Beware! Risoft Limited 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.
If you have been through various websites for forex trade, you may have noticed that the website of Risoft Limited resembles very much another one, including the information provided on it. We are very suspicious about what this broker has to offer and whether it is legit or not and we are going to dig deep into it.
Risoft Limited Regulation and safety of funds
First of all, we check the address of this broker to see if it is from one of the well-established jurisdictions where strict regulations for forex brokers exist. We find out that this broker’s address is in the offshore zone of the Marshall Islands where there is no financial regulator and practically anyone can open a company on the Internet. So, the provenance of this broker is unknown and as such, it is not safe to entrust your hard-earn money to it.
Instead, we advise you to turn your attention to jurisdictions where there are measures set in place to protect forex traders from scammers and to provide a guarantee for the safety of their funds. Among these jurisdictions, we want to mention the EU and the UK where, in our opinion, the best conditions for forex traders exist. First of all, to be licensed there, forex brokers must jump through various hoops, such as depositing an initial capital of no less than 730,000 EUR, reporting daily on transactions, etc. These, among other things, are measures to prevent scammers from sneaking in. To provide a guarantee for the safety of clients’ funds, the broker must keep their funds separately in tier-1 banks, provide protection on negative balance and keep a low cap on leverage. Also, licensed brokers in the EU and the UK must deduct funds towards a local compensation fund or scheme which will provide reimbursement to traders if the broker becomes insolvent. If the broker is licensed by FCA in the UK and participates in the local Financial Services Compensation Scheme, then its clients can be repaid up to 85,000 GBP per person. On the other hand, if the broker is regulated by CySec and contributes to the local Investor Compensation Fund, then its clients will be reimbursed up to 20,000 EUR per person in case of bankruptcy.
As you can see, forex brokers from offshore zones cannot beat such conditions and we advise you to use the links above to select a licensed and reliable broker to trade with.
Risoft Limited Trading software
From the information provided on Risoft Limited website, we understand that the trading software consists of the MetaTrader 4 trading platform. Unfortunately, due to broken links in the system, we were not able to register an account, so we are not able to show you what the platform looks like. For your information, MetaTrader 4 is considered one of the best trading platforms despite its old age of 15 years. Due to the amazing package of trading tools and instruments, this platform is still very popular among forex brokers as it offers an auto trading option, code base with customs scripts, an app market, trading signals, etc. An excellent array of charting options adds to the platform’s popularity as traders have many choices of charts, time frames, colours, etc., and even the option of creating personalised templates. In addition to all that, the technical analysis indicators that are part of the platform, are to die for and they help traders predict the future direction of exchange rates and make a profit.
Although we did not gain access to the platform, we can still advise you whether the perimeters set by this broker are beneficial for you or not. If you look at the trading accounts information in the last screenshot, you will notice the spread fro each trading account. For the Bronze account, the spread for EUR/USD currency pair is 2.8 pips. Such spread is too wide and way above the industry average of 1.5 pips. The implications for traders are that with such wide spread the cost of transactions will be high and they won’t be able to make a sustainable profit in the long run. Another worrisome information is that the leverage is 1:200. High leverage signifies only two things – a big win or a big loss. Given the statistics that 70% of traders lose in transactions, chances are that if you choose to trade with such high leverage, you will expose your funds at the risk of losing them. Besides, licensed brokers in the EU and the UK have a cap on leverage and it cannot exceed 1:30. So, we hope that you will make a sensible choice of not trading with this broker.
Risoft Limited Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
As you can see from the image below, the number of trading accounts available on Risoft website is three – Bronze, Silver and Gold. The minimum initial deposit for the Bronze account is $300. It may not seem like a big amount of money, but just for comparison, let us tell you that licensed brokers usually as for as little as $1-5. The other two accounts start at $5,000 and $10,000 respectively. To feed their accounts, traders have a choice between bank transfer, credit card, Dixicard, Neteller, Orounda, Skrill and Fleepin.
Risoft does not inform us what the minimum withdrawal amount is, but one withdrawal request per month is fee-free. Any subsequent withdrawal request will incur a processing fee of $30/ 25 EUR / 20 GBP. The time of processing a withdrawal request is up to 5 business days.
Any trading account that stays inactive for 6 months will be subject to a monthly fee of 10%. Having a percentage fee rather than a fixed fee may result in a substantial amount of money that you’ll have to pay. Normally, licensed brokers have a fixed fee, not a percentage.
From the image about the account types, you can see that for each account, the company offers a Start up bonus – 20%, 30% and 40% depending on the account type. However, in Terms and Conditions, there is no explanation about what the conditions for accepting a bonus are, neither is there a Bonus Policy available. What you should know is that although bonuses look like a free gift that can add more trading power, in fact, they are funds belonging to the broker and they usually have difficult to fulfil conditions attached to them. We advise potential traders not to accept bonuses and to be aware that licensed brokers do not offer any bonuses or other ‘free gifts’ to their clients.
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.
