Beware! 27options 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.
At first glance, 27options gives the impression that it will be very advantageous to join this broker. On its interface, you can see that there are given many reasons why potential traders should choose them, along with the testimonials of successful clients. However, how much of this is true, and should you really entrust your precious funds to this broker? We find the answers for you.
27options Regulation and safety of funds
First of all, in the footer of 27options, we find out that the address of Fairline Enetrprice Ltd., the company which owns and operates the website is in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) which is an offshore zone for forex trade. Furthermore, there is no official regulatory body for forex brokers which makes joining a broker from this jurisdiction will put your hard-earned money at risk as there is no guarantee for the safety of clients’ funds.
If you are looking for a licensed and reliable broker to trade with, we advise you to research the well-established jurisdictions of the US, the EU, and the UK where the best trading conditions exist and forex brokers are strictly regulated. US brokers must invest an initial capital of no less than$20 million and the requirement to be well-capitalised can be explained by the fact that there are no compensation funds or schemes in the US to protect clients’ funds in case the broker goes bankrupt. However, by being well-capitalised, US brokers still have the means to protect their clients in case of unfavourable events.
In the EU and the UK, the picture is somewhat different. In these two jurisdictions, brokers need to invest no less than 730,000 EUR which compared to their US counterparts seems like an insignificant amount. However, in these jurisdictions, there are established compensation funds or schemes to which licensed brokers must participate and towards which they must deduct funds. UK brokers regulated by FCA deduct funds towards the local Financial Services Compensation Scheme which can provide up to 85,000 GBP per client if the broker becomes insolvent. EU brokers, on the other hand, participate in local investor compensation funds which can repay each and every client up to 20,000 EUR per person in case of broker’s insolvency.
27options Trading software
The trading software that 27options has available for its clients consists of a web trader. We must say that a web trader is a rather cheap and simplistic trading platform with limited functionalities. The image below shows what the web trader looks like. On the left-hand side are shown the trading product with their bid/ask price and in the middle of the screen is displayed the chart of one of these trading products, namely EUR/USD currency pair with the fluctuation in price in a given time frame. From the bid/ask price of the same currency pair, we can find out that the spread is 1.5 pips which is exactly as the industry average. When the spread is tighter than the industry average, it is beneficial for traders as the cost of transactions will not be too high and they will be able to achieve a sustainable profit.
On the other hand, the leverage is 1:100 which is high and presents risks for clients’ funds. Furthermore, if you take a look at the last image showing the different trading account types, you will notice that the leverage offered for the Micro account is 1:500. You may know that around 70% of traders lose in transactions and the high leverage amplifies the scope of financial loss. That is why, licensed brokers in the UK and the EU are not allowed to offer leverage higher than 1:30 for forex currencies and in the US, the maximum leverage for forex pairs is 1:50. Imposing a cap on leverage is one of the measures for protecting clients’ funds and prevent traders from entering reckless and risky transactions.
As we already mentioned, a web trader does very little to enhance clients’ trading experience. That is why legit and self-respecting brokers offer good quality trading software. In 80% of the cases, the choice falls on either MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5 trading platforms. This is easy to explain as both platforms offer a lot of advantages to the traders which consists of an auto trading option, a financial calendar, VPS, an app market, code base with customs scripts, trading signals, etc. The variety of charting options MT4 and MT5 are equipped with is so far unpassed by other platforms. There is a plethora of charts, time frames and colours for the traders to choose from, and even the option of creating customised templates. In addition to that, the array of technical analysis indicators help traders predict the future direction of exchange rates and make a profit.
We strongly recommend finding a licensed and reliable broker that offers either platform.
27options Deposit/Withdrawal methods and fees
From the image below, you can see that 27options offers 4 trading accounts – Micro, Standard, Premium and VIP. The minimum initial deposit for the Micro account is $100. The other accounts start at $500, $25,000 and $100,000 respectively.
There are only two payment methods at clients’ disposal for making deposits or withdrawals – credit card and bank wire.
There is no information about what the minimum withdrawal amount is but the condition for withdrawing funds free of charge is that traders must turn over the deposited amount at least once otherwise they will have to pay a fee ranging from 5% to 25% depending on the amount. Such fee may bite a big chunk of clients’ funds, however.
One way of finding out if you are dealing with a fraudulent broker or a scammer is to check whether they offer any bonuses. This one does which is another proof why you should not trade with 27options. Bonuses may look attractive as it seems that they add more trading power but in fact they are funds belonging to the broker, not the trader, and the conditions these bonuses are subjected to are sometimes hard or even impossible to fulfill. In this case, if the trader accepts a bonus and his/her deposit is between 100 EUR and 19,999 EUR, he/she must turn it over 5 times to be eligible to withdraw the bonus amount. If the deposit is 20,000 EUR or more, then it must be turned over only once.
How does scam work?
No one wants to be duped by scammers, but it happens all the time because they know how to manipulate people. As they say in one popular song “sweet dreams are made of this” and this is what scammers rely on – creating in people’s mind a sweet dream of being rich! Scams usually start by unsolicited telephone calls or ads on the Internet or social media promising quick and easy profit. It is easy to fall into scammers’ trap and once you make a deposit, you are done for! Scammers won’t let you get away easily even if you realise that you are being scammed. They will try to delay you when you try to withdraw your funds by asking you to provide this document or fill out this form, etc., in order to make you miss the deadline when you can file for a chargeback.
What to do if scammed?
You need to act very quickly. First of all, if you have made a deposit using a credit card, you must immediately file for a chargeback. Fortunately, VISA and MasterCard allow for 540 day period in which you can file for a chargeback. This is the good news. The bad news is that if you have made a deposit using bank wire or Bitcoin, the chances of you getting your funds back are nil!
Another thing you can do is cancel your credit card if the scammers have your CVV code. Check your PC and erase the software that gives scammers access to your personal data.
Be careful, because even doing all that we recommended, your unfortunate experience with scammers may not be over. There are so-called recovery agents. One of those may approach you offering to recover your funds for a fee. Do not trust them and always check the legitimacy of the recovery agent and the agency.
