Beware! Quotex 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 choose to join Quotex, they promise to help you realise your financial goals through innovative digital trading. Yet, if you decide to entrust your money to this broker you’ll be making a huge mistake. Here it is why.
Quotex Regulation and safety of funds
As per the information on the website, Awesomo Limited, the company that owns and operates the website is registered in Seychelles and also is regulated by the International Financial Market Relations Regulation Center (IFMRRC). We checked and we can assure you that both claims are nothing but lies. First of all, the company does not exist in the register of the Seychelles Financial Authority (FSA) that regulates forex brokers. Secondly, IFMRRC is a self-proclaimed and not a legit financial watchdog, therefore it does not hold any authority to regulate forex brokers.
We do not recommend trading with Seychelles brokers because, in the regulations imposed by FSA, there are not enough measures to protect clients’ funds. It is true that brokers in this jurisdiction must have a share capital of at least $50,000 which could be enough to keep scammers away as they won’t invest so much money for the benefit of looking legit. However, this initially paid-up capital can be used by the broker for the day to day business activities and there is no segregation of clients’ money from broker’s.
Such segregation of clients’ funds from broker’s exists in some well-established jurisdictions, such as the US, the EU and the UK. In addition to that, other measures include providing negative balance protection, reporting transactions on a regular basis and having regular internal and external audits. The amount that is required in the form of initial capital is also much higher – in the US it is $20 million and in the EU and the UK, 730,000 EUR.
Should you choose to trade with EU brokers or their counterparts in the UK, you will also enjoy peace of mind in the knowledge that there are compensation funds and schemes set in place that allow traders to be reimbursed if their broker becomes insolvent. UK brokers regulated by FCA that participate in the local Financial Services Compensation Scheme will be able to provide up to 85,000 GBP per person to reimburse their clients in case of bankruptcy. EU brokers are required to participate and deduct funds towards local investor compensation funds from which clients can be repaid up to 20,000 EUR per person.
As you can see these are excellent trading conditions which brokers from offshore zones such as Seychelles are not able to match.
Quotex Trading software
From the image below, you can see that the trading software for Quotex clients is a web trader, a rather cheap and simplistic platform with limited functionality. The trading products are forex, crypto, commodities and indices. As per the information on the company interface, traders have little control over the transactions. The broker selects the asset of interest, sets the volume of the trade and the closing time and makes prognosis on the schedule for a given time.
Traders can choose the trading product by clicking in the top left corner where you see the EUR/USD symbol. As you can see, the platform does not provide the bid/ask price from which we can find out the spread. The leverage is also unknown. Traders have 2 choices – go up or down and sell now or later.
It is typical for non-regulated brokers and scammers to offer cheap trading software as obviously they do not wish to invest in good quality software in contrast to legit and reputable brokers. If you are not familiar with trading software, we want to tell you that the two top-notch platforms used by 80% of the brokers are the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms which are equipped with an excellent package of trading tools and instruments that enhance trader’s performance. For example, they have an auto trading option, code base with customs scripts, trading signals, an app market, a financial calendar, VPS, etc. The technical analysis indicators, such as Fibonacci retracement, moving averages, Bollinger Bands, etc., help traders predict the future direction of exchange rates and make a profit.
Quotex Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
For the clients of Quotex, there are two accounts – a demo and live account. The minimum initial deposit for the live accounts is $10 and the deposit and withdrawal methods include payments via credit card, Skrill, Neteller, Yandex, WebMoney and QIWI.
It is not clear what the minimum withdrawal amount is. In the legal documents available on the website, we find out that the company has the right to regulate the amount of withdrawal depending on the currency and the withdrawal method. The information will be provided to the client’s account at the time of his/her submission of an order to withdraw funds. We must say this is very vague and hardly to clients’ benefit.
In addition to that, the processing time of a withdrawal request which can take between 7 and 14 days seems to be too long.
How does scam work?
Actually, it’s quite simple and people often fall into the trap of experienced scammers. We bet you have seen those attractive ads on the Internet promising big and quick profits over a short period of time. Just provide your personal information, and voila! The scam brokers are waiting for you and you will be inundated with phone calls promising easy profit. Tempting, right? You think ‘ok, I can spend $200-300 and see what profit it brings me’. Congratulations, you just provided a fat commission for your scammers that will be distributed down the food chain. Now you have ‘graduated’ to be handed over to a senior ‘broker’, a smooth talker who will try to convince you that there is no more perfect time like now to invest more money. After all, you want to make more profit, right? However, something starts to feel off and now you start asking yourself questions and all you want is to withdraw your money and get out fast.
Unfortunately, it is too late! Someone has pulled the cheese and you are trapped because scammers don’t give up easily. Scammers will do anything in order to delay you so that you miss the deadline for a chargeback.
What to do if scammed?
Our advice is to immediately file for a chargeback if you have been lucky enough to make your deposit via credit card. VISA and MasterCard allow for 540 days chargeback period, so you still have a chance to get your money back.
Things don’t look so good if your currency of choice has been Bitcoin or bank wire. In that case, you may have to wave your money goodbye.
There are some other things that you can do in case of being scammed – cancel your credit card if you have given your CVV code to the scammers. Also, erase any software from your computer that gives scammers access to your private data.
Be warned, as well, that some so-called ‘recovery agents’ may approach you promising to recover your funds for a fee. It could be another form of scam where scammers prey on your misfortune. Should you choose to use one, you must make sure that you are dealing with a genuine and legitimate agency by checking their credential and company’s information and transparency.
