Beware! Vista Forex 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.
Even from the first glance at its interface, you should recognise the signs that tell you not to trade with Vista Forex. Please read our review to find out why.
Vista Forex Regulation and safety of funds
The first thing we did was to check the registration of this broker. On its website, we saw that the address is in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) and its headquarters are in London, UK. You should know that the Financial Services Authority of St. Vincent and the Grenadines does not regulate forex brokers, therefore this company is non-legit in this jurisdiction. After that, we checked the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the body that regulates forex brokers in the UK to see if this broker is licensed there. Unfortunately, the name of the company does not appear to be in its register as you can see from the image below.
Although the company assures its potential clients that there are measures set in place to guarantee clients’ safety of funds, such as keeping them in segregated bank accounts, the fact that this broker is not licensed is already a big threat to your funds and our advice is to avoid trading with it.
You can find plenty of licensed brokers to trade with and if you research the information in the links that we provide below, you will be able to find the one that best suits your trading needs. To be licensed, forex brokers should be able to guarantee the safety of their clients funds and there are many measures set in place to make sure that only genuine brokers are licensed. For example, in the US and Australia, being well-capitalised by depositing $20 million in the US and 1 million AUD in Australia serves two purposes. First, to keep the scammers out from infiltrating the ranks of legit brokers and second, to protect clients from unfavourable events.
In the jurisdictions of the EU and the UK, the conditions to join in a forex broker are even better. In addition to having to invest 730,000 EUR as initial capital, licensed brokers also must deduct funds towards local compensation funds or schemes from which traders can be compensated in case of bankruptcy. If the broker is regulated by CySec and contributes to the local Investor Compensation Fund, then its clients will be refunded by up to 20,000 EUR per person if the broker goes belly up. In the UK the benefits are even better – if the broker is regulated by FCA and contributes to the local Financial Services Compensation Scheme, then its clients will be repaid up to 85,000 GBP per person in case of bankruptcy.
The other requirements for guaranteeing clients’ safety of funds that brokers from all the above-mentioned jurisdictions have to meet include reporting their transactions on a daily basis to provide transparency, keep low leverage, and not to offer bonuses or free gifts.
So, please do your homework, research thoroughly all the brokers you are interested in to make sure they are licensed and provide a guarantee for the safety of your funds.
Vista Forex Trading software
Vista Forex is a forex broker trading in forex, indices, shares, metals, cryptocurrencies, energy and commodities. The trading platform its clients can use is MetaTrader 5. This is one of the best platforms in forex trade along with the MetaTrader that is also very popular. MT5 offers an excellent package of charting options, technical analysis indicators, an auto trading option, a financial calendar, VPS, code base with customs scripts, trading signals for a subscription fee, and others. Adding the hedging option in 2016 made this platform even more popular among forex brokers.
However, a trading platform is as good as its broker.
We looked at the MT5 parameters set by this broker. From the bid/ask price for the currency pair EUR/USD, we calculated the spread to be 1.5 pips which is the industry average and will be beneficial to traders as the cost of transactions won’t be high and they will be able to make a sustainable profit in the long run. However, after we looked at the account types information (last screenshot), we were alarmed to see that the leverage offered by this broker is sky-high – 1:1000! If you remember from the first section of this review, licensed brokers have a cap on leverage and in the EU it cannot exceed 1:30. This is another proof that this broker is not reliable to trade with. When the leverage is high, it signifies two things – a big win or a big loss. It is true that high leverage adds more trading power to the trader and amplifies the potential for profit. However, please keep in mind that around 70% of traders experience financial loss in forex trade. What are the chances you won’t be one of them and what your financial loss will be with leverage that increases your risk exposure?
Vista Forex Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
Vista Forex offers 3 trading accounts – Raw, Standard and VIP. The minimum initial deposit for the Standard account is $100. For the Raw account, the initial deposit is $500 and for the VIP account, it is $20,000.
We found some discrepancy in the information regarding the deposit payment methods. If you look at the horizontal bar on the company’s interface, you will see that the payment methods shown there include Skrill, Tether, credit card, WebMoney and Yandex. However, when you open a live account and click on the deposit button, you see other payment methods, such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Etherum, Litecoin, PayPal, credit card and Tether. We must say that such discrepancy in the provided information does not inspire confidence in this broker.
The withdrawal methods include bank transfer, PayPal, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Tether and Litecoin. There is no withdrawal fee and it is instant for all payments via cryptocurrencies. For the bank transfer and Paypal, it takes 1 business day.
In a fashion typical for unlicensed brokers, this one too offers bonuses to its clients. You must remember that although bonuses appear in the trader’s account, they are actually funds belonging to the broker and carry with them certain conditions that have to be met. This broker offers 2 types of bonuses. The first one is called ‘$123 Welcome bonus’ and it’s auto-credited after the trader opens a trading account. As per this company, the purpose of this bonus is for trading only and cannot be transferred, credited or withdrawn. To be able to withdraw the bonus amount, the trader must trade 23 lots in 23 trading days and cannot exceed 0.2 lots in the order volume and cannot open more than 5 positions at the same time. This is hardly beneficial to the trader and adds more pressure for executing trading orders.
The other bonus offered by this broker is the ‘20% bonus’ and is automatically available to traders who deposit into their trading accounts. Again, the bonus is only for trading purposes and if the trader makes any withdrawals from his/her trading account, then the bonus amount will be forfeited.
As you can see from the conditions set for these bonuses, traders who accept them will be having difficulties fulfilling those conditions and it will also mess up their accounts and withdrawal options.
As we already mentioned, licensed brokers do not offer bonuses which is part of the measures for protecting traders’ funds, so our advice is not to accept bonuses and in general, to avoid brokers who offer them.
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’ mousetrap 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 a while 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 a chargeback.
What to do if scammed?
There are a few things that you must do immediately – file for a 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 a 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 a 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 the scammer access to your personal data.
