Appletrade Review – 5 things you should know about appletrade.de

Beware! Appletrade is an offshore broker! Your investment may be at risk.

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Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Open trading accounts with at least two brokers.

If you are familiar with forex trading regulations in Ireland and the EU, one look at Appletrade interface will convince you that trading with this broker will expose your precious funds to risk. Here are the details.

Appletrade Regulation and safety of funds

The address of Appletrade Ltd, the company that owns and operates the website, is shown to be in Ireland where the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) issues licenses to forex brokers. A simple search in its register shows that this brokerage is not in it. A non-registered and non-licensed broker is not something you want to join in. Furthermore, the Financial Market Authority (FMA) in Austria has issued a warning (image below), saying that this company is not licensed and is not authorised to provide financial and investment services there. This is sufficient proof that we are dealing with scammer planning to fleece you should you choose to entrust your hard-earned money to it.

We want to let you know that Irish brokers are strictly regulated by CBI in line with the guidelines provided by ESMA which include keeping clients’ funds segregated from broker’s, transparent pricing and a minimum starting capital of 730,000 EUR, providing negative balance protection and a limit on the maximum allowed leverage. In addition to that, Irish brokers must participate and deduct funds towards the local Investor Compensation Fund which in case of broker’s bankruptcy will reimburse its clients with up to 20,000 EUR per client.

Should you decide to expand the scope of your search for a suitable broker to the rest of the EU, we must tell you that EU forex brokers follow the same regulations as their Irish counterparts.

Appletrade Trading software

Appletrade trades in forex, metals, commodities, indices and shares and the trading software available to its clients is a web trader, a cheap platform with limited functionality (image below). On the left-hand side, you can see the menu with trading products with their bid/ask price. In the middle is displayed the chart of one of these products, namely the EUR/USD currency pair, with the fluctuation in its price in a given time frame. On the right side of the chart are the buttons for executing transactions. From the bid/ask price of the same currency pair we find out that the spread is really tight – 0.4 pips which is beneficial for traders as the cost of transactions won’t too high and they will be able to achieve sustainable profit. On the other hand, the leverage (as shown in the last image) is outrageously high – 1:888. First of all, this is another sign that this broker is a scammer as licensed brokers in the EU have a limit on the leverage they can offer which is capped at 1:30. Secondly, no matter how attractive such high leverage may look as it seems to amplify the chances for making a big win, in reality, what it does is amplify the scope of financial loss in case of unsuccessful transactions. Please bear in mind that around 70% of traders lose in transactions and using high leverage won’t make you richer but poorer.

Our impression from reviewing online forex brokers is that non-legit brokers and scammers offer cheap trading software whereas legit and reputable brokers offer good quality. Normally it is either the MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5 trading platforms. This is quite understandable as these two platforms top the list of good quality trading software as they offer many advantages to their traders, such as an auto trading option, VPS, trading signals, code base with customs scripts, an app market, a financial calendar, etc. Both platforms are lauded for their charting options and technical analysis indicators that help traders predict the future direction of exchange rates and make a profit.

We strongly recommend selecting a legit and reliable broker that offers either MT4 or MT5 trading platforms for your enhanced trading experience.

Appletrade Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees

There exist 4 trading accounts that Appletrade offers to its clients (image below) – Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. The minimum initial deposit for the Bronze account is $500 which may be considered rather high compared to what legit brokers as for, i.e., $1-5. The other accounts start at $1,000, $5,000 and $25,000 respectively.

To feed their accounts, traders can choose payments made via credit card, Skrill, WebMoney, Neteller, QIWI, American Express, Yandex and bank wire. We couldn’t find information about what the minimum withdrawal amount is, related fees and withdrawal request processing time.

Did you know that licensed brokers in the EU are banned from offering bonuses and other incentives? However, Appletrade does. Yet another sign that this broker is a scammer. Bonuses are funds belonging to the broker, not the trader and when they are offered, they are accompanied by some hard or impossible to fulfil conditions. Should a client decide to accept a bonus offered by Appletrade, he/she won’t eligible to withdraw any funds, including the bonus amount until he/she executes a minimum trading volume of $10,000 for every $1 of the bonus amount. Needless to say, fulfilling such conditions will challenge even experienced traders. Our advice is to stay well away from dodgy brokers and scammers that offer bonuses.

How does scam work?

A lot of people get scammed every day, not because they are naive or stupid, but because scammers are inventive and they are masters of manipulation. Often, as you scroll up and down on the Internet or social media, you come across ads for a quick and easy profit which sometimes sound too tempting not to fall into their traps. So you deposit some money into the account and what happens next is the incessant calls of the scammers. First, they congratulate you for taking the first steps towards becoming rich and next, they try to convince you to invest even more money into their ‘profitable’ business. What you probably don’t know is that your money has just gone as a commission to some scammers. And so, you wait and build the sandcastles of your dreams for a better and ‘richer’ future. And you wait, and you wait, for the money to come. But where is it? Now is your turn to call the scammers and to ask what’s going on. They try to placate you and ask you to be more patient. But have had enough and all you want is to get your money back. The scammers kind of promise, but now they are asking you to provide this document or fill out that form, etc., etc., all done in an attempt to delay you from filing for a chargeback.

What to do if scammed?

If this happens to you, our advice is to act immediately and if you have paid your deposit via credit/debit card, to file for chargeback which is retroactive cancellation and refund of your previous transaction. Visa and MasterCard give you 540 days time limit to file for chargeback which gives you a fighting chance to recover your money.
However, if you have used bitcoin or bank wire for your payment, the chances of you recovering your money are really slim.
Whatever you do to recover your funds, beware of the so-called recovery agents. Please make sure that you are dealing with a genuine one by checking their credentials and company’s information transparency. Otherwise, you may fall victim to another form of scam.
Cancelling your credit/debit card in case you have given the scammers your CVV code may be another good idea. Also, make sure to remove from your PC any software that my give scammers access to your private data stored on your computer.