s server. We are going to investigate further in order to find out whether this broker is reliable to trade with.
Cryptoarb Regulation and safety of funds
We start our investigation by checking whether this broker is legitimate or not. As per the information on the company’s website, the address of this broker is in UK. After checking the register of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in UK (screenshot below) , we found out that this broker is not regulated which means that most probably we are dealing with scammers here.
It is risky undertaking to trade via brokers who are not legitimate. That is why we strongly recommend that you research brokers in the well-established jurisdictions, such as EU, UK or US, that can guarantee you a protection and safety of your funds. In EU and UK there are provisions made to ward off scammers from sneaking in by setting up requirements about the initial capital that brokers must have in order to be licensed, which comes to 730,000 EUR. Also, regulated brokers in these two jurisdictions must contribute funds towards a compensation fund from which, in case of bankruptcy, clients will be compensated by up to 20,000 EUR per person if regulated by CySEC or 85,000 GBP per person if regulated by FCA. As you can see, meeting such requirements is not that easy and scammers will not go through such trouble just to look legitimate. In the US, there are also some stringent requirements for licensed brokers that they have to meet, such as providing an initial capital of $20 million to prevent scammers from sneaking in. So, please do a thorough research before selecting your forex broker and always choose from the regulated ones!
Cryptoarb Trading software
At the time of writing this review, the server of the company’s website was not able to provide us with registration, so we were unable to download this broker’s web trader. Trying again and again after a couple of days proves that there are broken links on this company’s website. The only information we can provide here is that the trading software is Act platform.
Cryptoarb Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
Cryptoarb does not provide information about the different types of accounts it offers unless you open register first. However, as we mentioned before, due to broken links and problems with the brokers webpage, this information was not accessible.
From Cryptoarb website, we found out that there are no deposit/withdrawal fees. However, if the trader wants to withdraw money but has executed less than 5 independent trades, the broker will charge the account an additional fee of 5% of the withdrawal amount.
The minimum withdrawal amount is $50. Processing time for withdrawals is 48 hours, for the VIP account, it is 24 hours.
Accounts that stay inactive for a period of 90 days, will be charged an account maintenance fee of 5% but not less than $25 for each month.
On the company’s website, we found displayed some payment methods (screenshot below). In the first row of the screenshot, you will notice the symbols of some of the establishments that truly deal with payment methods, such as VISA, QIWI Wallet, MasterCard, American Express, Neteller and Sofort Banking. However, the names of the financial establishment in the second raw are those of stock exchanges and it does not make any sense to put them there as payment methods. Probably the scammers thought that it will look impressive if they put it on their website!
This broker offers 2 types of bonuses with similar conditions. The first one is deposit bonus and to be able to withdraw the bonus amount, the trader must execute $10,000, 000 volume of trade for each $1000 bonus of up to $10,000. If the trader accepts bonus of up to $30,000, then for each $1,000 of the bonus he/she must trade $20,000,000 volumes. If the bonus is over $30,000, then for each $1,000 he/she must trade $30,000,000 volume of trade, etc. Traders will be allowed to withdraw the bonus and the income from trading activities only after these requirements are fulfilled which, in our opinion, is impossible.
The other type of bonus offered by Cryptoarb is the advance bonus and is offered to the clients before they make a deposit to their account. The condition is that the client will deposit funds to his/her account on an agreed term which is within 7 calendar says. The client’s account is blocked by the company until the client deposits the agreed funds. The conditions for trade volume for the advance bonus are similar to the ones of the deposit bonus.
We want to make 2 points here – first, the conditions for bonuses these scammers are offering are impossible to fulfill and should you accept such bonus, you won’t be able to withdraw your funds and will lose your money for sure. The second point is that licensed brokers will never offer bonuses to its clients! Bonuses may look like free gift but remember the conditions attached to them and don’t let scammers entrap you!
How does scam work?
A lot of people get scammed in different scammers’ schemes not because they are naive but because scammers are masters of persuasion and manipulation. It all starts with unsolicited telephone calls or a flashy ad on the Internet or the social media. Sometimes people give up to temptation and invest money in shady schemes made to look legit and attractive and always promising quick and easy money fall. Once you deposit money into any of these schemes, you reach a point of no return! Your money is gone down the scammers’ food chain and you’ll have a lot of trouble recovering it. Scammers will do anything in their power to delay you, so you miss the opportunity to file for chargeback. They will ask you for this and that document and will find hundreds of reasons not to let you retrieve your money. The trick with offering bonuses in forex trading is one of those as your funds are mixed with the bonus money and it takes a lot of hassle to fulfil the broker’s requirements before you are able to withdraw any funds.
What to do if scammed?
Speed does it! You need to act very quickly if you want to recover your money. Immediately apply for chargeback if you have made your deposit via credit card. Fortunately, VISA and MasterCard give you 540 days within which to apply for chargeback.
If you have paid via wire transfer or Bitcoin, chances of retrieving your fund are grim. Anyway, we want to warn you that some of the so-called recovery agents may approach you and offer to retrieve your funds. For a fee, of course! Be cautious when dealing with them as it may be another form of scam! Always check if the recovery agency is legitimate and visible to the public!
Another thing we advise you to do is to immediately cancel any credit cards if the scammers have your CVV code. Also, make sure to erase any programs on your computer that give scammers access to your personal data on your PC.
